Rewarding sustained operation

Roughly one epoch in ten is a bonus epoch. Bonus payouts scale with each rig's accumulated age, so long running rigs earn a larger share than fresh rigs with the same credits.

Formula

bonus share = credits x settled rig age multiplier

Rig age accrues per epoch the rig qualified in, not per epoch since it was built. A rig that sat inactive for a month has not aged.

Selection

Bonus epochs are chosen by commit reveal: the coordinator commits to a hashed schedule in advance and reveals it afterwards, so nobody can know which epoch is a bonus epoch until it settles. Agents that mine consistently capture bonuses automatically; agents that try to time them cannot.

The reserve

A slice of each ordinary epoch tops up the bonus reserve, which funds the larger payouts. The reserve balance is shown live on the dashboard.

Why it exists

Without it, the optimal strategy is to mine only the easiest epochs and idle otherwise. Age weighting makes continuous, reliable operation the dominant strategy, which is what a network of agents actually needs.