With the launch of $HUMA by the Huma Foundation, the protocol gains a powerful new incentive mechanism, staking. This aligns the interests of both $HUMA holders and liquidity providers (LPs). This blog details the specifications of the $HUMA staking rewards framework, covering both staking incentives and LP rewards.
Stakers will also enjoy the privilege of participating in protocol governance. Governance design will be addressed in a separate proposal upon the launch of Huma’s on-chain governance system.
1. Reward long-term believers and firm believers From the beginning, Huma has prioritized its early and committed community. During TGE, we demonstrated this by allocating pre-sale allocations to OG LPs and including early contributors in Kaito rewards. The community responded strongly and positively. We will continue to design products that reward long-term conviction and active participation.
2. Protocol sustainabilityReward planning must be systematic and balanced. Over-rewarding any single period or group, no matter how valuable, can undermine the protocol’s long-term growth and appeal. For example, OG LPs who become Huma Vanguards should receive meaningful multiples, but not at the expense of making the protocol unattractive to new participants, which will negatively impact the interest of everyone, including the OG LPs. Long-term success depends on growing the ecosystem sustainably for all stakeholders.
3. ConsistencyReward rates are designed to be reasonably stable, providing users with clarity and predictability. LPs can make informed decisions about how many $HUMA and LP tokens to acquire and lock, without needing to react to unpredictable shifts in others’ behavior.To protect long-term participants, the protocol includes a safeguard: once a user locks their LP position, their Feather reward rate is guaranteed to be the greater of the current rate or any improved future rate—unless the position is modified by the user (e.g., by adding or unstaking tokens). This mechanism ensures that users committing to long-term lockups are not penalized by future changes and are encouraged to participate with confidenceExample: If an LP entered Maxi Mode in May with a 6-month lock and received a multiple of 17.5, and a new formula that yields a multiple of 15 is introduced in June, the user keeps the original 17.5 for 6 months from the initial deposit date. Should the updated formula raise the user’s multiple to 18, the user will automatically receive the enhanced rate.
Summary of Staking Benefits
Below are some core benefits that Huma protocol provides to its stakers. As the protocol evolves, additional benefits will be introduced.
1. Protocol Governance
Stakers will have voting rights in Huma protocol governance. Details will be outlined in a future proposal.
2. Staking Rewards
Stakers earn rewards directly, without needing to be LPs.
3. Boosted LP Rewards
Stakers receive enhanced rewards on their LP positions.
4. Priority Access to Ecosystem Incentive Programs
Stakers enjoy exclusive or early access to various protocol-driven and partner-based incentives. Examples include:
- Early access to deposit into Huma when capacity is limited
- Eligibility for Huma Yapper rewards
- Eligible for promotions and airdrops from ecosystem partners
Reward Spec
(i) Staking Rewards:
$HUMA stakers play a vital role in decentralizing the Huma protocol. They help shape governance, support adoption, and advance the mission of PayFi. In return, stakers earn rewards for their contributions, without needing to provide liquidity. Staking rewards are distributed in the form of Feathers, similar to LP rewards. For each airdrop season, all Feathers earned through staking and LP participation are combined to determine a user’s share of the airdrop.
$HUMA Stakers can request to unstake at any time. Withdrawals become available after a 14-day cooldown. Stakers rewards are determined by the following formula:
where Staking Factor is a multiplier initially set to a promotional multiplier 10, and α is a global variable initially set to 20, approximately the inverse of the average $HUMA price over the past month. Both values can be adjusted through governance.
Huma Staking was launched right before TGE without clear details on rewards and cooldown periods. The messaging at the time implied that staking might have no lockup at all. The initial plan was to support this 0-day cooldown option with minimal rewards (1× Feathers). However, based on community feedback, it’s clear that a 0-day lockup not only undermines the purpose of staking but also adds unnecessary complexity to the product. Offering it as the default risks many early stakers receiving suboptimal rewards. As a result, we will sunset the 0-day cooldown option through a gradual transition.
