Node operators process transactions and receive token incentives. These independently owned high-spec node machines around the world are connected via Internet Computer Protocol (ICP), creating a self-sovereign network not reliant on any cloud services. Advanced cryptography allows any application or service to be run on the network in a decentralized manner via smart contracts.

The Internet Computer is a decentralized cloud blockchain, where apps can be built fully onchain, using AI, or by coding. Try caffeine.ai & icp.ninja.

ICP tokenholders own and govern the protocol. They currently take (burn) all of the total transaction fees paid by users (revenue). ICP Holders can stake their ICP on the Network Nervous System (NNS), an advanced fully on-chain DAO that facilitates liquid democracy. Staking ICP allows users to submit proposals, vote on proposals, and earn rewards for their participation in governance. Internet Computer's investors include Polychain, Scalar Capital, Amino Capital, etc.

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Blockchains (L1)

Internet Computer

# Internet Computer Expenses Methodology

## 1. Overview

The Internet Computer expenses metric measures the total daily USD value of token incentives distributed by the Internet Computer network. This includes both governance rewards (distributed to participants in network governance) and node rewards (distributed to node operators). The metric captures the network's operational expenses in the form of ICP token distributions and represents the cost of maintaining and securing the Internet Computer blockchain.

## 2. Data sources

- **Governance rewards data**: Raw daily governance reward distribution data collected by dedicated scrapers from the Internet Computer network
- **Node rewards data**: Raw daily node reward distribution data collected by dedicated scrapers from the Internet Computer network  
- **Token price feeds**: End-of-day price feeds from CoinGecko for the ICP token (identified as 'internet-computer')
- **Token metadata**: ICP token configuration including 8-decimal precision specification

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Governance rewards processing
- **Purpose**: Extract and normalize daily governance reward distributions
- **Logic**: Raw governance rewards data is fetched from scraper sources and deduplicated by timestamp, keeping only the most recent record for each day to handle potential data refreshes. Raw values are converted from ICP's 8-decimal token units to whole tokens by dividing by 10^8. Each record is classified as 'Governance rewards' incentive type and tagged with ICP token symbol and CoinGecko identifier.
- **Key fields**: Daily timestamp (`daily_timestamp`), reward amount in whole ICP tokens (`amount`), incentive classification (`incentive_type`), and token metadata (`token_symbol`, `coingecko_id`)

### Component B: Node rewards processing  
- **Purpose**: Extract and normalize daily node reward distributions
- **Logic**: Raw node rewards data undergoes identical processing to governance rewards - deduplication by timestamp keeping the latest record, conversion from 8-decimal ICP units to whole tokens, and classification as 'Node rewards' incentive type with appropriate token metadata tagging.
- **Key fields**: Daily timestamp (`daily_timestamp`), reward amount in whole ICP tokens (`amount`), incentive classification (`incentive_type`), and token metadata (`token_symbol`, `coingecko_id`)

### Component C: Token incentives aggregation
- **Purpose**: Combine all reward types and convert to USD
- **Logic**: Governance and node rewards are unioned into a single dataset with consistent business categorization (Blockchain business line, blockchains_l1 market sector, blockchain business segment). The combined ICP token amounts are converted to USD values using end-of-day CoinGecko price feeds matched by the 'internet-computer' token identifier.
- **Key fields**: Combined token incentive amounts in USD (`token_incentives`), business classification fields, and standardized timestamp formatting

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: All USD-converted token incentives (governance + node rewards) are summed by day
- **Currency conversion**: ICP token amounts converted to USD using end-of-day CoinGecko prices for 'internet-computer' token
- **Time aggregation**: Daily boundary logic with gap filling strategy that inserts zero values for missing dates
- **Final calculation**: The `token_incentives` field is renamed to `expenses` to represent the total daily USD value of all ICP token distributions as network operational expenses

*This methodology was automatically generated by Token Terminal's methodology analyzer.*

Total project operating and incentive expenses.

Internet ComputerICP

Expenses

Expenses

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