This proposal outlines the allocation of BNB Prime Rewards for October 2025, based on available funds.
While the Prime income allocation has decreased due to lower revenue and exhausted legacy funds, the new allocation is more strategic, focusing rewards where they have the greatest impact for all Venus users.
Prime suppliers: 100% of rewards will be directed to stablecoin suppliers, increasing the share of incentives where it will have the most impact, supporting deeper liquidity and more resilient markets.
Prime borrowers: Although direct rewards are ending, borrowers benefit from significantly lower borrow rates (already applied to BTCB and planned for stablecoins) and from the increased liquidity generated by supplier-focused rewards, ensuring better borrowing conditions.
Allocation Strategy
Retroactive allocation: Previously, reward speeds were set based on projected quarterly revenue, which has caused interruptions when actual revenue fell short. Going forward, Prime reward speeds will be set retroactively based on the reserves available at the end of each month. These reserves replenish monthly according to Protocol tokenomics (20% of generated revenue allocated to Prime).
Focus on stablecoins (USDT, USDC): These markets provide the strongest potential ROI for Venus. Concentrating rewards here attracts and retains liquidity, supporting higher TVL and more active markets.
Focus on suppliers: Historically, 66% of rewards went to borrowers and 33% to suppliers. All Prime rewards will now target suppliers, who are critical for ensuring sufficient liquidity and maintaining competitive borrow rates. Borrowers will now see lower interest rates across the board, not only for Prime users, to make these markets more attractive to all. Please see BTCB adjustments and stablecoin adjustments proposal for more information.
No longer rewarding BTCB or ETH:
BTCB: The market is self-sustaining, generating some of the highest BTC yields in DeFi (10x higher than competitors) with deep liquidity that is attractive to borrowers, particularly for users leveraging solvBTC/BTCB looping strategies.
ETH: Prime rewards have historically been a net cost to Venus. Venus already offers the lowest borrow APYs for ETH on BNB, and upcoming e-mode looping opportunities are expected to increase utilization, providing a net positive impact without additional rewards.
Allocation Proposal for October 25
To ensure a stable and predictable reward program, Prime reward speeds will be set retroactively, based on the reserves available at the end of each month for allocation the following month.
Currently, $73.3k of reserves are available across the Prime Converters and Prime Contracts. At current speeds, ~$3,765 is being distributed daily. By the time the VIP updating reward speeds is executed (in 6 days), ~$22,590 of the reserves will have been allocated, leaving $50.7k for Prime rewards in October 2025.
The vUSDT Prime Contract currently has no funds to support the proposed allocation. To implement October rewards, we will adjust reward speeds, migrate funds strategically from other Prime contracts to the USDT Prime contracts, and update the allocation going forward.
Going forward, Prime rewards will be reviewed and allocated monthly, based on the income generated in the previous month, ensuring a sustainable and responsive rewards program.
I fully support the team’s proposed adjustments to Venus Prime. Prioritizing stablecoin suppliers and shifting rewards where they create the greatest impact is a smart, sustainable move that strengthens the protocol’s long-term health.
By focusing on liquidity depth and lowering borrowing interests, Venus not only protects the resilience of its markets but also creates a healthier environment for all users. The retroactive allocation approach adds predictability and ensures rewards are always backed by actual revenue, which is key for sustainable growth.
Overall, I think this is a solid proposal that pushes us toward a more sustainable model. The first month may feel a bit chaotic as positions adjust, but with the upcoming IRM update for USDT and USDC ahead of e-mode, the logic holds up.
It would be great to have more precise data on how many Prime users are staked in USDT/USDC and at what size, but based on the October allocation and some quick estimates, here’s how the math looks:
Total allocation: $50k ($25k USDT, $25k USDC)
Rewards follow the Cobb-Douglas formula (α = 0.5). For someone staked at 100k XVS, the current Qualified Supply Cap is $1.2M USDT + $1.2M USDC.
