Priority fees for delegators
Today
priority fees → validator's beneficiary
With MIP-11
priority fees → validator's staking pool
MIP-11 is a Draft and is not active on any network. Validators can already share priority fees with delegators, but most don't. MIP-11 makes the protocol do it at the end of every block.
The information on this page should not be quoted. Please refer to MIP-11 for the authoritative spec.
Where one block's priority fees go
Three transactions pay priority fees in a block led by your validator.
Block
block.coinbase still returns the beneficiary the proposer set. It just stops receiving the priority fees. No transaction can call the distribution step.
What a delegator would get
Your cut of one block's priority fees, for a block your validator leads. Fee presets come from 200 sampled mainnet blocks.
Priority fees in the block
With MIP-11
The spec says external_rewards will be changed so that it “removes the commission fee” but doesn't say which way. Today externalReward takes no commission. Both readings are shown. Assumes the fees clear the minimum amount below.
The minimum amount decides how much is burned
The spec says fees under dust_threshold are burned instead of distributed. The staking docs have two different minimums that could be meant. Pick one to see what it does to real blocks.
Sampled blocks by total priority fees
priority fees per block, MON
| MON | blocks |
|---|---|
| 0 to 0.01 MON | 4 |
| 0.01 to 0.03 MON | 52 |
| 0.03 to 0.1 MON | 80 |
| 0.1 to 0.3 MON | 50 |
| 0.3 to 1 MON | 11 |
| 1 to 3 MON | 3 |
Blocks with fees burned
197 / 200
Share of priority fees burned
76%
externalReward rejects anything under 1 MON today. If that minimum carries over, almost every block's fees are burned.
200 blocks, every 1,440th from 112,115,098 to 112,401,658, about one day ending 2026-10-11. Fees summed as gas limit times effective priority fee, since Monad charges the gas limit.
Who this affects
Delegators
Get a share of priority fees by stake, credited like other rewards. On the sampled day fees averaged 0.13 MON per block, about 0.7% of the 18 MON block reward.
Validators
Stop keeping priority fees on the beneficiary address. In the forum thread, one reply asked whether losing priority fees will push commissions up to cover operating costs. The thread author replied that validators can adjust their commission.
Contracts and bots that watch block.coinbase
block.coinbase still returns the beneficiary, but its balance no longer grows by the block's priority fees. Anything that reads that balance to track fees has to change.
Delegation contracts
Liquid staking and other wrappers that share priority fees themselves get diluted if users stake with the validator pool directly, since the pool now receives the fees too.
What the spec leaves open
- Which minimum applies. dust_threshold could mean the 1 gwei delegation minimum or the 1 MON externalReward minimum. In the sample that is the difference between burning none of the fees and burning 76% of them.
- Whether commission is taken. The spec says external_rewards will be changed so it “removes the commission fee.” That can be read as starting to deduct commission or as continuing not to.
Continue the discussion on Monad Forum
Questions, feedback, or a better idea? Weigh in on the forum thread.
Open forum thread