Performance Requirements

Staking MNTx into a node is the entry condition for reward eligibility, but it is not the only one. The network also requires that staking participants actively contribute to network performance. Capital commitment alone is not sufficient.

Participants who fail to perform are removed from reward distributions in proportion to their time offline. This is not a binary penalty. A node that is offline for half an epoch does not lose its entire reward allocation for that period - it loses a proportional share reflecting the time it was not contributing to the network. The longer a node is offline within a given epoch, the greater the reduction to its reward entitlement.

This design has a direct consequence for how the infrastructure economy functions. Rewards are not a passive return on staked capital. They are earned through reliable, continuous operation. A node that is staked but consistently underperforming will receive meaningfully less than one maintaining strong uptime, even if both hold identical staking positions.

For node operators, this creates a clear operational standard. Maintaining uptime, ensuring connectivity, and keeping nodes responsive throughout each epoch are not optional, they are the conditions under which the full reward entitlement is earned. Managed hosting arrangements exist in part to help operators who cannot guarantee consistent self-hosted uptime meet these requirements without sacrificing reward performance.

The performance requirement also reinforces the integrity of the network itself. Carriers depend on the node infrastructure to route and validate live voice traffic to a consistent standard. A reward model that ties distributions to active contribution rather than passive staking ensures that the participants earning from the network are the same ones keeping it operational.