At cap, the APY boost depends heavily on competition in each market:
~5 cap-sized users → ~5% APY per market
~10 users → ~2.5% APY per market
~20 users → ~1.25% APY per market
Supplying both USDT + USDC doubles these figures (~5% total APY boost if 10 peers at 100K XVS staked per market).
Based on these assumptions, Prime users are looking at between 1%–5% APY boost per stable in October, depending on user distribution and staked amount of XVS.
It may look modest at first glance, but this is only what’s left from reserves at month-end. Rewards will be recalculated in November from the full October income, so the forward outlook is higher rewards in November.
On the borrower side, Prime users who used rewards to offset stablecoin loan costs will no longer get direct rewards, but borrowing costs will drop significantly thanks to increased liquidity and the planned IRM changes on USDC and USDT. Net effect: the offset remains in practice.
The bigger question is whether users will still be willing to lock large amounts of XVS for boosted APY on stable supply only. Right now, 100k XVS (~$650k) only qualifies a user for rewards on a maximum supply of $1.2M USDT + $1.2M USDC, which feels low relative to that stake.
To keep Prime attractive for whales and make sure XVS is aslo attractive for institutional users or DeFi funds, I believe the Qualified Cap should be increased by 2.5Ă—. That would bring the ceiling to $3.0M per stable (USDT + USDC) for 100k XVS staked. This would better align incentives and keep large players engaged, especially if rewards are concentrated on stables only in the future.
I don’t support killing the prime program for borrowers. You can change markets where it applies to, but killing the borrowing part seems unfair to me. People who supply BTC, ETH, BNB and borrow stables get nothing from prime, no point in holding XVS. Then why not just distribute 20% to all vault stakers/prime holders, not only suppliers? Wouldn’t it be a more fair distribution? There was an idea of making BNB a prime market, but it also didn’t happen.
“Venus Prime rewards loyalty with superior rewards
With Venus Prime, dedicated users obtain boosted rewards when they lend and borrow on Venus while staking in the governance vault.”
So after 5 years of loyalty some prime users will get nothing, looks like a false advertisement to me.
Splitting 50%/50% seems more fair to me, at least until everything looping related is implemented and can be understood by end users.
Right now benefits are unclear but downside of borrowing stables at market rates while holding “prime benefits” for loyalty of holding XVS that does not grow is 100% clear.
Also can you please clarify tokenomics for me? According to tokenterminal revenue for the last 30 days is ~2.8M , why prime rewards only get 50k?
50000/2800000 = 0.01785714285 or 1.7%, where the rest goes? It was supposed to be 20%
I support the E-Mode and USDT/USDC IRM updates.
However, I’d like to understand the USDC/USDT eligibility cap increase a bit more.
When HODLing XVS, I rarely have stablecoins on hand
I also want the USDT/USDC Prime Boost APY, but if whales and institutional investors loop large amounts, I think the allocation for small players will be smaller.
Does this mean aiming for XVS price appreciation is more attractive than chasing USDT/USDC loop yields?
This does not look appealing at all, borrowing at a negative interest rate with maxed out prime was key for taking risk in the market without stressing to much about borrowed money other then Liquidation Ratio. With borrowing prime not getting anything and lending prime getting a lower lending rate it defeats the purpose …
I support several key aspects of this proposal, particularly the shift to a retroactive monthly funding model and removing rewards for the self-sustaining BTCB and ETH markets. These are prudent steps toward long-term sustainability.
However, I strongly believe eliminating all borrower-side incentives for USDT/USDC is an error. This change removes the primary utility for active users to stake XVS: reducing their cost of capital. It dismantles the core value proposition of Prime for those productively borrowing stablecoins against volatile collateral.
Instead of a blanket removal, I propose a more surgical approach. The issue isn’t borrowing itself, but unproductive same-asset looping. We can refine the Cobb-Douglas reward calculation to nullify borrow rewards only when the supplied collateral is in the same asset class (i.e., stablecoin for stablecoin).
Acknowledging this may require development effort, I suggest a practical interim solution for the upcoming allocation: a split of 80% of rewards to suppliers and 20% to borrowers.
