Yield payouts are now available in RUNEBond: RUNE staking rewards paid out automatically

Yield payouts are now available in RUNEBond. They use a THORChain feature that pays a share of every staking reward straight to you, roughly every few days. Without them, rewards stay locked inside your stake until you unstake. You choose the share, from 1% to 100%, and whether it arrives in RUNE or in another asset such as USDC.

RUNEBond never holds your money. The network itself makes the payouts, and RUNEBond is the app you use to set them up with your own wallet. Below is what yield payouts are, how they work, how to set them up in four steps, and what to watch out for.

First, what THORChain and RUNE staking are

THORChain is a network for swapping coins directly between blockchains, for example real BTC for real ETH, without a centralized exchange in the middle. It is run and secured by computers called nodes. Every node has to lock up a security deposit in RUNE, THORChain’s own token. THORChain calls that deposit the node’s bond. If a node misbehaves, part of its bond is taken away (it is slashed). That is what keeps the people who run nodes honest.

Most node operators, the people who run nodes, cannot fund that bond alone. Stakers fill the gap. They stake their RUNE to an operator’s node and earn a share of the node’s rewards, minus the operator’s fee, without running any infrastructure. THORChain calls this bonding, and calls these stakers bond providers. RUNEBond exists to connect stakers with node operators. The rewards come mostly from the fees people pay to swap on the network, not from printing new tokens.

Rewards are paid at each churn: THORChain’s regular rotation of the nodes that run the network, roughly every few days. At each churn, some nodes join the group currently running the network (the active set) and others leave it. Our explainer on THORChain churns covers what triggers one and why it matters to stakers.

The problem: rewards you could not touch

Until now, every reward you earned was added to your stake. That is good for growth, because the rewards start earning rewards of their own (compounding). But it also means the rewards were locked, exactly like the RUNE you staked in the first place. To get them out, you had to unstake, which THORChain calls unbonding. And you can only unstake when the node is out of the active set. That depends on the operator leaving or on the network removing the node.

So if you wanted a regular income from your RUNE, there was no clean way to get it. Either the rewards stayed locked, or your whole stake had to come out.

What yield payouts change

THORChain calls this mechanism Bond Yield and defines it in its ADR 029. In RUNEBond it appears as yield payouts. An ADR (architecture decision record) is the document THORChain uses to agree a change to the protocol. Yield payouts let each staker tell the network to pay out part of every future reward at each churn:

• You choose the share, from 1% to 100%. Whatever you do not take out is added to your stake and keeps earning, as before.
• You choose the destination: your own wallet in RUNE, another THORChain address in RUNE, or another asset delivered to your address on that asset’s own blockchain.
• They apply to future rewards only. Your staked RUNE is not moved, and rewards already added to your stake stay there.
• If a payout cannot be completed, THORChain adds that share back to your stake, so it ends up where it would have gone before.

Three things make this matter. You get income without unstaking: your stake keeps earning while you receive part of what it earns. RUNEBond never holds the money: the network pays from the node straight to your destination. And the network does the work: once it is set up, you have nothing to request at each churn, and no middleman to trust for the payout itself.

Yield payouts only work once THORChain’s node operators switch them on through a network setting called BONDYIELDENABLED. It is a Mimir value. Mimir is THORChain’s list of network settings, stored on the blockchain itself. RUNEBond shows whether it is switched on before you sign anything.

Get paid in RUNE, or in USDC through a THORName

Receiving RUNE is the simple case. It takes one transaction. Then, at every churn, your share lands in your wallet, or in any other THORChain address you choose.

Receiving another asset uses a THORName. A THORName is a short name (up to 30 characters) registered on THORChain and owned by your wallet. It can hold one address per blockchain plus a preferred asset: the asset you want to receive. RUNEBond shows the assets and blockchains available when you choose the payout asset.

The conversion is not instant, and that is on purpose. If the name has a preferred asset, the RUNE that THORChain sends to that name at each churn is not forwarded straight away. It builds up in a holding balance attached to the name (THORChain calls it the collector) until there is enough to be worth converting. THORChain then swaps that RUNE into your chosen asset and sends it to the address you set for that chain.

