Validators process transactions and receive fees from users (supply-side fees).

Kusama is a security & interoperability platform for blockchains and applications. Kusama was founded by Gavin Wood and launched in 2019.

KSM holders own and govern the protocol. They currently take a cut of the total transaction fees paid by users (revenue).

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Blockchains (L1)

Kusama

# Kusama Token incentives Methodology

## 1. Overview

Token incentives for Kusama represents the daily amount of KSM tokens distributed as staking rewards to validators and nominators participating in the network's consensus mechanism. This metric captures the native token inflation used to incentivize network security and measures the cost of maintaining the blockchain's proof-of-stake consensus. The calculation aggregates all staking reward events from the Kusama blockchain and converts them to USD for standardized reporting.

## 2. Data sources

- **Kusama blockchain events**: Parsed events from the `staking` pallet containing reward distributions to validators and nominators
- **Token metadata**: KSM token configuration including decimal precision (12 decimals) and CoinGecko identifier
- **End-of-day price feeds**: CoinGecko daily price data for KSM token USD conversion
- **Chain availability data**: Token Terminal's internal configuration for chain availability filtering

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Staking reward extraction
- **Purpose**: Extract all staking reward events from Kusama blockchain data, handling historical schema changes
- **Logic**: Query Kusama blockchain events for staking pallet rewards using three separate approaches to handle schema evolution. For events after block 21570045 and date 2021-08-26, extract `Rewarded` events using the third position in the event data array. For events before block 21570045 but after 2021-08-26, extract `Rewarded` events using the second position in the event data array. For historical events before 2021-08-26, extract `Reward` events using the second position in the event data array. Convert raw reward amounts from Planck units to KSM tokens by dividing by 1e12 to account for KSM's 12 decimal precision.
- **Key fields**: `block_timestamp` for timing, `amount` for reward quantity, `event_pallet` filtered to 'staking', `event_method` filtered to 'Rewarded' or 'Reward', `event_data` array containing reward amounts

### Component B: Daily aggregation
- **Purpose**: Aggregate individual reward events into daily totals while preserving metadata structure
- **Logic**: Group all extracted staking reward events by day using timestamp truncation. Sum all individual reward amounts within each day to calculate total daily token incentives. Preserve chain identifier, business classification fields, and token metadata throughout the aggregation process. Apply Token Terminal's standard business categorization with 'Blockchain' as business line, 'blockchains_l1' as market sector, and 'blockchain' as business segment.
- **Key fields**: `daily_timestamp` for time grouping, `token_incentives` for aggregated reward amounts, `token_symbol` set to 'KSM', `coingecko_id` set to 'kusama'

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: Sum all individual staking reward events within each daily period to create comprehensive daily incentive totals
- **Currency conversion**: Convert daily KSM token amounts to USD using CoinGecko end-of-day prices matched by date and kusama token identifier through the `convert_to_usd_cg` macro
- **Time aggregation**: Use daily boundaries defined by timestamp truncation to day granularity, ensuring consistent daily reporting periods
- **Final calculation**: The final token incentives value represents the total USD value of all KSM staking rewards distributed on each day, calculated as the sum of (individual reward amount ÷ 1e12) × daily KSM price for all reward events within that day. Missing days are filled with zero values to maintain continuous time series, and results are filtered based on chain availability configuration.

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

Value of native tokens distributed as incentives.

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Token incentives

Token incentives

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