To ensure a smooth transition from the initial staking setup, the following timeline will apply:
• Default Setting: All stakers will receive 10× Feathers with a 0-day cooldown from the time they first staked until July 31, 23:59 UTC.
• Opt-in Deadline: To retain the 10× multiplier and transition to the 14-day cooldown, users must opt in by August 1, 00:00 UTC.
• Post-Deadline Adjustment: Starting August 1, users who have not opted in will earn 1× Feathers with a 0-day cooldown.
• Sunsetting: After the next airdrop snapshot (targeted for late August), the 1× + 0-day option will be sunset. Users who have not opted in by then will stop earning Feathers, though they may
(ii) LP Reward:
Reward Formula
The LP Reward Multiple is a key factor in determining how many Feathers an LP position earns. As of today, the LP reward multiple is influenced by the following components:
• LP Lockup Period & Mode Multiple
• OG_LP Status Multiple (capped at 1.2, for LPs who participated in Huma Institutional)
• Community Boost Multiple (temporary promotional multiple, capped at 1.1)
With the introduction of staking, a Staking Multiple will also be added. In the coming months, qualified LPs will earn Vanguard status as we introduce an additional Vanguard Multiple.
1/ Managing Multiple Growth
As more factors are introduced, a simple multiplicative approach can lead to excessively large reward multiples for a small group of users. While it’s important to reward early and firm believers, over-rewarding a few can distort incentives, deter new users, and ultimately harm the protocol’s growth. It will be a lose-lose for everyone, including early supporters.
To address this, we are proposing a controlled multiple model using a hyperbolic tangent function (tanh). This approach enables compounding benefits from multiple factors while keeping the final multiple within a sustainable range.
2/ Reward Components
The LP Reward Multiple will be computed based on the following five factors:
• LP Lockup Period & Mode Multiple
• Staking Multiple
• OG_LP Status
• Vanguard Status (upcoming)
• Promotional Boost
The formula is simpler than it looks. Below is an explanation in plain English. We will also use examples to illustrate the impact of different multiples.
• The core of the formula is the product of all the multiples. Each multiple is guaranteed to be at least 1.
• The exponent for each multiple can be used to amplify its criticality. Each exponent is a value between 0 and 2. Initially, all the exponents are 1.
• The use of $\tanh()$ ensures a smooth scaling curve as more boost factors are added, amplifying rewards without overwhelming the system.
• $\beta$ is the cap of the final LP Reward Multiple. It is 22.5 for LPs with both OG and Vanguard statuses; otherwise, the value is 20.
The graph above shows the effect of the formula.
Let’s use a few examples to see how the result plays out.
*Max stake: the range of the Staking Multiple is [1, 2]. For simplicity, the table above used the maximum value of 2.
LP Lockup Period & Mode Multiple
Since the launch of Huma 2.0, promotional reward multiples have been applied to encourage early participation. The table below reflects the updated multiples that will take effect with the upcoming cap increase on June 10.
Notably, the multiples for 3-month and 6-month Maxi Mode have been slightly reduced, moving closer to a long-term stable state. These adjustments aim to strike a balance between rewarding early adopters as well as supply and demand to maintain sustainability.
We will continue to monitor adoption trends and adjust these parameters as needed.
Staking Multiple for LP Rewards
The Staking Multiple is used to express how staking in $HUMA impacts LP rewards. The Staking Multiple is determined by the ratio between the number of staked $HUMA tokens and the total number of LP tokens owned by the LP wallet. The Staking Multiple is always between 1 and 2, inclusive. This means an LP benefits from incremental staking. The Staking Multiple is capped at 2 to prevent an LP with Classic positions from gaining significant multiples by staking tons of $HUMA tokens.
If an LP has more than one position, the same Staking Multiple is applied to all of these positions. Below are some examples to see how this plays out. Let’s assume the user has 1,000 PST.
Once the # of $HUMA staked reaches 3x of # of PST, the staking multiple is capped at 2. You can still stake more to get more Staking Rewards, but it will not impact LP Rewards anymore.
