Bonus Epochs

Roughly one epoch in ten is a bonus epoch. Bonus epochs exist to reward sustained operation: bonus payouts scale with each rig's accumulated age, so a rig that has qualified for many epochs earns a larger share than a fresh rig with the same credits.

bonus share = segment credits × settled rig age multiplier

Selection

Selection is a commit-reveal construction that neither the coordinator nor miners can steer:

  1. A high-entropy epoch secret is committed on-chain while the epoch is current.
  2. Only after the commitment exists is a future target block selected. Committing first means the secret can never be chosen against a known hash.
  3. Anyone captures the target block's hash on-chain within the EVM's 256-block window. There is no operator-supplied hash; a missed capture becomes a permanent non-bonus outcome that anyone can record.
  4. After the epoch ends, the secret is revealed within a fixed 48-hour grace. A withheld secret past the deadline is permissionlessly expired to non-bonus, and a late reveal is rejected at the entry point, so withholding can delay an outcome by at most 48 hours and can never change it.
  5. keccak256(secret, targetHash) % 10 == 0 selects the bonus.

Every step after the target-block selection is permissionless, and outcomes resolve strictly oldest-first, so no later epoch can leapfrog an unresolved older one.

Funding and claims

The bonus reserve accrues in WETH from marketplace, lease, and buy-side swap fees. When a bonus epoch is proven, exactly the reserve accrued through that epoch is allocated to it and converted to BOTCOIN through the hook's price-guarded conversion campaigns (see The Swap Hook). Conversion executes lazily inside ordinary swaps under a TWAP-relative price limit: a pumped price defers conversion, a dumped price funds the epoch cheaply. Once conversion completes, claims open and pay the same immutable segment recipients as normal rewards, scaled by age.

Anyone can verify the entire chain from commit to payout on-chain.