Espresso will soon be transitioning to decentralized proof-of-stake. Coinciding with this upgrade, we are introducing the ESP token, which will play a vital role in the future of the Espresso Network.

Espresso has built the foundation for a future with many interconnected chains underpinning our financial system.

As companies launch new on-chain apps and infrastructure, they are increasingly opting for the fast and flexible architecture of rollups (also known as layer-2 chains). This approach has many benefits, but it inadvertently breaks the seamless composability builders and users enjoy within a single chain and reintroduces single points of failure. This increases security risks and results in friction, with liquidity becoming ever more fragmented. 

The Espresso Network fixes this. It is a consensus system purpose-built to provide fast, secure finality, low-cost data availability, and (optionally) decentralized sequencing to applications and environments built as rollups. This helps these chains avoid single points of failure, allows them to scale, and grants users the seamless interoperability they expect. 

The network acts as a nervous system for all Espresso ecosystem chains, which include some of the biggest brands in crypto like RARI Chain, ApeChain, Celo, and Katana. By using Espresso, these chains can securely communicate with one another in real-time. Espresso has partnered with other infrastructure leaders like Arbitrum and Caldera to bring these chains finality through HotShot, a fast, performant BFT consensus protocol. Once a rollup’s block has been confirmed by Espresso, it cannot be reverted, which allows other applications to read their finalized state with confidence in seconds instead of minutes.

Espresso’s fast finality brings a broad range of benefits beyond just speed and security: it scales rollups, defragments liquidity, and allows deposits from rollups to centralized exchanges like Coinbase to process in seconds. Most importantly, it lays the foundation for a unified transaction experience across all chains, enabling users to access any asset from anywhere in a seamless manner.

The ESP token is the key mechanism by which the Espresso Network can run permissionlessly. ESP is an ERC-20 token issued on the Ethereum mainnet; its contract address is 0x031de51f3e8016514bd0963d0b2ab825a591db9a. 

The primary utilities for ESP are as follows:

• Proof-of-stake consensus. Validators will stake the token to participate in Espresso’s HotShot consensus, and end users can delegate to validators to help strengthen security and earn a share of protocol rewards.

• Protocol fees. Data processing fees within Espresso will be paid in the ESP token.

ESP’s initial total supply is 3,590,000,000 ESP (3.59 billion). ESP has no fixed maximum supply due to staking reward dynamics.

The initial total supply of the ESP token is allocated according to the following categories: 

Contributors (27.36%):

• Reserved for contributors to Espresso technology since research and development began in 2020. 

• 4-year linear vesting with 1-year cliff: 0% unlocked at TGE; 25% unlocked 1 year after TGE; 1/48 unlocked per month thereafter. 

Investors (14.32%):

• Reserved for investors in Espresso technology across the several Espresso Systems fundraising rounds since 2020. 

• 4-year linear vesting with 1-year cliff: 0% unlocked at TGE; 25% unlocked 1 year after TGE; 1/48 unlocked per month thereafter. 

Airdrop (10.00%):

• Retroactive rewards to Espresso and Espresso chains’ and partners’ broad user bases and community members.

• Airdrop eligibility and allocations are based on a comprehensive methodology, with over 40 distinct ways of qualifying for an airdrop allocation and over 1 million eligible addresses. Stay tuned for a long-form post detailing the airdrop methodology. 

• Unclaimed tokens in this tranche will be reallocated towards future airdrops, grants, and incentive programs. 

• Fully unlocked at TGE.

Community launchpad (1.00%): 

• Participants in Espresso’s initial community offering via the Kaito Capital Launchpad in July 2025.

• 2-year linear vesting with 1-year cliff: 0% unlocked at TGE; 50% unlocked 1 year after TGE; 1/12 unlocked per month thereafter. 

Staking bonuses and network decentralization (3.01%): 

• Extra staking incentives distributed with the goal of broadly decentralizing the Espresso Network. These tokens will initially be deployed to airdrop participants who stake after claiming, with up to an 420% boost for those who stake for at least 2 years. 

• Unused tokens in this tranche will be reallocated towards future airdrops, staking incentives, and other Foundation incentive and grant programs. 

