The ARK blockchain will officially begin producing forging rewards starting with block 75,600. We expect to hit this goal on 28th of March 2017, at approximately 22:00 UTC.

The start of forging rewards signals an exciting new phase in the ARK delegate cycle that will see our hard working node administrators compensated for operating a safe and secure network. We wanted to take this time to put out some important information to ensure that our community had all of the information necessary to create a successful delegation that we can all be proud of.

What is Forging?

For those of you who are brand new to ARK, the ARK blockchain uses an incentive mechanism referred to as forging rewards. Think of forging rewards as the equivalent of Bitcoin mining without the expensive and energy hungry server farms.

Currently, the ARK block rewards are set at 0 ARK per block. At block 75,600 that number will change automatically and the ARK blockchain will begin producing new tokens to reward delegates who perform the primary function of consensus for the network. This consensus is formed by the Active Delegation, a group of 51 delegates who have been nominated by their peers (that’s us!). Anyone on the network may choose to register and campaign to be a delegate and anyone with at least 1 ARK can cast a vote (1 ARK is the required fee to cast a vote).

Those delegates in the top 51 in voting are considered ACTIVE delegates and will forge blocks for the network. Those in positions 52 and below are considered relay nodes and will help to secure the network, but will not actively forge rewards.

Each block processed by any of the active 51 delegates will reward 2 ARK to the forging delegate account for their role in running and securing the network. Along with the 2 ARK forging reward, the delegate will also receive the transaction fee’s that were processed during that same block. The following are the current transaction fee’s charged by the network:

basic transaction fee — 0.1 ARK

voting/un-voting — 1 ARK

second passphrase registration — 5 ARK

delegate registration — 25 ARK

Rewards — By the Numbers:

Each day approximately 10,800 total blocks are processed by 51 active delegates.

-1 active delegate processes on average 211 blocks each day

-1 active delegate forges on average (might be a bit more or a bit less depending on missed blocks and average block time):

* 422 new ARK each day

* 12,800 new ARK each month

* 154,030 new ARK each year

- 51 active delegates forge combine on average 7,747,920 new ARK each year!

ARK forging rewards will maintain the same 2 ARK per block forging rate for the foreseeable future. Unlike some other blockchains, ARK will not lower the forging rewards each year or perform halving at any given block, but due to the same reward, inflation will go down each year.

Being an ARK delegate can be a substantial source of revenue and should be taken seriously. Every single person using the ARK network depends on the server infrastructure you provide and is counting on you to outperform all expectations. Remember, you are only an active delegate due to the support and votes of your peers.

Note that upvoting yourself into the active delegation is not enough to forge — you need to register a delegate and run your node on a capable server that can successfully process the blocks assigned to you and maintain a safe and secure infrastructure.

Why is forging awesome? It provides incentive to secure the ARK network, keeps a lot of ARK off the market due to the need for ever increasing vote weight requirements, and it allows the network to reward its most loyal supporters.