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Overview

The Radix network mints new XRD as network emissions to reward the validators and stakers who secure the ledger. Roughly 300 million XRD is emitted per year, distributed at the protocol level to validators running consensus and shared with their delegators minus a commission. Emissions are the primary long-term incentive for delegated proof-of-stake security.

Emission Schedule

A fixed ~12 billion XRD is scheduled to be minted as network emissions over an approximately 40-year period, working out to roughly 300 million XRD per year (Radix Knowledge Base). This emission is additive to the ~12 billion XRD created at the Olympia genesis, giving XRD an eventual maximum supply of roughly 24 billion.

Emissions are not paid continuously. At the end of each epoch the protocol mints a fixed batch of XRD and allocates it across the active validator set in proportion to the stake delegated to each validator (Radix Knowledge Base).

How Rewards Reach Stakers

At the start of every epoch the protocol checks the total XRD staked to each validator and automatically selects a validator set of 100 by stake weight for the duration of that epoch (Radix Docs). Each validator's emission share is reduced by its validator fee (commission) before the remainder flows to delegators.

Stakers do not claim rewards transaction-by-transaction. Delegated XRD is represented by Liquid Stake Units (LSUs), whose redemption value against the validator's stake pool rises as emissions accrue — so a staker's rewards compound automatically each epoch (Radix Knowledge Base).

Reliability and Penalties

Emissions are performance-weighted, not guaranteed. If a validator fails to participate in consensus during part of an epoch, a penalty factor is deducted from its emissions and those penalized tokens are effectively burned rather than redistributed (Radix Knowledge Base).

The penalty escalates sharply at the low end: if a validator's uptime drops below 98% in an epoch, it receives zero rewards for that epoch — and so do all of its delegators. This aligns incentives so that stakers seek out well-run, reliable validators and node-runners are pushed to keep their nodes performant.

Emissions and Supply

Network emissions are inflationary by design, but two burn mechanisms temper their effect on circulating supply: burned reliability penalties (above), and the burning of network transaction fees — 50% of every base network fee is permanently destroyed by the protocol (Radix Knowledge Base). The long-run balance between scheduled emissions and this fee/penalty burn is examined on the Radix Economic Model page.