This amended approach preserves the incentive for productive borrowing (e.g., Supply BTC → Borrow USDT) while still improving capital efficiency. It keeps XVS staking valuable and strengthens the Prime program.
I fully support the proposal as it addresses the sustainability of Prime rewards. It also prioritizes Stablecoin providers, and distributing these rewards to the markets that are having the greatest impact is a very smart move. As we all know, the DeFi ecosystem is currently driven by the Stablecoin narrative and the significant impact this will bring to the ecosystem, so it has my full support.
Prime reward were awkward recently and people have all noticed it with depleted btc and Usdt.
How reward works should be rework
And I believe we need a deeper rework of Venus Prime , maintaining the total amount of reward ( from distribution and share from protocol revenu ) but with more targeted market for Protocol growth
Allocating everything to supply won’t suppress the looping strategy at all but seems like a fast fix move at the moment.
Btc and eth market don’t need any incentive for strategic boost so it’s efficiency to swift reward on other asset
I want to push for a more total revamp of Venus Prime , with way more slot and less delay, but also complete rework on the structure of reward to Xvs holder exclusively, with point systmes
Regarding my remark about 20% of revenue calculation and low prime rewards. After researching a bit more now I get that liquidation fees are not included in prime rewards.
My proposal is to ask tokenterminal to add additional rows to fully match projects tokenomics as specified in the whitepaper/docs. If we are paying 27,000 USDC per year for this dashboard service, it should reflect all part of tokenomics in an easy to use way. (Token Terminal <> Venus | Data Partnership Proposal)
Danny, you are the soul of VENUS. You can always come up with some solutions from a very special perspective. Everything is for VENUS and the community.
Looking at the rewards of AAVE, we have no advantage at all.
I have a suggestion, can you consider staking XVS to directly receive Prime rewards. No need to supply USDT or USDC. Even if AAVE yields high returns, I will not consider withdrawing my XVS and selling it. It can also increase the price of XVS. Then we can use XVS emissions to incentivize e-MODE supply and increase TVL
I agree that allocation must be automated and executed at more regular intervals. However, if we touch prime rewards, the entire program needs to be reworked.
$50,000 / 500 prime spots = roughly $100 per user. Ethereum users spend this much on fees. It’s a laughable sum, not worth serious discussion or promotion.
Having two sets of APY is bad for marketing. It’s confusing for end users and nearly impossible to integrate properly into DeFi aggregators or automation bots.
Prime spots are difficult to obtain and unclear to optimize. It’s hard to know what XVS amount is optimal. There’s no public calculator or spreadsheet to help users determine the best XVS allocation for their capital. The Cobb-Douglas distribution is complicated and difficult to grasp.
For new users, it’s almost impossible to secure a prime spot, meaning the impact on protocol growth is minimal. Essentially, it only adds complexity for newcomers, while half the UI is dedicated to features that are inaccessible to them.
Changing the rules mid-game is never ideal, but sometimes parts of a system become obsolete. It wouldn’t be fair to completely disregard the loyal prime holders, but this area will need updating regardless.
A better approach might be something similar to Thena’s NFT model, where each holder receives a share of protocol income. These NFTs could also be transferable - unlike prime spots today, which cannot be moved to another wallet, which is a security risk.
An even simpler option would be to redirect this 20% income portion to all XVS stakers. It’s easy to understand and accessible to everyone: the more you hold, the more you earn. As for the original 500 loyal holders, they could receive an additional loyalty bonus. With $30M in the treasury, I’m confident a fair compensation system can be designed.
It was a good decision to kill VRT, maybe it’s time to rework the prime program. Leaving a thing that only adds confusion, does not always work properly, can be an obstacle for growth. We must admit that it’s impact on new users is almost zero.
If we really paid $27,000 for this report (tokenterminal), I completely agree that it should reflect everything written in the tokenomics. Information should be easy to verify and understand.
This is one of the main reasons why the forum isn’t very active - users struggle to understand how Venus actually works. Regular users don’t know how to propose changes, what they are earning, or what exactly they will receive if they stake a certain amount of XVS.
