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How providers earn

Providers earn in two parallel streams: rental fees (paid by renters for using your GPUs) and subnet emission (distributed by Bittensor validators). Both are denominated in alpha, but they land in different places: rental fees are transferred to your coldkey once per day (with a 2-day delay), while subnet emission accrues as alpha stake on your hotkey every tempo (~72 minutes). For live numbers, see the rewards calculator.

The 30-second answer​

  • Rental fees: You earn a share of every USD that renters pay to use your GPUs. A renter pays hourly; the Lium billing system transfers your share to your coldkey once per day.
  • Subnet emission: Bittensor emits 41% of every epoch's emission to Subnet 51 providers. Validators set your weight via Yuma Consensus, and the emission accrues as alpha stake on your hotkey every tempo (~72 minutes) — it does not flow through Lium's billing system.
  • Two destinations: Rental fees arrive by default as a discrete daily transfer to your coldkey; emission shows up as continuous stake growth on your hotkey each epoch. To see emission, look at your hotkey's Stake on the Subnet 51 page — it is not a wallet "Transfers" entry.

Worked example​

Suppose you operate 8×H100 GPUs priced at $1.26/GPU/hour with typical rental utilization:

  • Rental income (typical daily usage): ~$193 daily in USD → you receive your share (via the calculator for current fee split)
  • Emission income (estimated): ~45–90 α per day (varies with validator score and total subnet activity)
  • Total daily: Roughly $140–$250 equivalent in alpha — rental fees to your coldkey (with a 2-day delay), emission as stake on your hotkey (each tempo)

Note: This is illustrative. For current numbers, use the Rewards Calculator, which shows what GPUs of each type earned on Lium over the last 30 days, plus idle pay at the validator's rate for every hour not rented, scaled to your count.

Two-stream diagram​

Next steps​

  • Rental Fees — How your share is calculated, where the money comes from, and when it's withheld
  • Subnet Emission — How Bittensor's per-tempo emission flows to providers, and how the burn-vs-rental split works
  • Rewards Calculator — What GPUs of each type earned on Lium over the last 30 days, plus idle pay at the validator's rate for every hour not rented, scaled to your count
  • Getting Paid — When you receive alpha, how to unstake, and current feature-flag state
  • FAQ — The most-asked questions answered with source links