igneum/docs/design/payment-routes.md

Payment routes: who pays whom, in what, and what is burned

3 October 2026. Every flow of value the protocol and its surroundings define, drawn once and tabulated once. Rules are from spec 2.5 (emission), 5.1 to 5.4 (fees, pool, jobs) and 7.3 (bridges); the client fee is from the litepaper ("What a miner's hour looks like"). Status: the emission split and the gas routes are implemented and tested on the devnets (docs/evidence.md rows 20, 22); the pool payout, the job market and the bridge are designed. Nothing in this file is a statement about what the coin will be worth.

1. The diagram

flowchart LR
    subgraph payers [Payers]
        U[User sending a transaction]
        E[Emission, new coins per block]
        C1[External customer at launch, rollup or bridge]
        C2[External customer after the proof bridge]
        M[Miner on the official client]
    end

    subgraph protocol [Protocol routes, fixed at genesis]
        BF[Base fee, both gas dimensions]
        PF[Priority fee]
        POOL[Proving pool, 20% of each block]
        JOB[Job fee settled in IGN]
    end

    subgraph recipients [Recipients]
        MINER[Block producer]
        PROV[Shard provers and aggregators]
        APP[Registered app developer]
        BURN((Burn, nobody))
        CO[Operating company]
        PAY[Payout contract on the customer's chain]
    end

    U -- IGN --> BF
    U -- IGN --> PF
    BF --> BURN
    PF -- "80%" --> MINER
    PF -- "80%, the provers' part" --> PROV
    PF -- "20%, per call frame" --> APP
    PF -- "20% of frames with no registration" --> BURN

    E -- "80%" --> MINER
    E -- "20%" --> POOL
    POOL -- "per shard, by consensus proving cost" --> PROV

    C1 -- "customer's currency, on the customer's chain" --> PAY
    PAY -- "keyed by miner address" --> PROV

    C2 -- "IGN, bought or bridged" --> JOB
    JOB -- "90%" --> PROV
    JOB -- "10%" --> BURN

    M -- "1% of rewards, client setting" --> CO

Three things the picture shows by omission. No arrow reaches a treasury, a foundation or a fund, because none exists (spec 5.5, 5.6). No arrow from the protocol reaches the operating company; the only arrow into it is the client fee, which is outside the protocol and avoidable by running another client. No arrow leaves a burn.

2. The table

Flow	Payer	Currency	Recipient	Split	IGN bought?	Burn	Revenue class	Demand for the coin
Gas on Igneum, base fee	The user sending the transaction	IGN	Nobody	100% burned, both dimensions (spec 5.1)	Yes: gas is paid in IGN	The whole base fee	None; a burn is not revenue	Yes: every transaction needs IGN for gas
Gas on Igneum, priority fee	The user	IGN	The block producer and the provers of that block (80%); the registered developer of each contract frame that ran (20%)	80 / 20 (spec 5.2); the provers' part of the 80% follows the proving protocol (forward reference); 20% attributed per call frame by gas; an unregistered frame's share is burned	Yes	Only the unregistered app share	Operator revenue (producer, provers); app revenue (developer)	Yes
Emission to the block producer	New coins, per block, by the schedule of spec 2.5	IGN	The miner of each blue block in the mergeset (a red block in the DAA window pays its 80% to the merging block's miner)	80% of the block's subsidy	No	None	Operator revenue (miner)	No; it is supply, not demand
Internal proving pool	New coins, per block	IGN	Shard provers and aggregators of that block, by consensus proving cost per shard; sortition to 8 provers for 10 s, then open (spec 5.3, 7.2)	20% of the block's subsidy, plus the provers' part of the priority fee's 80%	No	None	Operator revenue (provers)	No
External proving job, at launch	A rollup or bridge on another chain	The customer's own currency, on the customer's chain	The miner who delivered, through a payout contract keyed by miner address (spec 5.4)	100% to the prover; the customer chain's own bond and slashing apply	No	None	Operator revenue (provers), in a currency that is not IGN	No
External proving job, after the proof bridge, settled in IGN	A rollup or bridge	IGN, bought on a market or bridged in through the proof bridge (phase two, spec 7.3; the switch is O-5.2)	The provers who delivered (90%)	90 / 10 (spec 5.4)	Yes	10% of the job fee	Operator revenue (provers)	Yes: the customer must hold IGN to pay
The app share	The user, as part of the priority fee above	IGN	The developer address registered for the contract at deployment; a factory's children inherit its registration (spec 5.2)	20% of the priority fee, per call frame by gas consumed	Yes (it is part of gas)	The share of frames in unregistered contracts	App revenue. The team collects it only on contracts it deploys, like anyone (spec 5.5)	Yes (part of gas)
The client fee	A miner who chooses the official client	IGN, 1% of that miner's rewards (emission and fees)	The operating company	1%; any other client pays 0%	No	None	Team revenue, off-protocol, the only arrow into the company	No; it moves IGN between holders
Burns	Users (base fee, unregistered app share), IGN-settled customers (10% of jobs)	IGN	Nobody	As above	n/a	All of it	None	No arrow; a burn reduces supply and pays nobody, and this file makes no claim about what that does to the price

3. Labels, in one place

Class	Which flows	Who
Operator revenue	Emission to the producer; the pool; the priority fee's 80%; external jobs at launch and after the bridge	Miners and provers, the people running the hardware. 100% of emission and 80% of tips
App revenue	The priority fee's 20%	Whoever registered the contract. The team only where it deployed, as anyone can
Protocol revenue	None	There is no address that the protocol pays. A burn is not revenue
Team revenue	The client fee only, and the team's own mining, proving and app share earned in the open	The operating company; nothing by rule, everything by competition
Demand for the coin	Gas (base fee and priority fee, every transaction); IGN-settled external jobs after the proof bridge	Users and, in phase two, customers. Nothing else in the design creates a reason to hold IGN, and the design does not claim otherwise

4. What is implemented and what is not

Flow	State on 3 October 2026	Evidence
Emission 80 / 20	Implemented in the fork's coinbase; 80/20 exact on 39 of 39 single-payee coinbases on the devnet	docs/evidence.md row 20
Base fee burn, priority fee 80 / 20, per-frame app share, unregistered burn	Implemented on the execution-layer branch; receipts on the simnet show the split	docs/evidence.md row 22
Pool payout to provers	Designed; the pool output accumulates and nothing draws it	docs/evidence.md row 21
External jobs at launch	Designed; no job market code	docs/evidence.md row 24
External jobs settled in IGN with the 10% burn	Designed; needs the proof bridge (phase two) and the settlement switch (O-5.2)	docs/evidence.md row 24
Client fee	Not implemented; no official client exists	docs/evidence.md row 23

5. Where the money goes, in dollars

docs/analysis/security-budget.md runs the emission flows of this table through six halvings at three price inputs and names the year the miners' line falls below a stated floor. docs/plans/funding.md is the other side: what the team spends and what pays for it. Neither file predicts a price, and this one does not either.