# QRL tokenomics and supply

> Where QRL comes from — the 105M cap, the genesis allocation, mining emission, and how QRL 2.0 issuance differs.

"How many QRL are there, and where do they come from?" is one of the most common questions a holder asks. The answer spans both chains and a bit of history.

## The 105 million cap

[QRL Legacy](/learn/glossary#qrl-legacy) has a **maximum supply of 105 million QRL**. New coins are released gradually as mining rewards on a **decaying emission schedule** — a lot early on, tapering over time, so the supply approaches the cap slowly rather than all at once.

That cap hasn't been reached. As of **mid-2026, roughly 79.9 million QRL** existed. The gap between ~79.9M and 105M is supply still to be emitted through future mining.

## Where the supply comes from

QRL's supply has two sources:

1. **Genesis allocation (~65 million).** When QRL Legacy launched in 2018, it started with about 65 million QRL already allocated — largely a **migration** of holders from an earlier ERC-20 token into the new quantum-resistant chain. This is recorded in the genesis block.
2. **Mining emission (from a pool of ~40 million).** The rest is released over time as [block rewards](/learn/block-rewards-and-emission) to miners, following the decaying schedule.

So today's ~79.9M is roughly the 65M genesis plus the mining emitted so far. The [emission schedule](/learn/block-rewards-and-emission) controls how fast the remainder arrives.

> A note on how this explorer counts: the 65M genesis is treated as the chain's starting supply, and the mining timeline tracks issuance **after** genesis — so genesis isn't double-counted as a one-day mining spike. That's why our supply figure lines up with the real circulating amount rather than overshooting the cap.

## QRL 2.0 issuance is different

[QRL 2.0](/learn/glossary#qrl2) is [Proof-of-Stake](/learn/proof-of-stake-on-qrl2), so its issuance model is not mining at all:

- New value is paid to validators as staking rewards, which reach them through [withdrawals](/learn/withdrawals-explained).
- **Migrated QRL** appears on QRL 2.0 as a **genesis allocation / claim** — existing value moved across via the [migration](/learn/the-qrl-migration), *not* freshly minted coins. It should never be counted as new issuance.

This distinction matters for reading cross-chain supply charts: mining emission (Legacy) and staking rewards (QRL 2.0) are genuine new issuance, while migrated balances are a transfer of value that already existed.

## Seeing it on the explorer

The [supply page](/supply) brings these threads together into a cross-chain view, and the [richlist](/learn/understanding-the-richlist) shows how that supply is distributed across addresses. Amounts are normalised so the two chains can be compared on the same scale — see [units: Shor, Quanta and Planck](/learn/units-shor-quanta-planck).

## Where to go next

- [Block rewards and emission](/learn/block-rewards-and-emission) — the mining schedule in detail.
- [Units: Shor, Quanta and Planck](/learn/units-shor-quanta-planck) — how amounts are measured.
- [The QRL → QRL 2.0 migration](/learn/the-qrl-migration) — why migrated coins aren't new issuance.