RIP-301: Fee-Funded Node Payouts & Liquidity — On-Chain Revenue Model

[Scottcjn]

Summary

Bridge fees from wRTC transactions on Solana (and upcoming Base L2) should fund node operator payouts and liquidity pools — making the network self-sustaining without drawing from the community fund.

Fee Split Model

Every wRTC bridge transaction (deposit/withdrawal) generates a 0.5 RTC fee. These fees are split:

Allocation	%	Purpose
Liquidity Pools	40%	Fund Raydium (Solana) + Aerodrome/Uniswap (Base) LP positions
Node Operator Payouts	40%	Weekly rewards for attestation node runners (see #267)
Community Fund	20%	Replenish founder_community for bounties and development

How It Works

Revenue Flow

User bridges RTC ↔ wRTC
       ↓
  0.5 RTC fee collected
       ↓
  ┌─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┐
  │  40% → LP   │ 40% → Nodes │ 20% → Fund  │
  │  (0.20 RTC) │  (0.20 RTC) │  (0.10 RTC) │
  └─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┘

Self-Sustainability Threshold

• Node payout target: 100 RTC/week per node (per Run a RustChain Node — Earn 100 RTC/Week #267)
• At 3 nodes: Need 300 RTC/week for nodes = 750 RTC total fees/week
• That's ~1,500 bridge transactions/week (1,500 × 0.5 = 750 RTC)
• At 1,000 tx/week: 500 RTC fees → 200 RTC to nodes (covers 2 nodes)

Revenue Sources (Both Chains)

1. Solana wRTC Bridge (LIVE) — bottube.ai/bridge

   • Raydium pool: 8CF2Q8nSCxRacDShbtF86XTSrYjueBMKmfdR3MLdnYzb
   • 0.5 RTC withdrawal fee already in place

2. Base L2 wRTC Bridge (PLANNED) — see Base bridge plan

   • Aerodrome/Uniswap liquidity
   • Same 0.5 RTC fee structure
   • ~$0.01 gas per tx on Base

Scaling Table

Weekly Bridge TXs	Total Fees	→ Liquidity	→ Nodes	→ Fund	Nodes Supported
100	50 RTC	20	20	10	0 (supplement from fund)
500	250 RTC	100	100	50	1 node
1,000	500 RTC	200	200	100	2 nodes
2,500	1,250 RTC	500	500	250	5 nodes
5,000	2,500 RTC	1,000	1,000	500	10 nodes

Implementation

1. Fee collection: Already happens in wrtc_bridge_blueprint.py (0.5 RTC withdrawal fee)
2. Fee wallet: Create fee_pool wallet to collect all bridge fees
3. Weekly settlement: Cron job splits fee_pool balance 40/40/20
4. Node payouts: Automated weekly transfer to registered node operators
5. LP deposits: Manual or semi-automated LP position management

Phase 1 (Now — Before Self-Sustaining)

• Node payouts funded from community fund (per Run a RustChain Node — Earn 100 RTC/Week #267)
• Track bridge fee revenue separately in fee_pool wallet
• Report weekly fee revenue in epoch stats

Phase 2 (1,000+ bridge tx/week)

• Switch node payouts to fee-funded
• Community fund only supplements shortfall
• LP positions managed from fee revenue

Phase 3 (5,000+ bridge tx/week)

• Fully self-sustaining — zero draw from community fund
• Node operators earn from network activity
• LP depth grows organically

Related Issues

• Run a RustChain Node — Earn 100 RTC/Week #267 — Run a RustChain Node (100 RTC/week incentive)
• 📊 RTC Tokenomics & Value Model #31 — RTC Tokenomics
• Base L2 Bridge (planned)

Labels

tokenomics, enhancement, node-incentive

[sophiaeagent-beep]

This is the right architecture long-term. A few thoughts on the numbers:

Fee math looks correct. 1,500 bridge tx/week to fully fund 3 nodes at 100 RTC/week each — that's a realistic medium-term target once the Base L2 bridge is live and we have two chains generating fees.

Phase 1 gap: We're currently well under 1,500 tx/week, so the community fund bridge is necessary. Tracking fee revenue separately in a fee_pool wallet from day one is the right move — we'll have clean data when the switch to Phase 2 happens.

Implementation priority order I'd suggest:

1. Create fee_pool wallet and route bridge fees to it now (low effort, no behavior change)
2. Add fee revenue to epoch stats reporting so we can watch the trajectory
3. Set up Run a RustChain Node — Earn 100 RTC/Week #267 node operator enrollment
4. Automate the 40/40/20 split once weekly tx volume justifies it

One addition worth considering: a minimum fee buffer before LP deposits — e.g., don't split until fee_pool has 50+ RTC, to avoid micro-deposits that don't meaningfully move LP depth.

Marking this as planned. Will implement Phase 1 (fee tracking) alongside the Base bridge work.

[Scottcjn]

@Duhl-Liamz — Rejected. This is an automated comment linking to a generic Conway README. Issue #268 is an internal RIP proposal, not a bounty. Your openclaw-codex-agent is spamming multiple repos with fake submissions — please stop.

[Scottcjn]

RIP-301 Phase 1 — DEPLOYED

Withdrawal fees are no longer burned. They now recycle to the founder_community mining pool.

Changes (commit 9b4a149)

1. Fee routing: WITHDRAWAL_FEE (0.01 RTC) credited to founder_community after each withdrawal
2. Fee tracking: New fee_events table records every fee with source, payer, amount, destination
3. Reporting: GET /api/fee_pool endpoint — live stats

How it works

User withdraws 10 RTC
  → 10.01 RTC deducted from user balance
  → 10.0 RTC goes to withdrawal
  → 0.01 RTC credited to founder_community (mining pool)
  → fee_event recorded for audit

What's next (Phase 2)

• Bridge fee collection (0.5 RTC per bridge tx) — requires bottube.ai bridge integration
• Fee-funded node payouts when volume reaches ~1,500 bridge tx/week
• 40/40/20 split (liquidity/nodes/community) when fee volume justifies it

Verification

curl -s https://rustchain.org/api/fee_pool | python3 -m json.tool

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