What happens if the marketplace burns too many tokens?

A token burn is permanent. If marketplace activity ever funds one, the rules need a clear limit before the first token is removed from circulation.

Our working model proposes allocating half of eligible marketplace fees to a token-mechanism reserve and half to the project treasury. That is half of the marketplace fee, not half of a buyer’s payment. The final fee rate and whether the reserve funds a direct burn or a buyback-and-burn process still require technical, economic and legal review.

The proposed minimum: 500,000 PEPS circulating

The proposed safety floor is 500,000 PEPS in circulating supply. Before each burn, the mechanism would calculate how many tokens can be removed without crossing that floor:

Maximum burn = the lesser of the available burn reserve and the circulating supply above 500,000 PEPS.

For example, if the published circulating supply were 620,000 PEPS, no more than 120,000 could be burned. At 500,000 PEPS or below, the permitted burn amount would be zero and a new burn would be rejected.

How the stop should be enforced

The floor must be enforced by the burn mechanism itself, not by a website counter or a promise to pause later. Before executing a burn, it should check the published supply calculation and cap that transaction to the remaining amount above the floor. There should be no administrator bypass that can burn past it.

The supply calculation also needs a public definition. It must state how tokens in the burn address, locked vesting contracts and other restricted reserves are treated, and use the same method in the contract, dashboard and regular reports. A change to that definition should not be used to make extra tokens appear burnable.

What happens to the reserve after the floor?

Once circulating supply reaches the floor, the mechanism stops burning. Any funds already set aside for the burn mechanism should remain separately accounted for; they should not be silently burned or redirected to another use. Their eventual treatment needs a published rule and the appropriate review.

This is a proposed safeguard, not a live marketplace feature or an active burn program. The marketplace has not started processing trades, and the 500,000 PEPS floor still needs to be specified, reviewed and enforced in audited code before it can be described as an operating rule. PeptideSwap’s working token model lists a 500,000,000 PEPS maximum supply; the proposed 500,000 figure here is a circulating-supply floor, not the total supply.