Provider economics
Assumptions behind earnings tables in the Litepaper. Last reviewed: July 2026.The Litepaper quotes annual earnings ranges (e.g. Mac Studio Ultra 13,000/year at 2). Those numbers are illustrative scenarios from tokenomics modeling — not live marketplace payouts and not guarantees.
Two income regimes
Never mix the two in one planning spreadsheet without labeling the regime.
Live marketplace economics (today)
Source: Payments & payouts, Metering & billing.- Requests routed to your Mac (pool size, tier, uptime)
- Model served (rate card per model)
- Fault rate (invalid/missing receipts → zero credits)
/providers/{id}/earnings.
Token-scenario tables (Litepaper)
The Litepaper Year-5 base-case table assumes:
These projections require token launch, emission curve, and buyer demand not guaranteed today.
Hardware reality checks
From Phase 1 mining research (mining-prototype-phase1.md):
- Fanless Air may sustain ~76% of peak hashrate over 30 minutes — apply a duty-cycle discount for 24/7 planning.
- Mining at full throttle can be hostile to daily interactive use; cooperative scheduling yields to buyer requests (~50 ms at v1 design target).
- Unified memory caps which catalog models a tier can warm; serving gpt-oss-120b requires Studio Ultra-class RAM.
Sensitivity checklist
Before treating any annual number as a forecast, stress-test:- Uptime — lid-close sleep drops WebSocket; see Payments → provisional vs pinned.
- Pool competition — more providers → shared demand unless buyer volume grows proportionally.
- Token price — emission income is highly sensitive; marketplace USDC income is not (today).
- Thermal / duty cycle — sustained load ≠ burst benchmark peak.
- Receipt quality — faults zero credits; see Verified model settlement.
Related
- Pricing comparison — buyer-side rates (not the same as provider net)
- Benchmarks & methodology — PoMW vs inference scope
- Network status — live vs planned payout rails