The ASE Token
Staking Rewards
What validators actually earn · Estimated read time: 7 minutes
TL;DR
150,000,000 ASE (15% of supply) funds validator rewards over 6 years on a step-function decaying schedule. Each block's subsidy splits 5% to the proposer, 80% to active signers, 15% to the warm-inactive bonded pool. No single validator earns more than 10% of any block — excess redistributes pro-rata to smaller validators. The 4 founding validators run by the project are subject to the same cap, and their earnings vest linearly over 24 months. The whole architecture is enforced on-chain by system contract math, not by promise.
On top of subsidies, validators earn 100% of priority fees from every block they propose. Base fees are burned (EIP-1559 style). After year 6 the subsidy depletes and validators earn from priority fees alone.
The rewards pool
| Pool size | 150,000,000 ASE (15% of total supply) |
| Source | Pre-allocated at genesis — not inflationary |
| Distribution period | ~6 years from mainnet TGE |
| Schedule shape | Step-function exponential, ~20% drop every 6 months |
| After depletion | Validators earn from priority fees only |
The 150M pool is not inflation. It is part of the fixed 1B supply, held in a system contract at a known reserved address, and released per block. The 1B total supply never increases — this is a governance hard floor.
The decay schedule
The per-block subsidy drops by ~20% every six months. The full schedule (assuming 5-second blocks):
| Months | ASE/block | Period total | Pool used |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–6 | 10.0 | 31.5M | 21% |
| 6–12 | 8.0 | 25.2M | 38% |
| 12–18 | 6.4 | 20.2M | 51% |
| 18–24 | 5.1 | 16.1M | 62% |
| 24–30 | 4.1 | 12.9M | 70% |
| 30–36 | 3.3 | 10.4M | 77% |
| 36–42 | 2.6 | 8.2M | 83% |
| 42–48 | 2.1 | 6.6M | 88% |
| 48–54 | 1.7 | 5.4M | 91% |
| 54–60 | 1.3 | 4.1M | 94% |
| 60–66 | 1.1 | 3.5M | 97% |
| 66–72 | 0.9 | 2.8M | 98% |
| 72+ | 0 | — | 100% |
Why step-function instead of true exponential: the math is enforced inside a deterministic JS-VM where fixed-point arithmetic is awkward. A 12-step approximation is within a few percent of true exponential and trivially easy to verify on-chain. Why 6 years: long enough to bootstrap validator economics through the chain's growth phase, short enough to transition to fee-funded security on a clear timeline.
How a block splits
Every block's subsidy is divided three ways:
| Slice | % | Goes to |
|---|---|---|
| Proposer bonus | 5% | Whoever built and broadcast this block. Flat amount, not stake-weighted. |
| Signer share | 80% | Active committee, distributed pro-rata by stake. |
| Warm-inactive pool | 15% | Bonded validators who submitted epoch_entry for this epoch but aren't in the active committee. Pays for keeping a synced node ready in the rotating reserve. |
Edge case: if there are no warm-inactive validators (chain is under the committee cap), the 15% slice rolls into the signer share — no waste, no burn.
Auto-liveness incentive: the 80% signer share is paid to the active committee. Validators offline for a particular block earn nothing from it — automatic, no slashing required. Brief outages cost yield, not stake. This is the retail-friendly liveness mechanism.
The 10% per-validator cap
No single validator earns more than 10% of any block's subsidy, regardless of their stake share. Excess redistributes pro-rata to all OTHER validators in the active committee. This is enforced on-chain — the rewards distribution math literally cannot pay any one address more than the cap.
Why: without intervention, a validator with 25% of stake would capture 25% of every block's subsidy. The 4 founding validators (each with ~15.6% of total stake at genesis) would capture 24% of the entire pool over 6 years. Even though those funds genuinely fund chain operations, the optics of "team wallets get a quarter of all emissions" don't survive scrutiny. The cap forces emissions toward smaller validators automatically.
Effects on year 1 with the cap:
- Each founding validator earns 5.67M ASE in year 1 (vs 8.85M without cap). Down 36%.
