Glow’s Mission
Glow is a protocol that rewards solar farms with tokens when they produce real world impact. The incentive model takes inspiration from Bitcoin, redesigning the mechanism that produced millions of Bitcoin miners into a mechanism that can produce millions of solar panels.
The Glow ecosystem uses three tokens, each with distinct roles:
- GLW – The core token that powers Glow’s incentive system. Inflation is used to reward solar farms and fund grants and governance, and token holders vote on major protocol upgrades. GLW tokens are also used to identify top performing solar farms.
- GCTL – Glow Control Token. Holders stake GCTL to decide where GLW subsidies go, directing funding toward the projects and regions they care about. GCTL holders earn value from the impact assets produced by those projects.
- USDG – A stable, USD-pegged token used within Glow for settlement and operational safety. USDG can be redeemed through the protocol for its underlying collateral (USDC), ensuring predictable value for transactions and payouts.
The GLW Token
GLW is the native token and unit of value that powers this system. It is minted on a fixed schedule and distributed to fund infrastructure, governance, and grants. GLW rewards draw new projects into the network, incentivize competition among builders, and ensure that every token spent produces verifiable impact in the real world.
Weekly Emissions
Each week, the protocol mints 230,000 new GLW and allocates it as follows:
- 175,000 to Infrastructure Projects (active solar farms)
- 40,000 to Grants Pool
- 15,000 to Glow Foundation for governance and operations
Figure 1: GLW token weekly emission.
The 175,000 GLW for Infrastructure Projects drives the primary token incentive flow in Glow’s competitive ecosystem for new solar deployment. We discuss this competitive flywheel in greater detail in our post on the Competitive Recursive Protocol.
Initial Allocation
At launch, GLW was created and allocated as follows:
- 6M to the Grants Pool
- 12M to Early Liquidity
- 18M to the Glow Foundation
- 32M to Early Investors (begins linearly vesting from Dec 2026 to Dec 2029)
- 40M to Founding Contributors (begins linear vesting from Dec 2026 to Dec 2029)
These weekly emissions, combined with the initial Glow token mint, produces the following GLW stakeholder allocations:
Figure 2: GLW token allocation on December 18th, 2029, the sixth birthday of the protocol. The Total Supply is 180M Tokens
The GCTL Token
An Infrastructure Project defines what is being built, where it is built, and how performance is measured. The first and largest Infrastructure Project is the Clean Grid Project, which aims to maximize global carbon displacement by funding solar on fossil-heavy grids. Future projects can be more regional in scope, allowing Glow stakeholders to direct capital to support regions and outcomes they care about. Our post on Infrastructure Projects dives into these mechanics in greater detail.
The GCTL token steers the weekly GLW emissions allocated towards Infrastructure Projects. Holders stake GCTL to an Infrastructure Project, and the share of total staked GCTL they control determines the share of the weekly 175,000 GLW that flows to that project. Figure 3 shows a hypothetical GCTL staking allocation and resultant GLW token emissions:
Figure 3: Hypothetical GCTL Staking and Subsidy Allocation
In this way, GCTL serves as both a routing mechanism and a productive asset, with built-in utility and yield. We discuss this asset, and how it empowers holders to steer token incentives toward their desired outcomes, in greater detail in our GCTL token deep dive.
Minting GCTL
To acquire GCTL, users pay a mint price equal to the square root of the GLW token price, rounded to the nearest 5 cents. Funds used to mint GCTL are deposited into the Glow Endowment, which provides deep, protocol-owned liquidity for the GLW token. Each GCTL minted further strengthens long-term price stability and liquidity for the GLW token.
Figure 4: GCTL Minting and GLW Value Capture Flywheel
The USDG Token
USDG is USDC that has been wrapped by a guard. The wrapper adds a layer of safety to the Glow protocol, ensuring that user funds can be kept safe even if the Glow smart contracts get hacked. At any time, USDG can be redeemed 1:1 for USDC. You can read more about the guard in our Guarded Launch post.
Three Token Ecosystem
Glow uses a three token design to partition the major roles of each participant in the protocol, and ensure that there is long term incentive alignment between all actors. The GLW token establishes governance, provides rewards, and is ultimately responsible for protecting the long term health of the Glow protocol. The GCTL token is used by participants to fund and support specific impact projects, such as projects that reduce carbon dioxide emissions. And finally, the USDG token provides a guarded reference point for the economy, allowing value to be accrued in a way that can be reliably compared to the rest of the world.
These three tokens together set up a harmonious ecosystem where Glow and its participants can work together to build a better world for everyone.