Where the money comes from and where it goes

This lesson follows a single unit of currency from creation to someone's balance.

New TAO is not sitting in a vault waiting to be claimed. The chain mints it fresh, block by block, then splits it across every subnet, and within each one, splits it again across whoever built it, did the work, and judged the work. That whole flow — creation and distribution together — is what the network calls emission. [source]

Within one contest, each payout period splits three ways: 18% goes to the subnet owner, 41% goes to the miners who did the work, and 41% goes to the validators — and whoever staked behind them — who judged it. [source]

How big a slice a whole contest gets, before any of that internal split happens, is decided by demand for that contest's own token rather than by any vote or central decision — more on exactly how in a later lesson. [source]

In a snapshot taken at block 8,852,388, the three highest-earning subnets took in 70.2% @ 8852388 of all emission between them, and the top six took in 81.6% @ 8852388. This is one measurement, not a fixed rule — concentration shifts as token prices move.