The block rewards in Qortal are distributed to every online minter, regardless of the minter who actually 'finds' (signs) the block. The rewards are based on the level tier of the minter and how many 'online' (synchronized and submitting minting signatures) minters are in each tier during distribution blocks. In other words, all minters earn a portion of each block's reward by simply running a node (with their 'minting key' assigned to it) and supporting the network. All minters of level 1 and above, are rewarded. Only level 5+ minters can sign new blocks into the chain.

• Every 2 levels is called a 'tier'.
• Every tier shares a given overall percentage of each block's reward.
• Block rewards include newly created QORT coins andtransaction fees of every block in the given distribution period .
• Minters share an even split of their minting tier's percentage of every block's rewards.
• Only minters actively submitting minting signatures (a node running with their minting key assigned to it) are rewarded.
• Signing (or 'finding') blocks, does NOT make any difference to a minter's rewards.
• Every minter is rewarded solely based upon their level and their minting signature's submission and validation.
• Only level 5 or higher minters sign blocks.
• The higher level minters are more likely to be the block signer (for chain security).
• Becoming a minter requires approval given by GROUP_APPROVAL transactions from the Minter Admins.
• Sponsorship is NO LONGER UTILIZED ON QORTAL.
• Would-be minters submit a 'card' on the Q-Mintership Q-App's 'Minter Board' in order to initiate a vote by the Minter Admins.
• Higher level tiers earn larger percentages of the overall block reward.
• The longer a minter has been submitting valid minter signatures, the more 'blocksMinted' they have, the higher level they are.
• Higher level minters have more 'influence' in polls.
• Higher level minters have higher likelihood of being the signer of the block validated by the rest of the network and made part of the chain.

In order to ensure the security of the chain, minting leverages a minter's 'level' in regard to block signing. Block signing is the process of creating a new block on the chain, and the 'block signer' is the minter that creates and adds the block agreed by the rest of the network to be the 'valid next block' on the primary chain fork. The validation of blocks and transactions takes place automatically in the Qortal Core, so without specific code modifications by a would-be attempted attacker, no attack is possible at all. However, in order to ensure that a would-be attacker remains would-be, leveraging the 'blocksMinted' of a minter's account as a 'weight' in the determination of the primary block, allows Qortal to ensure that minters who have proven themselves legitimate for a longer time frame, are more likely to sign blocks. This dramatically reduces the potential likelihood of a would-be attacker being successful in any type of attack, as the primary methods of attacking a blockchain require that the would-be attacker sign multiple blocks in a row. The ability to do this on Qortal is extremely low.

Qortal's consensus model leverages a concept called 'key distance' (combined with a weighted variable for level, valid transactions, transaction count, and various other on-chain validated data points in each block) (see How Qortal’s Consensus Works) to determine which block created by which minting account is included on the primary chain.

As stated, the higher level the minter is, the more likely they are to be the block signer. However, on Qortal, being the block signer (contrary to essentially every other blockchain) does not provide the minting account with any type of advantage. Being the block signer does NOT earn the signing minter anything 'extra' on the Qortal Network. This is a critical difference that is one of highlighted unique aspects of the Qortal Consensus Model. This allows for a competition-free ecosystem in which all minters work together to validate, extend, and ensure the integrity of the blockchain. Removing the 'combative' and contradictory nature of PoW and PoS-based systems, and providing a sense of collaboration between the Qortal Minters.

Removing the ability to 'buy influence' over the network, is another key differentiating factor of the Qortal Model. Since there is no 'monetary' benefit to being the block signer there is no other option for minters on the network aside from working collaboratively and sharing the provided 'harvest' of QORT. Qortal aims to foster a positive and thriving environment within the minting community, one where minters encourage each other and assist one another in a shared goal of keeping the strongest and most well-functioning blockchain possible.

All minters start at level 0, and ultimately end at level 10, once at level 10 their influence will still increase, but at an ever-slowing magnitude of overall influence[*]. Making it so that while minters always do increase in effective security and influence, their lower-level minter compatriots may come quite near their higher-level counterparts in influence and network security effectiveness.

Minting is essentially proof of Contribution Over Time (and Memory Proof-of-Work). Qortal leverages Proof of Work, however, it is a different type of PoW, and doesn't max out processors all day long like Bitcoin/Litecoin and many other projects.

