# What is $GRAY?

$GRAY acts as the driving economic component of the Gradient platform. It is designed to align incentives across the ecosystem and directly reward those who contribute to liquidity and execution efficiency. It plays a central role in sustaining the economic health of Gradient’s Coordinated Order Routing Engine (CORE) as well as that of the Gradient protocol as a whole.

Rather than relying on token emissions, Gradient’s design routes protocol fees to certain participants (liquidity providers) as a way to incentivize their participation. The $GRAY token’s role is to help align the ecosystem; active contributors may earn rewards from real platform activity, promoting a self-reinforcing cycle of engagement referred to as a “flywheel”. The intent is that as the ecosystem grows, $GRAY’s utility in the protocol grows as well.


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