AntiQua pays for it. 4,000,000 AQA – 7.14 % of the total supply – belong to the Relay Reward Lottery, and the rules are enforced by consensus, not by a server we run.

How it works

Every block from height 5 onwards can pay 1.5 AQA to exactly one registered relay node. The payout is the second output of that block's coinbase, right next to the miner's reward – as public and verifiable as any other transaction.

Who wins is not decided by us and not by a queue:

1. All eligible candidates are sorted by their payout address
2. The winner's index is drawn from SHAKE-256 over the previous block's hash, with its own domain tag AQA/RELAY-LOTTERY-IDX/v1
3. Every node computes the same winner and rejects a block that pays someone else

If there is no eligible candidate, nobody gets a relay payout for that block – and the miner keeps the fees untouched.

How to register

Registration is an on-chain transaction, not a setting in a config file. It carries three things:

Bond	at least 0.5 AQA, locked in a dedicated output. The coin must already belong to your payout address, and coinbase coins need their 100 confirmations first
Proof-of-work	a RandomX (light) proof with its own domain AQA/RELAY-REG-POW/v3, over a block hash from the last 12 blocks. Difficulty scales with the number of candidates (target: 100)
Ownership proof	the transaction must spend a coin that belongs to the payout address, so nobody can register an address they don't control

In the desktop wallet that's the Node Rewards view; the CLI equivalent is relay register <payout address> after loading your wallet.

Not on Android. The Android build has no RandomX, so registration there fails by design. Use the desktop wallet or the CLI.

From registration to your first chance

Block H        registration is included
H + 6          activation_height – the candidate exists
H + 12         first block you can actually win (bias guard)
H + 1,440      registration expires (~10 days mainnet, ~2 days testnet)

After a win, your payout address has to sit out 144 blocks – about a day on mainnet – before it can win again. So a single node cannot collect block after block, and an expired registration simply drops out: the reward follows nodes that are actually online.

What it pays, and for how long

The budget is not created in one block like the ecosystem funds. It trickles out block by block, and every node tracks exactly how much has been emitted so far.

What protects the draw – and what doesn't

Honest engineering means naming the limits too.

What is protected:

• The bond makes mass registration expensive, and the proof-of-work makes it slow
• At most 5 registrations per block, and at most 32 waiting in the mempool
• Activation delay and bias guard (6 + 6 blocks) stop last-minute registrations aimed at the very next draw
• Cooldown of 144 blocks per payout address
• Fail-closed validation: if a node cannot check the bond, the block is rejected. A coinbase paying the wrong winner, or paying the miner too much, is invalid

What is not fully solved, and we say so openly:

• The draw uses the previous block's hash. A miner who is building that previous block can, in principle, grind it so that the next block favours their own node. This is a known, documented limitation of the current design, not an oversight. The bias guard does not remove it.

We consider that acceptable for now: the gain per block is 1.5 AQA, grinding costs real hashing, and the cooldown caps how often one address can benefit. If it ever becomes worthwhile, the seed can be hardened – and any such change would be announced in the Core Changelog first.

How to check it yourself

• Block detail in the explorer shows the relay winner and whether the payout came from the budget or from the fee fallback
• Coinbase breakdown of the block carries relay_lottery_sat and the winner address
• In the desktop wallet: the Node Rewards view shows candidates, budget and your own status

Where it fits in

Who	Gets paid	From
Miners	block reward + all fees in the block	42,000,000 AQA over the halvings
Relay nodes	1.5 AQA per block	4,000,000 AQA, then 5 % of fees
Ecosystem funds	one-time, in blocks #1–#4	10,000,000 AQA

More: AntiQua Tokenomics · How Fees Work

Questions?

Wondering whether your VPS is enough, how long the registration proof-of-work takes, or what happens when your node goes offline? Ask below.

— Blythex