Memory-Based Proof of Work

The Memory Proof-of-Work (MemPoW) portion of the consensus mechanism, comes from the MemPoW algorithm. Whereas most PoW chains utilize a PoW algorithm with a 'modifiable difficulty' that changes based on how many 'miners' are actively contributing 'hashrate' to the network, Qortal utilizes a set difficulty MemPoW, and leverages the algo to limit the number of minting keys that can be assigned to any given physical computer. The MemPoW must be leveraged by every minter upon minting key submission, submitting too a 'nonce' generated as a result of the MemPoW's operation. This nonce, validated by all nodes on the network, proves the minter ran the algo, and adds another layer of validation to the minter's signature submission that is utilized to provide the minter with their blocksMinted for that payout round, if submitted within the round's submission 'window'.

The MemPoW algorithm is a Memory-based Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm utilized in multiple portions of Qortal's code. In regard to minting, the MemPoW must be computed, and submitted with each minter signature. MemPoW is also leveraged to prevent 'spam' messages on Q-Chat, as Q-Chat transactions are 'feeless' and would otherwise be able to be executed indefinitely for very minimal effort. Introduction of the MemPoW nonce requirement to Q-Chat transactions, allowed the system to resolve spam issues without requiring the addition of a transaction fee to Q-Chat messages.

• MemPoW leverages an established 'difficulty' to result in a verifiable nonce ensuring the algo's completion.
• MemPoW is computed and submitted with each minter signature, thus providing a required 'amount of time' to complete said submission.
• MemPoW uses a SET amount of RAM (1MB) and is computed primarily within memory bandwidth. Providing a very power-friendly Proof of Work that doesn't require 100% CPU utilization.
• The MemPoW algo in regard to Minting on Qortal merely exists as a method to prevent submission of 'indefinite number of signatures' from a single minting node. It prevents a single node from submitting more signatures than (ideally 2) the number it can compute utilizing the MemPoW difficulty within the submission window.
• MemPoW is also leveraged to prevent 'spamming' on Q-Chat, which leverages 'feeless' and 'unconfirmable' transactions for messaging. Without the assistance of the MemPoW's 'rate limiting' for accounts with less than 4 QORT balance, an essentially 'unlimited amount' of messages could be sent for the cost of a single low-powered node, and disrupt the usability of Q-Chat entirely.

The Qortal Logo while Minting is Active.

Minting is an essential component to Qortal, as it is the method by which blocks are created, validated, and added to the 'chain'. Without the minters, the chain doesn't move. Since the importance on minting is high, and higher level minters (levels 5+) are the ones that are able to sign blocks, with their level providing higher likelihood of signing with increase, the overall rewards are distributed in the following fashion:

Block rewards take both newly generated QORT, and all transaction fees for the blocks within the distribution window, and splits them evenly to each rewards tier, with the overall percentages described below:

Further Reward Modifications As of version 4.7.0
- Levels 1 and 2 - (TIER 1) minting accounts share 6% of the block reward
- Levels 3 and 4 - (TIER 2) share 13% of the block reward
- Levels 5 and 6 - (TIER 3) share 19% of the block reward
- Levels 7 and 8 - (TIER 4) share 26% of the block reward
- Levels 9 and 10 - (TIER 5) share 32% of the block reward
- QORA holders transitioning into QORT coin share 1% of the block reward

As per the proposal by crowetic (https://qortal.link/crowetics-proposals) - The concept of 'founder accounts' was determined to be faulty, and as such was proposed to be, and effectively REMOVED as of version 4.7.0 of the Qortal Core. Due to the poor performance of founders in the previous years, and the fact that the entire concept did not play out as it was meant to, it was removed, and will not be coming back. Instead of the founders, the rewards that would be given to the level 9+10 tier minters, are distributed to Minter Admins and Dev Admins, split 50/50. Until the 5th tier contains 30+ minters this will be the scenario.

Another portion of this proposal, is the removal of the 'blocksMintedAdjustment' credit that was given to the QORA account holders who forged the QORA chain while it was considered 'dead'. The removal of this 'blocksMintedAdjustment' is planned to be executed on release of Qortal Core version 5.0. Upon this modification, all blocksMintedAdjustment credits will no longer be credited toward overall level on Qortal, and only blocksMinted, blocks that were actually minted on this network, will be credited.
- MINTER AND DEV ADMINS - share a minimum of 3% of the block reward, and/or the 'leftover' percentage, which initially will be higher when there aren't users in all of the various level groups, and will decrease over time.

