Question 1

What is MERL?

Accepted Answer

MERL is the native token of the Merlin Chain ecosystem. It is designed for governance, network security, delegation, and liquidity and collateral use cases within the ecosystem; these uses do not mean holders own equity in the project entity or have fixed dividend rights. When understanding MERL, token uses must also be distinguished from the chain's native Gas: Merlin Chain's primary Gas asset is Merlin_BTC, not MERL.

Question 2

What is MERL's governance use?

Accepted Answer

MERL holders can participate through voting in decisions on major proposals in the Merlin Chain ecosystem. Governance lets token holders express their views on relevant decisions; it differs from staking, which uses tokens to support network security, and from using tokens as collateral in an application, which depends on whether a particular financial application accepts the asset and on its specific rules.

Question 3

What is the purpose of staking MERL or delegating it to a node?

Accepted Answer

MERL can be staked directly by holders or delegated to consensus nodes. Both methods are intended to support the consensus network: staking links participants to network security, while delegation allows holders to assign tokens to nodes for participation in the relevant mechanism. Official documentation also states that there is a slashing design for malicious behavior, so statements about “earning staking rewards” cannot be understood apart from node behavior, applicable rules, and potential penalty risks.

Question 4

Can MERL pay on-chain transaction fees?

Accepted Answer

Merlin Chain's primary transaction Gas token is native BTC (Merlin_BTC). MERL can currently be selected in an AA wallet as a payment token for transaction Gas, but this is an optional wallet-level payment method and does not change the network's primary Gas asset to MERL. Before submitting a transaction, users need to confirm whether their AA wallet offers this option and check the fees actually displayed.

Question 5

How do Merlin Chain transaction fees and execution limits affect transactions?

Accepted Answer

Network transaction costs are still calculated under Gas rules. The minimum acceptable Gas Price given in the official documentation is 0.006 Gwei, and transactions below this value are rejected by nodes; users can generally use the Gas Price suggested by their wallet, and raising it may increase processing priority, but does not guarantee faster execution during severe congestion. The Gas Limit for a single transaction is capped at 30 million, and transactions are also subject to zkCounters constraints because Merlin's zkEVM execution requires corresponding zero-knowledge proofs to be generated.

Question 6

What are MERL's total supply and initial allocation?

Accepted Answer

MERL has a total supply of 2.1 billion tokens and is planned to become accessible over four years from the token generation event (TGE). In the initial four-year allocation, the ecosystem accounts for 40%, Merlin’s Seal participants for 20%, the community for 16.57%, private investors for 15.23%, the team for 4.20%, advisors for 3%, and public sale for 1%. Total supply, unlocked supply, and market-tradable supply are not the same concepts; the latter two are affected by the release schedule of each category.

Question 7

Will all MERL enter circulation at once at TGE?

Accepted Answer

No. Different categories have different initial unlock and subsequent release arrangements. Merlin’s Seal participants and the public sale both unlock 50% at TGE, with the remainder released over the following five months at 25%, 12.5%, 6.25%, 3.125%, and 3.125%; private Series A investors first have a six-month cliff and then release over eighteen months, while Series B investors have a twelve-month cliff and then release over thirty-six months. Therefore, the schedule of one category cannot be used to infer the available supply of all MERL.

Question 8

How are MERL tokens for the team, advisors, community, and ecosystem released?

Accepted Answer

The schedules for the team, advisors, community, and ecosystem also differ. The team releases over twenty-four months after its cliff period, and advisors release over thirty months after their cliff period; the community and ecosystem have no initial unlock and release over forty-eight months. Release arrangements describe when allocation categories become accessible, not that holders must sell or the actual market circulating supply at a particular time.

Question 9

What does it mean for MERL to be used as liquidity or collateral?

Accepted Answer

MERL can serve as native liquidity or collateral within the Merlin ecosystem, helping support trading and lending mechanisms in related applications. This does not automatically give every holder borrowing capacity: an application must actually support MERL and will set its own collateral, borrowing, liquidation, or liquidity rules. This differs from the purpose of network staking: the former serves a financial position in an application, while the latter serves network security.

Question 10

How do MERL's Layer3 fee use and mainnet Gas differ?

Accepted Answer

The official materials also list paying transaction fees on future Layer3 networks above Merlin Chain as a use for MERL. This statement limits the applicable layer and condition: it concerns future upper-layer Layer3 networks, rather than claiming that MERL has replaced Merlin_BTC Gas on the Merlin Chain mainnet. Whether it is actually available also depends on the deployment and adoption status of that Layer3.

Question 11

What is the difference between self-staking and delegating to a node?

Accepted Answer

Self-staking generally means that a participant operates or participates in a consensus node and therefore assumes responsibility for node operation, technical matters, and compliance with rules; delegation means assigning MERL to a consensus node to support that node's participation in the mechanism. Both relate to security and potential penalty designs, but delegation alone does not justify assuming there are no node-selection or rule risks. Specific operating conditions should follow the rules shown by the node and protocol interface at the time.

Question 12

How can MERL's different uses be distinguished?

Accepted Answer

MERL's key distinction is that its uses correspond to different parts of the system: governance is voting on major proposals; staking or delegation supports consensus and network security; native liquidity or collateral is for use by ecosystem applications that support it; and paying with MERL in an AA wallet is a currently optional wallet-payment experience. They are not interchangeable, and none should be used to infer that all wallets, nodes, or applications support MERL.

Merlin Chain (MERL) Price