Daily Rewards Distribution

Hermes is a cron job that is triggered daily, which automates the claiming and distributing of rewards for Delegates. Every time Hermes starts, the system first claims all applicable rewards from the blockchain. Then it checks the status of past distributions stored inside the Hermes smart contract to ensure there are no missing distributions or recipients. After the check, the system calculates the next appropriate distribution by querying iotex-analytics for bookkeeping data of each Hermes Delegate within the distribution period. Finally, the Hermes smart contract invokes an underlying multi-send smart contract to distribute the correct amount of rewards to all voters.

Rewards Distribution History

Rewards Distribution History: As the entire rewards distribution process is managed by smart contract, the history of Hermes distributions is viewable by anyone. To create the distribution history, iotex-analytics reads receipts of the Hermes smart contract, recording the action hash and Delegate information. This information is joined with the ‘balance_history’ table to create a full Hermes distribution history, which is query-able by Delegate name or voter’s IoTeX address.

Rewards Forwarding Service

This service is powered by smart contract. When you register a forwarding address (i.e., new address that will receive rewards), the smart contract validates your signature and stores a record of both your original staking and new forwarding addresses. During the daily rewards distribution, the Hermes smart contract will verify whether a forwarding address is associated with each staking address by reading the forwarding service smart contract. If yes, Hermes will distribute rewards to the forwarding address. If no, Hermes will distribute rewards to the staking address.