• While these tokens remain undistributed, the Espresso Foundation may delegate them to a wide array of node operators via the Foundation Delegation Program to decentralize and secure the Espresso Network. 

• Locked at TGE, with a linear accrual schedule spanning 2 years and tokens unlocked after 3 months, 12 months, and 24 months.

Future airdrops, grants, and incentives (24.81%):

• Reserved for future community growth and ecosystem development initiatives as well as future contributors, with allocation decisions to be made by the Espresso Foundation.

• These tokens will support a wide range of programs, including additional community airdrops, developer and researcher grants, liquidity incentives, and ecosystem partnerships.

• The Espresso Foundation may decide to use this allocation to bootstrap new applications, fund innovative research, encourage node operators and validators through a delegation program, and strengthen integrations with other protocols.

• While these tokens remain undistributed, the Espresso Foundation may delegate them to a wide array of node operators via the Foundation Delegation Program to decentralize and secure the Espresso Network. 

• Locked at TGE, with a linear unlocking schedule spanning 6 years.

Foundation operations (15.00%):

• Reserved to fund the ongoing operations of the Espresso Foundation and its subsidiaries. This allocation will support the core responsibilities of the Espresso Foundation and its subsidiaries, including community engagement, evaluating and supporting ecosystem partnerships, and legal, administrative, and compliance functions. 

• The Espresso Foundation will also use this reserve to fund (via its subsidiaries) grants administration, educational initiatives, and other programs that advance Espresso’s mission and ensure the network’s long-term sustainability.

• While these tokens remain undistributed, the Espresso Foundation may delegate them to a wide array of node operators via the Foundation Delegation Program to decentralize and secure the Espresso Network. 

• Locked at TGE, with a linear unlocking schedule spanning 6 years.

Liquidity provisioning and additional activations (4.50%):

• Reserved for liquidity provisioning to help ensure sufficient market depth and reliable access for participants across venues, and to foster stable price discovery at launch.

• This allocation may be used for a variety of strategies and initiatives, including market maker loans (selected via a competitive process), decentralized exchange liquidity provisioning, exchange liquidity programs, pre-launch token offerings, and other mechanisms designed to promote smooth trading and reduce volatility.

• Fully unlocked at TGE.

Holders of the ESP token can use it to participate in operating HotShot proof-of-stake, either by operating a validator node, or by delegating tokens to another node operator. Node operators can set their preferred commission rate, earning a share of rewards associated with tokens that have been delegated by others to their node. 

The Espresso Network stake table, which underlies HotShot consensus, is represented by an Ethereum contract at 0x36ad45A4931d0E226010BE9A8477D400C8bB3d9C. HotShot dynamically adjusts its active set of consensus nodes to match the top 100 validators by total stake. 

Espresso’s staking reward formula is Ethereum-inspired, in which the reward rate on staked tokens is inversely proportional to the square root of the proportion of tokens that are currently staked (albeit with a slightly higher reward rate compared to Ethereum). 

The exact formula is: 

$$R(p) = \begin{cases} \frac{0.03}{\sqrt{2 \cdot 0.01}}, 0 <= p <= 0.01 \\ \frac{0.03}{\sqrt{2p}}, 0.01 < p <= 1 \end{cases}$$

where p is the proportion of total tokens staked and R(p) is the annual reward rate for staked tokens as a decimal (e.g., 0.05 = 5%). 

This model has various advantages: 

• There is an elastic incentive to stake when staking participation is low.

• The reward rate gently tapers off as staking participation rises (in contrast to a reward rate that is inversely proportional to the proportion of tokens staked, i.e., fixed inflation schedule), so reward reductions are mild. This mitigates sudden drops in validator revenue. 

• Meanwhile, the reward schedule still keeps inflation bounded. 

• The math is predictable and smooth, and it follows a battle-tested precedent set by Ethereum and other chains.

Registration is currently available for participation in the Espresso airdrop. Head to claim.espresso.foundation to see if your wallets are eligible. When the claims go live, staking will be available to users through delegation to a diverse set of node operators.

