During its recently concluded Tokenomics Week, decentralized cloud computing innovator iExec revealed that it was introducing a new circular economic framework to help its native crypto asset — $RLC — become even more useful for internal ecosystem operations.
“We have a clear focus on increasing RLC’s utility and growing its value while expanding access to our decentralized privacy infrastructure. Our latest initiatives encourage people to use RLC instead of holding it, driving a circular token economy that creates value through utility.” —company CEO Gilles Fedak
Fedak’s statements seemed to further imply that iExec is looking to become the foundational infrastructure provider for privacy-oriented computing and secure applications, especially within emerging sectors like decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) and AI.
A cornerstone of this vision will be the newly introduced iExec Voucher system, which upon first glance, simplifies developers’ interactions with the blockchain allowing them to completely bypass the headache of manually managing tokens or fretting over fluctuating gas fees.
Instead, devs can use vouchers preloaded with $RLC to process their day-to-day operations. That said, the vouchers themselves come in two tiers, i.e. BUILD and EARN. The former are tailored for testing/development purposes and are available at no cost to new developers eager to experiment with the network. Meanwhile, EARN vouchers cater to production environments that require private execution via Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs).
When developers purchase these vouchers to deploy their dApps, the spent RLC tokens don’t just vanish into thin air; instead, they’re channeled back into the ecosystem, rewarding developers and end-users based on actual usage and engagement.
Privacy-first rewards and builder incentives announced
In today’s age of rapidly vanishing data privacy, iExec’s aforementioned tokenomics upgrade has also introduced its latest ‘Privacy Pass’ program, which as the name suggests, transforms the typically intrusive marketing email model to reward users.
Instead of having to surrender their email addresses, users now have the option to earn $RLC all while operating under the protection of Intel’s SGX technology which safeguards users’ sensitive information even during the ‘active data processing’ phase.
For developers too, iExec has rolled out an attractive ‘Builder Incentive Program’ that offers consistent rewards tied directly to the success and usage of the privacy-centric applications they develop. Further complementing all of these facets is iExec’s recently launched $1 million RLC Ecosystem Fund, which supports both dilutive and non-dilutive investment models, providing crucial financial backing for innovative projects built within its environment.
iExec CRO Nathan talks iExec and the current state of crypto.
+ don’t miss the alpha we’re dropping for $RLC Tokenomics Week, starting Monday and rolling out daily all next week 👀https://t.co/dH0Eb5VWTu
— iExec RLC (@iEx_ec) May 18, 2025
Expanding sustainably
Earlier this year, iExec announced a series of collaborations with industry giants like NVIDIA and Intel, alongside an active role with the Linux Foundation-backed Confidential Computing Consortium.
The company also shed light on the ongoing development of its TDX TEEs capabilities, a significant advancement beyond SGX that promises to further enhance their confidential computing offerings. Additionally, new developer tools like Web3Telegram and the iApp Generator for Trusted AI Agents have been teased, suggesting easier ways for developers to build privacy-preserving applications.
From the outside looking in, the approach rethinks traditional token mechanics used by the vast majority of crypto projects today and helps create an interconnected ecosystem — one where $RLC serves as both the access mechanism and reward structure for a privacy-first computing infrastructure.
And, with approximately 86 million RLC tokens in fixed supply and no inflation or unlocks on the horizon, iExec’s latest move could usher in a new era of “using over holding,” offering a template for other Web3 projects looking to create sustainable token economies built on utility.
