@labormedia — you asked how many economists there are at W3F. The more relevant question might be how many are in this forum.
This proposal was voted Nay by W3F on the basis that it needed to be “reviewed more in-depth by economists” before they could support it. That’s a reasonable standard. But you’ve been doing independent economic analysis of Polkadot’s tokenomics for months — purchasing power dynamics, CRRA assumptions, the nominal-vs-real gap in the DAP discussion.
So I’ll ask directly. The latest specification is in the v1.2 update. Two questions:
First, is the mechanism sound? Multi-source burns (fees, treasury, coretime, slashing) as a counterweight to inflation — does this address the purchasing power problem you’ve identified, or does it fall into the same nominal-vs-real trap as the DAP?
Second, the parameters — 5% base inflation, targeting ~3-3.5% net — are deliberately conservative starting points, not permanent values. They’re designed to be adjusted by governance as real network data comes in. Is that a reasonable approach for a first implementation, or do you see structural problems with the calibration?
If there are gaps in the economic reasoning, I’d rather have them identified by someone working from first principles than wait for a review process that has no public pathway.