Block #: 1+ Reward: 5.00 QORT/block - (June 2020)
Block #: 259,201+ Reward: 4.75 QORT/block
Block #: 518,401+ Reward: 4.50 QORT/block
Block #: 777,601+ Reward: 4.25 QORT/block
Block #: 1,036,801+ Reward: 4.00 QORT/block
Block #: 1,296,001+ Reward: 3.75 QORT/block
Block #: 1,555,201+ Reward: 3.50 QORT/block
Block #: 1,814,401+ Reward: 3.25 QORT/block
Block #: 2,073,601+ Reward: 3.00 QORT/block - (June 2025)
Block #: 2,332,801+ Reward: 2.75 QORT/block
Block #: 2,592,001+ Reward: 2.50 QORT/block
Block #: 2,851,201+ Reward: 2.25 QORT/block
Block #: 3,110,401+ Reward: 2.00 QORT/block

ABSOLUTE MINIMUM BLOCK REWARD = 1 QORT/block (plus transaction fees)

ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM BLOCK REWARD = 5 QORT/block (plus transaction fees) (This is the Genesis Block Reward amount.)

Only ACTIVE minters are rewarded each distribution cycle.
Currently, distribution cycles are 1000 blocks. Every 1000th block is a 'payout block' on which the block rewards and fees for the previous 1000 blocks, combined, are paid out to the minters.
Distribution cycles are subject to change, as are the percentages rewarded to each level tier. Proposals from the Qortal Community may be made for any modification to any portion of the network and its existing rules. If the proposal is viable, and gets enough support from the community, it will then be sent to the developer group for review. Upon said review, if the proposal is deemed valid by the developers, it will be determined whether it is possible to build it in its current state, or whether modifications are required. If it is acceptable as-is, it will be given a final vote by the developers, at which point it will be started on if the vote passes. If it is NOT deemed viable for whatever reason, it will be modified by the developers, and sent back to the community for another vote. Repeat until the proposal is both viable, and approved, then built, and implemented.
Future methods of rewards for additional account types or concepts, may potentially modify the overall rewards distribution, depending on the concept and its basis. As such, the block rewards will be an ever-changing and evolving concept, with a few static unwavering foundational rules listed below:

Qortal, unlike most other blockchain-based systems, is a system built with true decentralization and indefinite operation in mind. As such, there is no 'total coin cap' on the QORT supply. The concept of a total cap means that the project cannot possibly last forever. Even only considering the fact that users lose access to accounts with coin, no matter how much preventative effort is made, this will always be the case. Therefore, at some point, there will be no usable coins left on any chain with a total maximum supply of coin. QORT is more than simply a 'currency', it is a 'fuel' providing the means to build and publish data on a truly decentralized distributed data network comprised of a global network of users and their computing devices. It is the future digital realm for the open-minded and free. As such, QORT must always be, and must always be obtainable to be leveraged in this fashion.

Regardless of the fact that no 'total coin supply cap' exists, that does not then say that 'inflation is an issue'. In fact, comparing QORT to essentially any other coin one quickly realizes that the total amount of QORT grows very slowly in comparison to most others, and even without a total supply cap, will not even come close to the total amount of coins that already exist on many other platforms.

The distribution is limited in the following fashion: Approximately every ‘6 months’ (measured in number of blocks, based on a calculation of 60 seconds per block) there is a reduction in reward from its Genesis amount of 5 QORT, by .25, until reaching 2 QORT per block. Thereafter, a vote can potentially be made for an increase (or decrease). This increase may only be up to 1 QORT in either direction (in 0.25 QORT increments) and this vote may only take place one time per ‘year’ (in blocks).
For example, if the current block reward is 3 QORT/block, the vote could only result in any of the following: 2, 2.25, 2.5, 2.75, 3, 3.25, 3.5, 3.75 & 4 QORT/block. (Only up to a 1 QORT difference in either direction, in 0.25 QORT increments.) Block reward can only be voted to as low as 1 QORT per block, or as high as 5 QORT per block. These are the minimum and maximum block reward range Qortal will ever potentially see.

ABSOLUTE MINIMUM BLOCK REWARD = 1 QORT/block (plus transaction fees)
ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM BLOCK REWARD = 5 QORT/block (plus transaction fees) (This is the Genesis Block Reward amount.)


[*] = NOTE - The decreasing magnitude of effectiveness for max-level minting accounts has not yet been developed, and as such does not yet hold exact detail that may be described herein. Upon the Qortal Development Group's determination and development here, more detail will be made available.