Storage Providers are paid base fees for capacity used, this is called Price

Additional funds called Incentives are available for desirable qualities. We envision a network with a broad configuration of Providers, each with a slightly different profile and ability to earn different fees. Future earnings may be based on Latency/Performance, Compliance Auditability, desirable Geolocation, Continuous Time in Service, etc. There are other potentially useful stats that can be incentivized like Collateral Available or Offered. Watch this page for details of which Incentives are available and how they are paid. Providers can view their personal Telemetry Detail page to see how they are being compensated.

The base requirement to gain Incentives is adherence to pricing guidelines which help bound cost certainty while allowing market forces to determine exact costing.  Providers may set Price as high or as low as they desire and earn base fees, but our client software favors Providers within the boundaries. This ensures the network is permissionless, yet driven by financial incentives and it also limits tendencies toward centralization and unfair advantage as we see in Bitcoin consensus mining as an extreme example.

There is no need to “sign-up” to provide storage or to earn Incentives today, though higher paying tiers may soon require KYC and higher disclosure. Keep this page bookmarked to stay on top of changes to the program.

Current Incentives Guidelines
Follow Price Guideline to participate in the Incentive program

Calculations
Used Space pays 125 SCP/TB/Mo*
Continuous Time in Service Multiplier – Not Used Yet
Location – Not Used Yet
Performance – Not Used Yet
Auditability – Not Used Yet

*The Used Space Incentive was originally a direct calculation from Price, but the project froze the numbers in Q4 of 2021 to reward longstanding participants who help build and grow the network. When the network grew 10x almost overnight in Dec/2021, the frozen number was cited as one of the reasons to join the network, but the project had said when the numbers were frozen that it was a temporary move. In causing the least amount of disruption, the project has agreed to bring the number down gradually to be where it should be by the end of 2021. It declined by 10 SCP/TB/Mo every month in 2022 as shown in the tables below until it was frozen in the summer due to rapid SCP price decline.

Update 2023 – After 1 year of freezing the Incentive decline, the project has begun the gradual decline dropping 10SCP/TB on 9/1/2023. Going forward, a decision has been made to make the drop 5SCP/month until Incentives are in the neighborhood of $1.00 as originally intended.