The curve & two pots
The bonding curve
Each nation is an SPL token on its own protocol-owned bonding curve. There are no
external pools during the season — the curve is the only market. Price is linear in the
curve supply s:
P(s) = P₀ + k·s
R(s) = P₀·s + (k/2)·s²with P₀ = 2.5e-8 SOL (the price of the very first token) and k = 1.2e-17 (how
fast it climbs). Buying supply from s₁ to s₂ costs R(s₂) − R(s₁); selling returns
down the same curve.
To make that concrete: 5 SOL into a brand-new nation (the launch-window cap) buys about
189 million tokens and leaves the curve holding 4.95 SOL after the 1% fee. If that
nation goes on to attract 40 SOL in total, the price rises ~45% and your stake is worth
about 6.13 SOL at backing. The full walkthrough — including what happens if the nation is
conquered — is your first season, in numbers. The invariant is public and auditable: the reserve R always equals the area
under the curve. On-chain this is exact integer (lamport) arithmetic, so the equality
holds bit-for-bit — no rounding drift.
The SOL inside the curve — the reserve R — is the nation’s wealth. Wars are fought
over it.
Two pots, and why your army doesn’t rug itself
Every nation holds two separate balances:
- Reserve
R— inside the curve. Backs the token. Drains when people sell. - Sovereign treasury
T— fee income and war spoils. Buys the military. Sells can never touch it.
This split is the anti-death-spiral design. A panic crashes your price; it does not delete your standing army, because the army was already bought from the treasury. A collapsing token slows a nation’s future — it does not disarm its present. Currency crises in Powerbloc behave like currency crises on Earth: painful, survivable, and occasionally the buying opportunity of the season.
Backing only goes up
Part of every trading fee is used for buyback-and-burn: the protocol buys tokens on
the curve and burns them, adding SOL to the reserve while removing supply. So backing per
token — R / s, displayed live as a nation’s floor — only rises with volume. Trade
anything, and every remaining holder’s floor climbs.