Espresso will soon be transitioning to decentralized proof-of-stake. Coinciding with this upgrade, we are introducing the ESP token, which will play a vital role in the future of the Espresso Network.

Espresso has built the foundation for a future with many interconnected chains underpinning our financial system.

As companies launch new on-chain apps and infrastructure, they are increasingly opting for the fast and flexible architecture of rollups (also known as layer-2 chains). This approach has many benefits, but it inadvertently breaks the seamless composability builders and users enjoy within a single chain and reintroduces single points of failure. This increases security risks and results in friction, with liquidity becoming ever more fragmented. 

The Espresso Network fixes this. It is a consensus system purpose-built to provide fast, secure finality, low-cost data availability, and (optionally) decentralized sequencing to applications and environments built as rollups. This helps these chains avoid single points of failure, allows them to scale, and grants users the seamless interoperability they expect. 

The network acts as a nervous system for all Espresso ecosystem chains, which include some of the biggest brands in crypto like RARI Chain, ApeChain, Celo, and Katana. By using Espresso, these chains can securely communicate with one another in real-time. Espresso has partnered with other infrastructure leaders like Arbitrum and Caldera to bring these chains finality through HotShot, a fast, performant BFT consensus protocol. Once a rollup’s block has been confirmed by Espresso, it cannot be reverted, which allows other applications to read their finalized state with confidence in seconds instead of minutes.

Espresso’s fast finality brings a broad range of benefits beyond just speed and security: it scales rollups, defragments liquidity, and allows deposits from rollups to centralized exchanges like Coinbase to process in seconds. Most importantly, it lays the foundation for a unified transaction experience across all chains, enabling users to access any asset from anywhere in a seamless manner.

The ESP token is the key mechanism by which the Espresso Network can run permissionlessly. ESP is an ERC-20 token issued on the Ethereum mainnet; its contract address is 0x031de51f3e8016514bd0963d0b2ab825a591db9a. 

The primary utilities for ESP are as follows:

• Proof-of-stake consensus. Validators will stake the token to participate in Espresso’s HotShot consensus, and end users can delegate to validators to help strengthen security and earn a share of protocol rewards.

• Protocol fees. Data processing fees within Espresso will be paid in the ESP token.

ESP’s initial total supply is 3,590,000,000 ESP (3.59 billion). ESP has no fixed maximum supply due to staking reward dynamics.

The initial total supply of the ESP token is allocated according to the following categories: 

Contributors (27.36%):

• Reserved for contributors to Espresso technology since research and development began in 2020. 

• 4-year linear vesting with 1-year cliff: 0% unlocked at TGE; 25% unlocked 1 year after TGE; 1/48 unlocked per month thereafter. 

Investors (14.32%):

• Reserved for investors in Espresso technology across the several Espresso Systems fundraising rounds since 2020. 

• 4-year linear vesting with 1-year cliff: 0% unlocked at TGE; 25% unlocked 1 year after TGE; 1/48 unlocked per month thereafter. 

Airdrop (10.00%):

• Retroactive rewards to Espresso and Espresso chains’ and partners’ broad user bases and community members.

• Airdrop eligibility and allocations are based on a comprehensive methodology, with over 40 distinct ways of qualifying for an airdrop allocation and over 1 million eligible addresses. Stay tuned for a long-form post detailing the airdrop methodology. 

• Unclaimed tokens in this tranche will be reallocated towards future airdrops, grants, and incentive programs. 

• Fully unlocked at TGE.

Community launchpad (1.00%): 

• Participants in Espresso’s initial community offering via the Kaito Capital Launchpad in July 2025.

• 2-year linear vesting with 1-year cliff: 0% unlocked at TGE; 50% unlocked 1 year after TGE; 1/12 unlocked per month thereafter. 

Staking bonuses and network decentralization (3.01%): 

• Extra staking incentives distributed with the goal of broadly decentralizing the Espresso Network. These tokens will initially be deployed to airdrop participants who stake after claiming, with up to an 420% boost for those who stake for at least 2 years. 

• Unused tokens in this tranche will be reallocated towards future airdrops, staking incentives, and other Foundation incentive and grant programs. 

