Do red blocks get block reward?
GHOSTDAG partitions the blockDAG into blue blocks and red blocks. In the final ordering, blue blocks take precedence, while red blocks are placed after them (unless the DAG’s topology forces otherwise).
My question is: does Kaspa penalize red blocks by excluding them from block rewards?
1 answer
Yes — red blocks themselves don’t receive rewards, but there’s an important subtlety.
If rewards were simply destroyed whenever a red block appeared, the issuance rate of new KAS would fall behind schedule. To avoid that, the protocol almost always reallocates the reward to the “merging block” — the first chain block that indirectly (or directly) points to the red block.
This has two important consequences:
Issuance remains stable — total supply growth follows the intended schedule, regardless of how many red blocks appear.
Miners are incentivized to point red blocks — without this rule, adding a red block as one of the block parents won't change its blue score, so miners might ignore them. By forwarding the reward to the merging block, the protocol ensures miners have a reason to acknowledge red blocks.
There is one rare exception: if a red block is very distant and excluded from the difficulty adjustment window, its reward is not reallocated. In such case, destroying the reward won't affect the issuance rate that is regulated by the difficulty.
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