Genesis Neuron Deep Dive
Looking at the staking behavior of the genesis neurons.
October 10th marked 5 months since the Internet Computer Genesis event and the launch of the NNS. At launch, close to 470M ICP tokens were minted and placed in the NNS in thousands of neurons. These ICP tokens were initially granted to various parties as incentives for early participation in the project. It’s time to evaluate the approaches these parties took upon receiving their neurons in order to better understand how decentralized the NNS is becoming and the strategic approach of early Internet Computer stakeholders. Let’s examine each type of early stakeholders…
Note – Information on Genesis allocations can be found in this Medium article. Data for this analysis was obtained from the ic.rocks Initial Neuron Allocation and from API calls to ic.rocks.
Note - this article was written on October 11th.
Seed Round Investors
24.72% of the initial Genesis allocation went to Seed Round Investors. In the first 5 months, 6.73 (5.8%) has dissolved. In addition, 1.19M ICP has been added to Seed Round neurons through “topping up”, which involves either bringing in ICP from external wallets or through governance awards (aka, merging maturity). The 1.19M ICP does not include any maturity within these neurons. Below is a breakdown of the dissolve delays of the Seed Round neurons. These show that owners have mostly not changed the dissolve delays of their neurons except in the occasion to maximize staking rewards (over 16.5M ICP was increased to a dissolve delay of 8 years) and about 42% of the ICP in neurons has been unlocked.
Note - Of the near 116M ICP at Genesis, about 21.9M ICP worth of accounts remain unclaimed. My understanding is these account holders have until November 10th to claim these accounts prior to forfeit.
Early Contributors
9.5% of the initial Genesis allocation went to Seed Round Investors. In the first 5 months, 4.07 (9.1%) has dissolved. 0 ICP has been added to Early Contributor neurons through “topping up”. Below is a breakdown of the dissolve delays of the Early Contributor neurons. These show that owners have almost exclusively not changed the dissolve delays of their neurons and about 55% of the ICP in neurons has been unlocked.
Node Operator Bonus
0.22% of the initial Genesis allocation went to Node Operators. These neurons (1 per participant) were started with a 4-year dissolve delay. Only 1 neuron, with a stake of 7,000 ICP, has be unlocked. The remaining neurons are all still locked.
Internet Computer Association
4.26% of the initial Genesis allocation went to the Internet Computer Association (ICA). The ICA allowed 17.5M of their 20M ICP to dissolve. The remaining 2.5M ICP has been staked for 8 years and remains locked.
Unknown Genesis Accounts
About 172M ICP exists in genesis accounts that are yet to be identified. They are most likely accounts owned by stakeholders identified as Strategic Investors, Presale, Strategic Partnerships, Community Airdrop, Initial Community and Developer and Advisors and Other Third-parties and their neurons fall in the ranges of 1000-1141 2000-2055 and 4001-4037. In the first 5 months, 96.8M (57.3%) has dissolved. 0 ICP has been added through “topping up”. Below is a breakdown of the dissolve delays of these neurons. This shows a clear bifurcation of strategic approaches. This may allow the community to better guess the identities of these neurons.
All Genesis Accounts
Finally, below is a chart showing all genesis accounts, a compilation of all of the analysis above.
