How do token holders earn and claim XRD emissions rewards?

Anyone with XRD tokens on the Radix Public Network can participate in staking and earn emissions rewards if they delegate stake to a validator node in the top 100 and acquire Liquid Stake Unit (LSU) tokens (or acquire LSUs via Radix’s DeFi ecosystem). Unlike many blockchain or DLT networks where most rewards are reserved for a relatively small set of “miners”, Radix rewards to individual XRD stakers, i.e. Liquid Stake Unit (LSU) holders, are actually the primary incentive – no need to run a physical node. Staking to protect network security is very important, so it’s been made as straightforward and rewarding as possible.

Earning and Claiming XRD Emissions

After XRD are staked, starting with the next epoch, that stake begins earning emissions rewards at the end of each epoch that follows, and these emissions rewards are added to the staked pool within the relevant validator component. Emissions therefore compound automatically.

To claim back the underlying XRD and any accumulated emissions, a user simply unstakes by sending a quantity of Liquid Stake Units to the appropriate validator component.

The validator component calculates the appropriate amount of XRD and moves it to a separate "unstaked" pool. It then burns the Liquid Stake Units, mints a non-fungible claim token, and returns it to the unstaker. The claim token has embedded data which details the expected amount of XRD it can be exchanged for, and the time after which it can be claimed (calculated using the network-wide unstaking delay). As long as the validator does not undergo a slashing event during the unstaking period (2,016 epochs, or about 7 days), the amount of XRD it redeems for will be exactly as specified.

Once the unstaking period has passed, the claim token can be sent back to the validator component, which will burn it and return the appropriate amount of XRD from the "unstaked" pool.

The Radix Wallet can recognize these claim tokens and warn the user when XRD is eligible to be claimed from one or more validators, and set up the appropriate transaction for approval, making this second step a snap.

Because emitted tokens are automatically added to the staked pool, claiming rewards simply means unstaking some amount of staked tokens whenever the user chooses.

The Radix Wallet will show the user’s current stakes, including the amount of XRD added automatically to the stake by emissions, at any time.

Further reading:

‍