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Staking $ZERO

Staking is how holding $ZERO turns into recurring value. A single stake does three things at once:

  • Earns USDC — your share of the staker-rewards half of the treasury.
  • Grants free credits — a daily allowance of credits, drawn before any paid credits.
  • Boosts worker pay — workers over the threshold earn a bigger cut on every job.

Set it up on the staking page. Your $ZERO stays in your own on-chain vault — only you can unstake or claim, no server holds your funds.

How staking works​

  • Stake any amount of $ZERO from the staking page.
  • A deposit must age 24 hours before it starts earning or counting toward any perk. This stops anyone from staking right before a payout and sniping it — each deposit ages on its own clock, so only the matured portion counts.
  • You can unstake at any time. Withdrawing your full balance is always allowed; partial unstakes have a small minimum. Unstaking pulls your newest deposits first, so your aged stake keeps earning.

Staker rewards (USDC)​

Half of all network revenue is paid to stakers in USDC, once a day.

  • Rewards are shared across stakers in proportion to how much each has staked (matured stake only).
  • Paid straight to your on-chain reward vault — claim it any time from the staking page.
  • Watch the pool fill and pay out live on the treasury page.

Stake to use — free daily credits​

Staking $ZERO doesn't only earn USDC — it also gives you free credits every day (the same credits that pay for inference). Each day the network sets aside a pool of free credits for stakers, and your share is proportional to your stake: your matured stake ÷ the matured stake of all active stakers × the pool. Your prompts draw from these free credits first, before any you've paid for — so an active staker can run real workloads without spending USDC.

  • Refreshes daily at 00:00 UTC — use it or lose it.
  • Active stakers only — you qualify if you've made a request in the last 7 days, so the free credits concentrate on people actually using the network, not idle farmers.
  • Same 24h maturity as rewards: a deposit must age 24h before it counts.
  • The daily pool is a fixed size, so the perk scales with the network rather than draining the treasury.

You can see your remaining allowance on the staking page and next to your credit balance in the app.

Worker boost​

Workers who stake at least 1,000,000 $ZERO (held for 24h) earn a higher revenue share on every job they complete — 80% instead of 70%. So if you run a worker, staking pays you twice: the staker rewards, plus a bigger cut of each job.

See the worker guide to start earning.

How it all fits together​

Staking sits inside the wider $ZERO loop — network revenue funds buybacks, staker rewards, and the free-credits pool. See The $ZERO Token for the full economy.