We need to simplify things if we want to stay competitive. AAVE’s forum is much more user-friendly. By comparison, Venus looks intimidating and one-sided. Most communication comes from higher management, often written retrospectively after decisions are already made. This needs to change.
I don’t support removing rewards from the borrower side. It is unfair to people who supply blue chip crypto to borrow usdt. Either leave it as is, or split 50/50.
Prime program is for old loyal users right now, does not affect new user base. I agree that it is better to leave it as is until the whole prime program gets reworked.
When changing things we must analyze
Why something was implemented in the first place?
Are these conditions still valid and beneficial to the protocol?
I don’t have answers why some markets are considered prime, but some not. As far as I remember the goal of introducing prime was to compensate users for their loyalty and willingness to risk/support protocol during uncertain times. And spots were limited, we were even promised that some of them would be irrevocable for OG holders.
My reasoning was something like this:
I believed and still believe that BNB chain is good, as Binance is top 1 in crypto
I wanted to get a share of good project’s revenue by holding XVS for years, believed in growth and invested when XVS was over $100 per coin
With prime I could borrow stables against crypto at lower than market rates, almost for free. That was my main use case
If conditions have changed, decision will change too. 13% apy on XVS vault is good, but if I held eth for 5 years my outcomes would be better with even higher APY and less risks. I try to remain loyal, but I don’t like always losing money while holding XVS.
Why hold 50k or 100k XVS, if I can just sell and invest in other things. No prime benefits = no point of holding it. There are other projects too that give something for staking. Borrowing money for free was a unique use case.
Also consider how many new prime users there are? 1-2 per month? Can you build marketing around this opportunity? I think no. Turnover is very low. And if we add more spots the whole program needs to be reworked.
The Prime program was advertised as a once in a lifetime opportunity: be the first to secure your spot and supply or borrow at better-than-market rates. The spots were limited, there was a sense of scarcity as everyone believed in the project’s future. It is unfair to remove the borrowing part without offering something better.
And there wasno indication that prime applies only to stablecoins, and only to the supply part. It was advertised that more markets will be added to prime, not removed
With $30m in treasury and unclear and not transparent past spending on Corina and Brad, I feel betrayed if the project tries to cut costs by sacrificing their most loyal users.
Shouldn’t we discuss how to properly spend this huge treasury to be the #1 in defi? Instead we discuss how to spend $100 per one prime user. Truly disappointing…
Where is the roadmap? Why don’t we know how much is spent on marketing/CEOs? Have we compared our spending with AAVE’s?
My advice to new team: propose a draft of the roadmap, gather ideas from community, do ama first and only then start changing things that matter to most loyal users
Situation with always ending prime rewards can be solved by transferring a small buffer from treasury, so it does not run out unexpectedly. I’m 100% sure community will accept it
People who wrote that everything is good let’s do this. Have you got prime token? Or it’s just trash talking? Implement e mode, we must see practical changes then try to change something with prime users, who were here for years. Prime Borrowing is exclusive feature of Venus.
Thanks for pointing out that indeed the $50k will be set for October, but ideally we will have more funds for Prime moving forward. And yes, borrow rates are expected to become significantly more competitive when the new IRM changes set in. That is part of the reason why for October, with the funds we have, we are looking to primarily incentivise supply, which we believe will achieve the optimal impact on Venus and for Prime holders.
As for the cap increase, as masamune pointed out, it would indeed decrease the share for other Prime holders not supplying as much stablecoin. Amongst all the large stakers, about 50% (8 out of 17) reach the $1.2m limit on USDT market, and only 4 exceed it. Increasing the supply does indeed have a chance of pushing the supply, but it’s not guaranteed. Plus it would be detrimental to the other stablecoin suppliers.
With the new monthly review model, we can also re-adjust any shortfall or negative consequence to Venus or XVS quickly. We aim to work with the community to bring the Prime program to an optimal state, but that will definitely take time.
