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Emission System

Emission is how new AET enters circulation. Every block, a fixed amount of AET is created and distributed to the participants who produced proven, useful work. There is no protocol-level payment for inference: AET reaches participants through emission, not through direct fees.

Two Levels of Distribution​

Emission is split in two steps: first across the network, then inside each Neuronet.

Step 1: Across the Network​

Each block's emission is divided at the protocol level:

  • 90% goes to Neuronets, shared by how much verified useful work each one produced.
  • 5% goes to Block Validators for securing and maintaining the chain.
  • 5% goes to the Treasury for development, audits, and grants.

A Neuronet's share of the 90% depends on its verified useful work relative to all other Neuronets. Only work that passes verification counts, so a Neuronet that produces fraudulent or unverifiable results earns nothing.

Step 2: Inside a Neuronet​

The amount a Neuronet earns is split again among its participants:

  • 80% to miners, weighted by their verified work and reputation.
  • 10% to the Owner, as a creator fee that can be lowered but not raised.
  • 10% to stakers, in proportion to the amount they stake.

This keeps the largest share flowing to the miners who do the actual work, while rewarding the Owner who runs the service and the stakers who fund its capacity.

How Much Is Emitted​

  • Block reward: 1.5 AET per block at a 12-second block time, about 10,800 AET per day in the current epoch.
  • Hard cap: 33 million AET total, fixed in the runtime with no premine.
  • Halving by total issuance: the block reward is cut in half each time issuance passes a threshold, with the first halving at 16.5 million AET (half of the cap). Because recycled fees return tokens to the unissued pool, the exact halving date shifts over time.

Rewards are settled per epoch. The runtime epoch is 7,200 blocks, roughly a day at 12 second blocks, and each Neuronet can run its own tempo within the bounds governance allows, so a participant's earnings reflect the verified work accumulated over each epoch. See Chain Reference for the exact parameters.

What Drives a Participant's Share​

Emission follows proven work, not opinion. A miner's share grows with:

  • The amount of verified useful work it produces
  • Its proof-of-compute score, which confirms real hardware
  • Its uptime and the rate at which its work passes re-checks
  • Its reputation, which falls when work fails verification

Because the total emitted per block is fixed, these factors decide how the pool is divided, not how much new AET is created.

Maximizing Your Share​

Since emission tracks proven, useful work, the way to earn more is to produce more verifiable value, not to game a score.

  • Miners: serve real demand reliably, keep a clean record of passing re-checks, and choose Neuronets that fit your hardware and have spare capacity. Uptime and reputation compound over time.
  • Stakers: back Neuronets with genuine usage, since your share grows with the Neuronet's verified work, not just with the amount staked. See Staking Rewards.
  • Owners: a lower creator fee and a well-run service attract more miners and stakers, which grows the Neuronet's economy and, with it, your fixed cut.

See Tokenomics and AET for the emission schedule and Proof of Intelligence for how work is verified.

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