---
title: Economics
layout: default
nav_order: 4
has_children: true
---

# Economics

Serai's economics change depending on which of three eras is currently
occurring.

## Genesis Era

The network starts with the "Genesis" era, where the goal of the network is to
attract the liquidity necessary to facilitate swaps. This period will last for
30 days and will let anyone add liquidity to the protocol. Only with its
conclusion will SRI start being distributed.

After the Genesis era, the network enters the "Pre-Economic Security" era.

## Pre-Economic Security

{: .definition-title }
> Definition: Economic Security
>
> Economic security is derived from it being unprofitable to misbehave.
> This is by the economic penalty which is presumed to occur upon misbehavior
> exceeding the value which would presumably be gained.
> Accordingly, rational actors would behave properly, causing the protocol to
> maintain its integrity.
>
> For Serai specifically, the stake required to produce unintended signatures
> must exceed the value accessible via producing unintended signatures.

With liquidity provided, and swaps enabled, the goal is to have validators stake
sufficiently for economic security to be achieved. This is primarily via
offering freshly minted, staked SRI to would-be validators who decide to swap
external coins for their stake.

## Post-Economic Security

Having achieved economic security, the protocol changes its economics one last
time (barring future upgrades to the protocol) to a 'normal' state of
operations.