# Block rewards and emission

> How new QRL is created through mining rewards, and why the emission schedule decays over time.

New QRL doesn't appear from nowhere — on [QRL Legacy](/learn/glossary#qrl-legacy) it's created as **block rewards** paid to miners. This guide explains how that issuance works and why it slows down over time.

## The coinbase: minting new coins

Every block a miner produces includes a special transaction called the **[coinbase](/learn/glossary#coinbase)**. Unlike an ordinary transfer, it has no sender — it simply *creates* new QRL and pays it to the miner as a reward for the work of producing the block.

The coinbase is the only way new coins enter circulation under [Proof-of-Work](/learn/consensus-pow-vs-pos). It's also the incentive that keeps miners participating: solve the puzzle, add the block, collect freshly minted QRL plus the fees from the transactions you included.

## Decaying emission

QRL Legacy doesn't pay a flat reward forever. It uses a **decaying emission schedule**: rewards start higher and **shrink over time**, so the total supply rises quickly at first and then ever more slowly as it approaches the [105 million cap](/learn/qrl-tokenomics-and-supply).

The logic behind a decaying schedule is familiar from many chains:

- **Front-load incentives** when the network is young and most needs miners, and
- **Taper inflation** as the chain matures, protecting long-term holders from endless dilution.

The exact curve has been adjusted by community governance over QRL's history, but the shape — high early, declining toward the cap — is the constant.

## Genesis isn't a block reward

A subtle but important point for reading supply data: QRL's **genesis allocation** (~65 million, from the 2018 token migration) is *not* a mining reward. It's the chain's starting balance, recorded at block zero. Only the emission **after** genesis comes from coinbase rewards. Conflating the two would make the supply look far larger than it is — which is exactly why this explorer counts genesis separately from the mining timeline.

## QRL 2.0: rewards without mining

[QRL 2.0](/learn/glossary#qrl2) has no coinbase mining reward. Being [Proof-of-Stake](/learn/proof-of-stake-on-qrl2), it pays [validators](/learn/validators-and-staking) through staking rewards delivered as [withdrawals](/learn/withdrawals-explained). The principle — new issuance as a reward for securing the chain — is the same; the mechanism is entirely different.

## Where to go next

- [QRL tokenomics and supply](/learn/qrl-tokenomics-and-supply) — the full supply picture.
- [QRandomX mining](/learn/qrandomx-mining) — how the work that earns rewards is done.
- [Withdrawals explained](/learn/withdrawals-explained) — QRL 2.0's reward mechanism.