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

Polkadot is a security & interoperability platform for blockchains and applications. Polkadot was founded by Gavin Wood and launched in 2020.

DOT holders own and govern the protocol. They currently take a cut of the total transaction fees paid by users (revenue). Polkadot’s investors include Polychain, IOSG Ventures, Hashkey, etc.

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Polkadot

# Polkadot Token incentives Methodology

## 1. Overview

The Polkadot token incentives metric measures the total daily value of DOT tokens distributed as rewards across Polkadot's multi-chain ecosystem. This metric captures staking rewards, system parachain incentives, and other token distributions, providing insight into the protocol's token emission and validator/nominator rewards. The calculation accounts for Polkadot's architectural evolution, including the Asset Hub Migration on November 3, 2025, when staking operations moved from the Relay Chain to Asset Hub.

## 2. Data sources

- **Polkadot Relay Chain events**: Blockchain event logs from the Polkadot Relay Chain containing staking reward distributions and child bounty claims
- **Polkadot Asset Hub events**: Blockchain event logs from the Polkadot Asset Hub containing post-migration staking rewards (after November 3, 2025)
- **Token price feeds**: End-of-day DOT token price data for USD conversion
- **Event data structure**: Parsed blockchain events with structured JSON data arrays containing reward amounts and recipient information

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Relay chain staking incentives
- **Purpose**: Captures staking rewards distributed on the Polkadot Relay Chain before and during the Asset Hub transition
- **Logic**: Extracts events from the `staking` pallet with method `Rewarded` (for events after September 7, 2021) and legacy `Reward` method (for earlier events). Handles schema changes where the amount field location changed from `event_data[1]` to `event_data[2]` at block 19550701. Filters events to specific date ranges and block numbers to account for protocol upgrades. Converts amounts from smallest DOT units by dividing by 1e10
- **Key fields**: `block_timestamp` for daily aggregation, `amount` from event data arrays, `event_pallet` and `event_method` for filtering reward events

### Component B: Asset hub staking incentives  
- **Purpose**: Captures staking rewards distributed on Asset Hub after the migration on November 3, 2025
- **Logic**: Extracts `Rewarded` events from the `staking` pallet specifically from Asset Hub blockchain events, but only for timestamps after the Asset Hub Migration date. This reflects the architectural change where staking operations moved from Relay Chain to Asset Hub. Converts amounts using the same 1e10 divisor for decimal standardization
- **Key fields**: `block_timestamp` for date filtering and aggregation, `amount` from `event_data[2]`, `event_pallet` and `event_method` for identifying staking rewards

### Component C: System parachain incentives
- **Purpose**: Captures rewards from Polkadot's system parachain bounty programs
- **Logic**: Extracts `Claimed` events from the `childBounties` pallet, specifically filtering for bounty ID 32 (from `event_data[0]`). This targets a specific system parachain reward program. Applies the same decimal conversion by dividing the amount by 1e10
- **Key fields**: `block_timestamp` for aggregation, `amount` from `event_data[2]`, bounty ID from `event_data[0]` for filtering specific programs

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: All three incentive components are combined using union operations, with each maintaining consistent schema including daily timestamps, chain identifiers, and converted DOT amounts
- **Currency conversion**: DOT amounts are converted to USD by joining with end-of-day price feeds on timestamp and chain, multiplying the DOT amount by the corresponding USD price
- **Time aggregation**: All blockchain events are truncated to daily boundaries using `timestamp_trunc` for consistent daily aggregation across all components
- **Final calculation**: The metric represents the sum of all DOT token incentives distributed daily across Relay Chain staking, Asset Hub staking (post-migration), and system parachain bounties, expressed in USD value using end-of-day conversion rates

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

Value of native tokens distributed as incentives.

PolkadotDOT

Token incentives

Token incentives

Competitive landscape

Chain breakdown