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How the Economic Engine Works

Every transaction on Incentiv pays gas fees. These fees split at the protocol level: a portion goes directly to miners as immediate block rewards, and the remainder enters a unified reward pool distributed weekly to all contributor roles. The pool recognizes five distinct stakeholder types: miners, developers, users, liquidity providers, and bundlers. Each role is scored independently on metrics specific to their contribution type. At the end of each epoch, rewards are distributed proportionally based on these scores. Because scoring resets weekly and uses multiple metrics per role, no single actor can accumulate permanent advantage. New participants can compete immediately, and consistent contribution matters more than early positioning.

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Why This Model Exists

Traditional blockchain economics create extraction dynamics. Miners extract from users. Protocols extract from traders. Platforms extract from developers. One party’s gain becomes another’s loss. Incentiv+ inverts this relationship. Fees are not extraction — they are contribution to a shared pool that flows back to those who generate network value. A developer whose contracts process high volume isn’t just paying gas; they’re earning a share of the developer pool. A user who transacts frequently isn’t just spending fees; they’re accumulating score toward user rewards. This alignment means that when the network succeeds, all contributor types succeed proportionally. There are no adversarial dynamics between roles.

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The Five Stakeholder Roles

The unified reward pool divides among five roles, each essential to network function: Miners secure the chain through Proof-of-Work block production. They receive both immediate block rewards and weekly participation rewards based on uptime and network contribution. Developers build applications that give users reasons to transact. Their rewards scale with the usage their contracts generate — volume processed, transactions handled, and unique wallets served. Users drive the fundamental demand signal through transaction activity. Active users who transact frequently across multiple applications earn back a portion of their fees. Liquidity Providers supply capital to DEXes and lending protocols, enabling the DeFi functionality that drives transaction volume. Their rewards reflect depth, duration, and utilization of provided liquidity. Bundlers aggregate Account Abstraction user operations and ensure efficient inclusion. Their rewards reflect operational volume, gas efficiency, and reliability. Each role competes only within itself. Developers don’t compete with miners for rewards; each has a dedicated allocation. This prevents any single role from cannibalizing another while ensuring all roles benefit from overall network growth. Unified Reward Pool Jpe

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Incentiv+ as Part of the Protocol Architecture

Because the economic engine integrates at the protocol level:
  • Fee splitting happens automatically on every transaction
  • Scoring uses on-chain data, making calculations transparent and verifiable
  • Distribution occurs through smart contracts without manual intervention
  • Parameters are governance-adjustable as the ecosystem matures
The economic layer is not an application built on Incentiv — it is part of how Incentiv works. Every transaction, every block, every epoch participates in the contribution-recognition system automatically. Incentiv+ is not a feature you opt into. It is the economic reality of participating in the network.
Fee Mechanism Incentiv uses a gas-based fee model where every transaction pays for the computational resources it consumes. Unlike networks that treat fees purely as miner compensation or burn mechanisms, Incentiv splits fees between immediate block rewards and a unified pool that flows back to all network contributors. This approach ensures that paying fees is not just a cost — it is participation in the network’s economic engine.

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How Fees Are Calculated

Transaction fees follow standard EVM gas mechanics: 
Fee = Gas Used x Gas Price
The gas price is set by network consensus and adjusts based on demand. Current network parameters target a base fee of approximately $0.03 USD for simple transfers, making everyday transactions accessible while generating meaningful pool contributions from high-activity participants. A typical user operation consuming 550,000 gas units at current prices costs approximately 45.93 CENT. More complex operations cost proportionally more; simpler transfers cost less.

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How Fees Split

All transaction fees divide at the protocol level into two streams: Miner Block Rewards (12.5%) flow immediately to the block producer. This ensures miners receive direct compensation for the security-critical function of block production without waiting for epoch boundaries. Unified Reward Pool (87.5%) accumulates throughout the epoch and distributes weekly to all contributor roles based on their measured contribution scores. This split happens automatically on every transaction. There is no opt-in, no configuration, no special transaction type. The economic engine processes every fee according to the same logic.

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Why Gas-Based Rather Than Value-Based

Early Incentiv designs explored value-based fees — progressive brackets applied to transaction value, similar to tax brackets. The logic was appealing: larger economic transfers would contribute proportionally more to the reward pool. Implementation revealed practical challenges. Calculating marginal rates added computational overhead. Determining transaction “value” for batched operations, contract calls, and AA user operations required complex classification logic. Price oracle dependencies introduced latency and manipulation surface at the consensus layer. Gas-based fees achieve the same economic goals with cleaner execution. High-complexity operations that consume more resources pay more. The circular economy functions identically. The allocation percentages remain unchanged. What changed is the input mechanism — and that change simplified implementation while aligning with established EVM patterns. The value-based model remains a governance-addressable evolution path if future conditions warrant it.

