Reward Mechanism v2

This section describes the Reward Distribution Mechanism that will be used to distribute $WXM rewards to station owners for contributing weather data to the network. It is a unique, fair and transparent algorithm.

Reward Distribution Mechanism

The reward distribution mechanism has three parts:

• The reward algorithm which calculates the reward_score for each weather station by evaluating a number of parameters:
  • Quality-of-Data (QoD),
  • Hardware Class (HC) and
  • Proof-of-Location (PoL)
• The daily RewardPool funding with the rewards
• The rewards claims by the station owners

High level flow

The daily available rewards for station owners are 14246 $WXM.

Every day, the reward algorithm assesses the performance of all weather stations, it creates a Merkle tree containing the rewards every station owner can claim, and the root hash is submitted to the RewardPool. The total claimable amount (including past unclaimed amounts) is also made available in the RewardPool.

Users can claim their rewards by using the Merkle proof. They don't have to claim their rewards on a daily basis and at any point in time they can claim all, or part of them.

Important Notes

• Connecting a wallet is mandatory to receive rewards. If a user has not connected a wallet, the rewards will be lost.
• The QoD should be over a specific threshold for the station to be rewardable.

How Often does the Reward Algorithm run?

The algorithm runs every day to reward weather stations that were actively sending data to the network for the previous day.

Calculation of the Reward Score

reward_score = reward_algorithm(QoD, HC, PoL), score ∈[0,1]

WSoST = number of weather stations with reward score over a predefined threshold

max_station_reward = daily_available_rewards / WSoST

daily_reward(i) = max_station_reward * reward_score(i), for station i.

Explanation

Every day, each station gets a reward_score based on data of the previous day. More specifically, the reward algorithm takes into account the following parameters:

• Quality of Data: The weather dataset containing information from the preceding day undergoes evaluation using a series of algorithms, generating a Quality-of-Data score for each weather station. The QoD score depends on how good are the data (for example, the station is deployed according to the WeatherXM guidelines), as well as the number of data points submitted.
• Hardware Class: Each type of approved hardware (weather station) will be assigned a specific hardware class. Hardware Classes will be used in the future to award more tokens to weather station hardware that has special capabilities, increased sensor accuracy or range, new sensor types and other capabilities that make them more valuable to the network.
• Location: WeatherXM places great importance on station continuity, necessitating that a station remains stationed at a single location for its entire duration. When a station undergoes relocation, its seniority is reset, aiming to discourage frequent movements by imposing a relocation fee upon the Network.

Each cell has a pre-defined cell capacity that depends on its weather characteristics. The cell capacity is the maximum number of stations that may receive rewards in a specific cell. If more than N=cell capacity stations are active in a cell during a specific day, the first N stations (ordered first by reward_score, then by seniority) will receive rewards. In over-crowded cells, while senior stations have a small advantage, it is important to point out that a newer station with better data will receive rewards before a senior station with lower quality data.

For example:

If the capacity of a cell is 5, but has 6 stations with a random reward_score, then only the first 5 devices with the highest reward_score will be rewarded. If there are two stations in the 5th place, with exactly the same station_reward_score, then the more senior of the two will get the rewards

To read more please see our whitepaper

Claiming Rewards

Station owners have the freedom to claim their rewards at their discretion, without any time restrictions or other limitations.

Each owner may initiate the claiming process by signing a claim transaction using the private key that corresponds to the blockchain address they have connected to their station. A user-friendly front-end that can be used in conjunction with a wallet like Metamask will be provided, but station owners can also interact programmatically with the RewardPool smart contract to claim their rewards directly.

Reward Mechanism Characteristics

Fair, Transparent and Verifiable processes

The technical stack that will be used to perform the daily rewarding is being designed to be transparent, fair and verifiable.

Transparent

Data collected by the weather stations as well as the daily Merkle tree will be publicly available on IPFS and/or other decentralised file storage services. Global real time weather data is already available through the WeatherXM explorer. The WeatherXM explorer will continue to be enriched with network data, serving as the main source of truth in regards to the network's status. The code of all smart contracts used to emit and distribute tokens will be made public. Daily rewards distribution will be performed on-chain and all transactions will be publicly available using the blockchain explorer of the network that our smart contracts are or will be deployed on.

Fair

All rewards will be distributed according to the rules and methods defined in this document and any changes will be publicly discussed before decisions are made.

Verifiable

All individual scores that lead to the final reward, if reproduced, will produce the same result. For as long as WeatherXM AG is responsible to calculate these scores and distribute the rewards, all required software, configuration and other technical details needed by a third party to reproduce and validate them, will be made publicly available. All relevant software created by WeatherXM AG for this purpose will be developed and distributed under an open source licence.

note

More on reward claiming.