How much is enough is set by a threshold. The threshold is a sensitivity multiplier that you choose, times the asset’s outbound fee (the network fee THORChain charges to send the asset out on its own blockchain). That fee is taken from every conversion, so the sensitivity is a trade-off. Say the outbound fee is worth 1 USDC. At 20x, THORChain converts as soon as about 20 USDC worth of RUNE has built up, and 1 USDC of that (about 5%) goes to the fee. At 200x, you wait until about 200 USDC worth has built up, but the same fee is only about 0.5% of the conversion. You choose between more frequent payments and a smaller slice lost to the fee:

Sensitivity	How often it converts	Lost to the outbound fee per conversion
20x (RUNEBond’s minimum)	Most often	about 5%
50x	Less often	about 2%
200x (network default)	Least often	about 0.5%

Each conversion is also an ordinary swap at market price. THORChain swaps against pools of funds supplied by other users, so each conversion also pays the pool a small fee (the liquidity fee). It may also get a slightly worse price because of the size of the trade itself (slippage). Both are usually small for these amounts.

A THORName also has to be paid for and kept alive. Registering one costs THORChain’s registration fee, 10 RUNE today on the live network (mainnet), with the first year included, and you have to renew it before it expires. RUNEBond’s documentation on yield payouts explains every option in detail, including how THORNames work.

How to set up yield payouts in RUNEBond

1. Open your portfolio in the RUNEBond app and find the Yield payouts card. It lists the nodes you have staked RUNE to. Click Set up next to the node.
2. Choose the share of every reward you want paid out. The app shows what that share might be worth per churn. It is an estimate, not a promise.
3. Choose the destination: your wallet in RUNE, another THORChain address in RUNE, or another asset. For another asset, enter your address on that asset’s blockchain. Then register a new THORName or reuse one you own, and pick the sensitivity you prefer.
4. Review and sign. A RUNE payout is one transaction. A payout in another asset takes two when the THORName has to be registered or updated, and the app labels them “Sign transaction 1 of 2” and “2 of 2”. RUNEBond then follows each transaction on THORChain. It tells you whether it went through, was refunded and why, or is taking longer than usual.

The new setting applies from the next churn. Switching back to RUNE in your own wallet later is a single transaction.

What to watch out for

Yield payouts change where your rewards go. They do not change the risks of staking, and they add a few of their own:

• Your stake is still locked. Only the rewards are paid out. The RUNE you staked can still only be withdrawn when the node leaves the active set, on the operator’s schedule. Our guide to RUNEBond’s risks and lock-ups covers this in full.
• Slashing still applies. If the node is penalized (slashed), your stake loses value along with the node’s bond. A smaller stake then earns smaller rewards.
• Rewards are not fixed. They depend on how much the network is used, how well the node performs and the operator’s fee. There is no guaranteed yield, and the app shows today’s range.
• THORNames expire. If yours lapses, you lose the name and its settings. Payouts go into your stake instead of to you. Anyone can register the name, and the registration fee is due again. The preferred asset, addresses and sensitivity are reset. Any RUNE waiting in its holding balance is not lost: it is paid to you, in RUNE, when the name is registered again, by you or by anyone else. If you subscribe to RUNEBond notifications for your address, by email or through the Telegram bot, RUNEBond warns you before it happens. See notifications via email and Telegram to subscribe.
• Conversions cost money. Every swap pays the liquidity fee, slippage and the outbound fee. A low sensitivity converts more often and loses more of each conversion.
• The destination address is your responsibility. RUNEBond checks its format, but it cannot verify that you control it, and a payout sent to a wrong address cannot be recovered.

None of this is financial advice. Understand the mechanism, do your own research, and decide what share, if any, makes sense for you.

The short version

Yield payouts let anyone staking RUNE to a THORChain node take part of every reward out at each churn, in RUNE or in another asset. You do not have to unstake, and you do not hand the money to anyone. RUNEBond sets it up with your own wallet in four steps. Your stake still carries the same lock-up and slashing risks as before. Payouts in other assets also come with swap fees and a THORName to renew.

Find a node on RUNEBond and see what staking can earn today.