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Fee Flow Through the System

When a user submits an operation:
  1. The transaction executes and consumes gas
  2. The fee calculates as gas used multiplied by gas price
  3. 12.5% transfers immediately to the block producer’s coinbase address
  4. 87.5% credits to the unified reward pool contract
  5. At epoch end, the pool distributes to all roles based on contribution scores
From the user’s perspective, they pay one fee. From the protocol’s perspective, that fee becomes two streams serving different functions — immediate security compensation and deferred contribution recognition.

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Current Network Parameters

ParameterValue
Target base fee (simple transfer)~$0.03 USD
Average gas per user operation~550,000 units
Current gas price~40,000 gwei
Block reward share12.5%
Unified pool share87.5%
All parameters are subject to governance adjustment as the network matures and usage patterns emerge.

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Stakeholder Roles The unified reward pool recognizes five distinct contributor types, each performing essential functions for network health. Rather than concentrating rewards in a single class of participants, Incentiv+ distributes value across the full ecosystem of contributors. Each role has a dedicated allocation from the pool and competes only within itself. Developers don’t compete with miners; users don’t compete with liquidity providers. This isolation ensures that growth in one category doesn’t cannibalize another while all roles benefit from increased overall network activity.

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Miners

Miners secure the network through Ethash Proof-of-Work block production. They receive compensation through two channels: Block Rewards (12.5% of all fees) pay immediately upon successful block production. This direct compensation ensures miners receive value for the security-critical function of extending the chain without waiting for epoch boundaries. Participation Rewards (12.5% of unified pool) distribute weekly based on contribution scores. Miners earn higher scores through consistent uptime, reliable block production, and network participation behaviors that benefit chain health. Combined, miners receive 25% of all network fees — split between immediate and deferred compensation. This dual structure rewards both the act of mining and the quality of mining behavior.

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Developers

Developers build the applications that give users reasons to transact. Their rewards scale directly with the usage their deployed contracts generate. The developer pool (28% of unified pool) distributes based on four metrics: volume processed through contracts, transaction count handled, unique wallets served, and CENT token holdings. This combination ensures that both high-value applications and high-frequency applications receive recognition, while token holdings signal long-term ecosystem commitment. A developer’s reward depends not on deploying code but on that code being used. Contracts that attract users, process volume, and drive economic activity earn proportionally. This creates continuous alignment between developer success and network utility.

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Users

Users drive the fundamental demand signal that makes the network valuable. Without transaction activity, there are no fees, no pool, and no rewards for anyone. The user pool (18% of unified pool) distributes based on transaction behavior: volume transacted, transaction frequency, fees paid, dApp diversity, and CENT holdings. Users who transact frequently across multiple applications score higher than those who concentrate activity in single contracts. Active users effectively earn back a portion of their fees. The more they contribute to network activity, the larger their share of the user pool. This transforms users from pure cost-bearers into stakeholders who benefit from their own participation.

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Liquidity Providers

Liquidity providers supply capital to DEXes, lending protocols, and other DeFi applications. Without liquidity, trading doesn’t function, lending doesn’t scale, and the economic activity that generates fees cannot occur. The LP pool (20% of unified pool) distributes based on four metrics: volume facilitated through provided liquidity, transaction count supported, duration of liquidity provision, and total capital deployed. This weighting rewards not just capital size but capital commitment — liquidity that stays and works earns more than liquidity that arrives and leaves. LP rewards are additive to application-level yields. A liquidity provider earns trading fees from the DEX, interest from lending protocols, and protocol-level rewards from Incentiv+ simultaneously.

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Bundlers

Bundlers are infrastructure operators who aggregate Account Abstraction user operations and submit them efficiently to the network. They ensure that AA functionality works reliably and that user operations achieve inclusion. The bundler pool (9% of unified pool) distributes based on operational metrics: user operations processed, gas efficiency achieved, inclusion success rate, and operation diversity. Bundlers who process more operations, achieve better gas optimization, and maintain high reliability score higher. The smaller allocation reflects that bundlers often have alternative revenue streams through service fees. Protocol rewards supplement rather than replace bundler business models, ensuring that critical AA infrastructure remains economically viable.

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Why Five Roles

The five-role model reflects the reality that healthy blockchain ecosystems require diverse contributions. Security alone doesn’t create value. Applications alone don’t secure the chain. Users alone don’t build infrastructure. By recognizing and rewarding each contribution type explicitly, Incentiv+ creates aligned incentives across the full ecosystem. When the network grows, all roles benefit proportionally. When any role underperforms, the network suffers and all rewards decrease. This interdependence is the point. The economic engine doesn’t pick winners — it ensures that everyone who contributes to network success shares in that success.