Rewards

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Validator Rewards

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Rewarded Duties

In Polkadot, time is mainly referenced through eras which are 24 hours each. These eras are subdivided into sessions, lasting 4 hours each. A session refers to a specific period of time where a fixed set of validators are active, meaning they can only join or leave the validator set at the transition between sessions. In a session, a particular group of validators are responsible for producing blocks. Blocks can be produced per slot although some slots can be empty with no block. In Polkadot, each slot is 6 seconds (See here for more information).

Validators in Polkadot are expected to produce and propose blocks, be online in every session, and to actually participate in consensus in said session. End-users who wish to have their transactions prioritized for inclusion can send tips directly to validators. Each of these duties per era are rewarded in points which form the basis of the rewards distributed to each validator, denominated in DOT.

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Calculation and Timing

All of the rewards mentioned are calculated on a per era basis (every 24 hours), and validators and nominators (delegators) have 84 days to claim these rewards. Specifically, staking rewards that are meant to be received by nominators are to be directly claimed by the latter; these do not go to the validator first and then distributed after. In our rewards endpoints, we are tracking when these actual claims are made. This means that rewards for a certain day are based on what amount of rewards were claimed on that particular day.

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Network Rewards

This network rewards endpoint gives you a breakdown of all rewards received by validators and their respective nominators over a specified period of time.