Premining is the act of mining or the creation of a quantity of blockchain-based tokens (coins) before a cryptocurrency is launched to the public.
The Electra Protocol blockchain was officially launched at the beginning of January 2021 with a total supply of 30 billion XEP (its native currency). Electra Protocol did not publically raise funds via an initial coin offering, or initial exchange offering, or venture capital. But a minor part of the total supply was allocated to support its technical operation:
Ten percent of the total supply (= 3 billion XEP) was reserved as community coins (premine) for the Electra Foundation in order to conduct its work as a caretaker and supporter of the blockchain ecosystem. The 3 billion XEP premine coins have no lockups, and coins are fully in circulation, but there’s a soft lock of 50% to the premines. The premine dropped to 2 billion XEPs in January 2022, because of burn events and collaterization measures.