Mining Reward System

Time-Delayed Rewards

OP_NET employs a unique reward mechanism where miners receive gas fees from three epochs in the future, approximately 150 minutes after winning. This design creates strong economic incentives while preventing manipulation.

Prevents Manipulation

Miners cannot manipulate their own epoch for profit since they do not know which epoch's fees they will receive at the time of mining.

Market-Driven

High network activity results in higher future fees, incentivizing miners to maintain network health for long-term profitability.

Gas Fee Collection

The winning miner receives all gas fees from transactions processed during the reward epoch:

All transactions pay gas fees in native Bitcoin, denominated in satoshis.
Fees accumulate throughout the epoch as transactions execute.
The winner receives the complete accumulated sum at epoch conclusion.
No fees are burned or distributed to other participants.

Pure Market Economics

Epochs processing many high-fee transactions yield substantial rewards for the miner from three epochs prior. Quiet network periods produce minimal rewards. This creates natural economic filtering where mining investment correlates with expected network activity.