• While these tokens remain undistributed, the Espresso Foundation may delegate them to a wide array of node operators via the Foundation Delegation Program to decentralize and secure the Espresso Network. 

• Locked at TGE, with a linear accrual schedule spanning 2 years and tokens unlocked after 3 months, 12 months, and 24 months.

Future airdrops, grants, and incentives (24.81%):

• Reserved for future community growth and ecosystem development initiatives as well as future contributors, with allocation decisions to be made by the Espresso Foundation.

• These tokens will support a wide range of programs, including additional community airdrops, developer and researcher grants, liquidity incentives, and ecosystem partnerships.

• The Espresso Foundation may decide to use this allocation to bootstrap new applications, fund innovative research, encourage node operators and validators through a delegation program, and strengthen integrations with other protocols.

• While these tokens remain undistributed, the Espresso Foundation may delegate them to a wide array of node operators via the Foundation Delegation Program to decentralize and secure the Espresso Network. 

• Locked at TGE, with a linear unlocking schedule spanning 6 years.

Foundation operations (15.00%):

• Reserved to fund the ongoing operations of the Espresso Foundation and its subsidiaries. This allocation will support the core responsibilities of the Espresso Foundation and its subsidiaries, including community engagement, evaluating and supporting ecosystem partnerships, and legal, administrative, and compliance functions. 

• The Espresso Foundation will also use this reserve to fund (via its subsidiaries) grants administration, educational initiatives, and other programs that advance Espresso’s mission and ensure the network’s long-term sustainability.

• While these tokens remain undistributed, the Espresso Foundation may delegate them to a wide array of node operators via the Foundation Delegation Program to decentralize and secure the Espresso Network. 

• Locked at TGE, with a linear unlocking schedule spanning 6 years.

Liquidity provisioning and additional activations (4.50%):

• Reserved for liquidity provisioning to help ensure sufficient market depth and reliable access for participants across venues, and to foster stable price discovery at launch.

• This allocation may be used for a variety of strategies and initiatives, including market maker loans (selected via a competitive process), decentralized exchange liquidity provisioning, exchange liquidity programs, pre-launch token offerings, and other mechanisms designed to promote smooth trading and reduce volatility.

• Fully unlocked at TGE.

Holders of the ESP token can use it to participate in operating HotShot proof-of-stake, either by operating a validator node, or by delegating tokens to another node operator. Node operators can set their preferred commission rate, earning a share of rewards associated with tokens that have been delegated by others to their node. 

The Espresso Network stake table, which underlies HotShot consensus, is represented by an Ethereum contract at 0x36ad45A4931d0E226010BE9A8477D400C8bB3d9C. HotShot dynamically adjusts its active set of consensus nodes to match the top 100 validators by total stake. 

Espresso’s staking reward formula is Ethereum-inspired, in which the reward rate on staked tokens is inversely proportional to the square root of the proportion of tokens that are currently staked (albeit with a slightly higher reward rate compared to Ethereum). 

The exact formula is: 

$$R(p) = \begin{cases} \frac{0.03}{\sqrt{2 \cdot 0.01}}, 0 <= p <= 0.01 \\ \frac{0.03}{\sqrt{2p}}, 0.01 < p <= 1 \end{cases}$$

where p is the proportion of total tokens staked and R(p) is the annual reward rate for staked tokens as a decimal (e.g., 0.05 = 5%). 

This model has various advantages: 

• There is an elastic incentive to stake when staking participation is low.

• The reward rate gently tapers off as staking participation rises (in contrast to a reward rate that is inversely proportional to the proportion of tokens staked, i.e., fixed inflation schedule), so reward reductions are mild. This mitigates sudden drops in validator revenue. 

• Meanwhile, the reward schedule still keeps inflation bounded. 

• The math is predictable and smooth, and it follows a battle-tested precedent set by Ethereum and other chains.

Registration is currently available for participation in the Espresso airdrop. Head to claim.espresso.foundation to see if your wallets are eligible. When the claims go live, staking will be available to users through delegation to a diverse set of node operators.