The L2P coin
L2P is the native coin of the chain. It is not a contract balance and there is no ERC20 for it on its own chain, the same way ETH is not an ERC20 on Ethereum. It has 18 decimals, and one L2P is 10^18 wei.
What it is for
Gas. Every transaction pays a fee in L2P. Part of that fee is burned, part goes to the validator that produced the block.
Stake. Validators bond L2P to join the set, and delegators bond L2P behind a validator. Stake is what a validator loses when it misbehaves, which is what makes the chain expensive to attack.
Voting weight. Governance counts the L2P behind an address at the snapshot block of a proposal. Buying coins after a proposal opens gives you no say in it. See How governance works.
Supply
Supply moves in two directions at once.
- New L2P is emitted per block as a reward for the validators securing the chain. The emission rate halves on a schedule, so the reward per block falls over time.
- L2P is burned on every transaction, permanently.
Both sides are governed parameters, not constants. The emission rate, the halving period and the burn ratio all live on-chain and can be changed by a proposal that passes and survives the timelock.
Reading the live numbers
Do not trust a number in a document over a number on the chain. The burn site reads the burn address and the burn ratio straight from the chain:
For validator and staking numbers, use the validators site, and for the parameters themselves, read them from the system contracts as described in System contracts.