Stakeholder Emissions: Root

updated Feb 3

How we got to this step of Emissions

Step 1: Subnet Emission Distribution: How emitted tao is split amongst the subnets

Step 2: Alpha Emission: How the emitted alpha is split between the Subnet pool and subnet participants.

Step 3: Emissions for Validators: How the Subnet emission is divided amongst all the validators.

Step 4: Emission for Parent/Child Hotkeys: On each subnet, determine the rewards for each validator. This sums across all parent and child hotkeys. The validator’s take is removed.

Step 5: Emissions: Root vs. Alpha Stake: Divide the validator’s dividends into a root proportion and an alpha proportion

Root Emissions:

Stakeholders on root place their delegation of tao on a root validator.

• For every subnet the validator is active: stakeholders will earn a proportion of the rewards.
• Root staking will have lower returns over time, as stakeholder emission is split between alpha and root stakeholders (see Emissions: Root vs. Alpha Stake
• Under Root Reborn, the origin subnet’s root emission is still auto-sold from alpha to TAO each cycle — but that TAO is no longer paid out to root stakers. Instead it is immediately re-bought into a basket of subnets curated by your validator and held as compounding subnet-alpha exposure. You realise it to TAO on demand with a single manual claim_root call. There is no more auto-compounding onto root stake, and no “keep vs. swap” option.

Pre- dTao analogy

Pre-dTao, staking was done to a validator.

• Rewards were earned across all subnets the validator was active.

dTao: this is staking to a validator on root.

Calculating Root Emission

Step 1: The validator take is removed from the root emission and awarded to the validator’s hotkey.

Step 2: The remaining root emission for each stakeholder flows through their validator’s basket vector: it is auto-sold to TAO on the origin subnet, then re-bought across the subnets the validator has weighted, and held in an escrow basket as fund shares. Stakeholders redeem their share back to TAO whenever they choose with claim_root. See Root Validator Baskets and the full Root Reborn explainer for the mechanics.