OG LP Status
OG LP has so far enjoyed a 1.2 multiple and will continue to do so. To maintain OG LP status, the LP is required to maintain $100 in liquidity across Huma products, which is the minimum deposit threshold for Huma Institutional.
Some OG LPs may have withdrawn all of their deposits prior to the policy announcement. The LPs have until July 1 to refill their LP positions. The criteria for OG LP status are:
• Participated in Huma Institutional.
• Maintains at least $100 liquidity in Huma starting July 1. Once the balance falls below $100, the LP will lose the OG LP status.
Vanguard StatusVanguard status is designed to encourage and reward early stakers of the $HUMA token.
1/ How to qualify: To earn Vanguard status, users must meet one of the following criteria and maintain the staking position for at least 6 months:• Airdrop recipients must complete staking by June 15.Airdrop received is less than 100,000 $HUMA tokens must stake 100% of their initial airdrop.
• Airdrop received is between 100,000 and 200,000 $HUMA tokens must stake 100,000 $HUMA tokens.
• Airdrop received is larger than 200,000 $HUMA tokens must stake at least half of the $HUMA tokens received.• Non-airdrop recipients must purchase and stake at least 100,000 $HUMA tokens.
2/ How to Maintain the Status (After 6 Months)To retain the Vanguard status after the initial 6-month period, users must continue to stake for at least the lesser of:• Their total $HUMA airdrop received, or• 10,000 $HUMA tokens.
3/ Benefits of the Vanguard Status • Vanguard multiple for LP rewards (initial value: 1.2, same as the OG_LP multiple).• Role badge on the Huma DApp.• Future perks: Huma may offer additional benefits to Vanguard status holders, similar to those granted to OG LPs during the pre-sale.
Promotional Boost
To foster protocol growth, Huma may collaborate with other communities. As part of these partnerships, participants may receive a temporary booster to their LP reward for a predefined period.
(iii) Early Access for Stakers:
Stakers receive early access privileges to selected campaigns and limited-capacity opportunities, such as priority PST purchase windows when Huma 2.0’s liquidity cap increases.
The first early access opportunity was announced on June 5, 2025. In this round, stakers were allowed to deposit 24 hours before the general public. For the $10M liquidity cap increase, each staker is allocated a deposit limit equal to their staked $HUMA divided by 25.
Feedback Summary for Future Considerations
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Consider adding more tiers of lockups for tiered staking rewards (e.g. 3m, 6m, 12m, and 24m).
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Consider giving stakers direct APY boost for their LP positions when there is regulatory clarity.
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For Section 4.1, instead of using α, consider using token price directly when there is compliance clarity.
Update History
June 9: Initial draft, published for the community feedback.
June 22: Made the following edits and finalized the doc for the initial launch:
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Section 4.1: Added path to maximize the chance for early stakers to get 5x rewards, and sunset 1x reward & 0-day cooldown option
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Section 5.0: Summarized key feedback from the community for future considerations
June 25: Section 4.2.5: Reduced the Vanguard qualification requirements for those who have received more than 100,000 $HUMA tokens in the first airdrop.
June 30: Section 4.1: Updated staking reward multiple from 5x to the promotional 10x.
NOTE: The public comment period on this proposal is open until 00:00 UTC on June 17. The finalized proposal will be implemented by the end of June, at which point the new LP-rewards formula will take effect. Staking rewards will be applied retroactively starting May 26.
Disclaimer:
$HUMA is a utility and governance token intended solely for use within the Huma ecosystem. This document is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell, solicitation to buy, or financial, legal, or investment advice. Participation in the Huma protocol and any interaction with the $HUMA token involves risk and should be undertaken only after careful consideration. Regulatory frameworks governing digital assets vary by jurisdiction and are subject to change. You are solely responsible for ensuring compliance with all applicable laws and regulations in your region. Always conduct your independent research and consult with qualified professionals before making any financial or investment decisions.
It’s time to join the next era of the PayFi movement.
— Huma Foundation