TEL Utility: How do market participants use TEL across the Telcoin Platform stack?

TEL is the platform’s native asset that aligns incentives across every layer of the Telcoin Platform. Each class of market participant uses TEL in different ways to support - and benefit from - the system. 

TEL on Telcoin Network

• Description: Telcoin Network Validators, which are run by GSMA Operator Membe Mobile Network Operators, secure the network. Market participants use TEL to pay the costs of consumed computational resources for using the system (gas costs).
• Network Validation: MNOs agree to perform honest computation and maintain near 100 percent network uptime, in exchange for TEL issuance and transaction fees.
• Medium of Exchange: The TEL Token will be used as the unit of exchange to quantify and pay the costs of the consumed computational resources (gas costs) on the Telcoin Network.

TEL on TELx

• Description: Telcoin users provide self-custodial TEL liquidity reserves against other assets on supported TELx Markets, earning Telcoin issuance and transaction fees. TELx-native DeFi communities can seamlessly onboard into the Telcoin ecosystem by swapping their assets for TEL and vice versa.
• Reserve Asset: In the first phase of TELx, users provide self-custodial liquidity reserves to AMMs, earning fees from swaps, and then stake their LP Token to earn issuance over time. In the future, additional reserve asset functions may be introduced, such as a form of collateral to decentralized lending markets, insurance markets, and more.
• Medium of Exchange: TEL has quantifiable utility as a medium of exchange as a result of its usage as the TELx reserve asset. On AMMs, the cost to swap through a liquidity pool is mathematically quantifiable and, intuitively, the more reserves in a given pool, the less any one trade costs. Therefore, the success of TEL as a reserve asset on TELx has a causal, direct, and quantifiable relationship with its utility as a medium of exchange for users, and is designed to be the most liquid, cost effective asset to transact with on the platform.
• SMS Currency: In the same way users of the SMS Network conduct send and swap transactions through liquidity pools using stablecoins, they can also conduct SMS transactions using TEL that settle in the local stablecoin of the recipient, or any other asset on the platform. 
• Bridge Currency: As the only digital asset with both TELxchange and SMS Network liquidity, TEL serves as the bridge currency between applications on the platform. All transactions between stablecoins on the SMS network and the native cryptocurrencies of TELxchange are, by default, routed through TEL pools. 
• User Ownership: TEL is a liquidity reserve in every Telcoin product and a required reserve in every TELxchange market, ensuring that a portion of the value captured by platform economic activity flows to active TEL users. This empowers active TEL users to earn economic incentives at the protocol level for providing services that benefit other users, and to capture fees from products they use in their daily lives.

TEL in Telcoin Association Governance

• Description: Tel tokens grant miner groups voting power during annual election ceremonies, liquid delegations, and Telcoin Governance System Improvement Proposals (TGIPs). The way in which voting power is granted to individuals within each miner group is presented below:
  • Stakers: Stakers’ power within their Miner Group in Telcoin Platform governance is based on their pro-rata share of TEL staked on TAN by all mobile users. This influences their proposal and voting power in Council Member selection processes and constitutional-choice decisions that affect that governance system rules.
  • Developers: Developers’ power within their Miner Group in Telcoin Platform governance is based on their pro-rata share of TEL staked on TAN by all Developers. This influences their proposal and voting power in Council Member selection processes and constitutional-choice decisions that affect that governance system rules.
  • Liquidity Miners: Liquidity Miners’ power within their Miner Group in Telcoin Platform governance is based on their pro-rata share of liquidity staked in TELx. This influences their proposal and voting power in Council Member selection processes and constitutional-choice decisions that affect that governance system rules.
  • Validators: Validators’ power within their Miner Group in Telcoin Platform governance is based on their pro-rata share of TEL staked for PoS consensus on Telcoin Network. This influences their proposal and voting power in Council Member selection processes and constitutional-choice decisions that affect that governance system rules.