- Total to the project: 22.7M ASE / 15% of pool (vs 35.4M / 24% without cap).
- ~22% of every block's subsidy redistributes to non-project validators.
- A 1M-ASE solo validator earns ~566k ASE in year 1 (vs ~354k without cap, lifted ~60%).
The cap is a structural property of the chain, not a special rule. Any future whale who ends up with >10% of stake — whether team or community — is subject to the same redistribution.
Founding-validator vesting
The 4 baked-genesis validators are run by the project. Their earnings — already capped at 10% per block — additionally vest linearly over 24 months from the time of earning.
In practice: of the ~22.7M ASE the project's validators earn in year 1, only ~half is liquid by year-end. The rest unlocks gradually across year 2. Block-level math: each ASE earned at block N becomes fully releasable at block N + ~12.4M (24 months at 5-second blocks).
This is on-chain, not a promise. The earnings flow into a vesting pool address (separate from the rewards pool) and release per the vesting schedule via the chain's own bookkeeping. The project literally cannot access funds before they vest.
Why have it on top of the cap: the cap controls share-of-emission. The vest controls timing. Even capped, a chunk of liquid ASE flowing to project wallets in year 1 would be a legitimate concern if there were no holding period. The 24-month linear release reinforces that the project is built for the long haul. Liquid funds are available for ongoing operational obligations — audits, exchange listings, market making, ecosystem grants, infrastructure, salaries — but the rest stays on-chain locked.
Fees on top of subsidy
- Base fee: burned 100%, EIP-1559 style. Reduces total supply at the margin. Under sustained chain usage, base-fee burn can offset rewards-pool emission and make ASE net-deflationary.
- Priority fee (tip): 100% to the block proposer, uncapped. The cap mechanism applies to subsidy only — capping priority fees would create perverse incentives (proposer might exclude high-fee txs to stay under cap, hurting users). Priority fees self-balance because the proposer slot is randomized.
Once the 150M subsidy pool depletes (~year 6), priority fees become the entire validator income source. The chain transitions cleanly from "subsidy-funded security" to "fee-funded security" on the published timeline.
Realistic APR examples
Steady-state assumption (year 1 of mainnet): 4 founding validators × 25M + 46 large external × 1M + 50 small × 200k = 160M ASE total bonded. At a token price of $0.05/ASE (25× presale, comparable to early Cosmos / Avalanche):
| Validator | Stake $ | Year 1 earnings | APR |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top-50 validator (1M ASE bonded) | $50,000 | ~$28,300 | 56% |
| Rotating reserve (200k ASE bonded, ~50% epochs active) | $10,000 | ~$2,850 | 28% |
| Founding validator (25M ASE bonded, vested) | $1.25M | ~$283k vested | 23% APR (vested) |
Early validators win disproportionately. At month 1, far fewer validators are bonded — early entrants hold a much larger share of stake. A validator who bonds in month 1 captures up to ~8× more rewards than one who bonds 12 months later. Bonding before mainnet launch is the rational play if you intend to operate.
By year 5, subsidy gets thin. Per-block reward is ~1.5 ASE. Most yield comes from priority fees if the chain has real usage. This is the deliberate handoff to fee-funded security.
For a comprehensive earnings model across multiple token-price scenarios and validator profiles, see the distribution table and the airdrop calculation page.
Slashing offset
APR is not a guarantee. A single double-sign slash is catastrophic — the validator's stake is fully slashed and they're tombstoned. Liveness misses (going offline temporarily) are NOT slashable; they cost yield for the blocks you missed but not stake. The realized return depends heavily on the validator you choose. See How to Delegate.
Claiming rewards
For non-founding validators: rewards are credited directly to the validator's address every block. No claim transaction needed. Restaking is an explicit choice — submit a bond transaction with your earned ASE to compound.
For founding validators: rewards flow into the vesting pool. The vested portion releases automatically each block to the validator's wallet — no manual claim, no privileged keys, just deterministic chain math.
Read next