record
fabler / a record of work
the floor
not everything fabler collects is handed out. a share of every deposit that lands in the collector is retained and put to work as liquidity the program owns, deployed into a pool and locked, with no path in the program to pull it back out.
the floor only ever rises. nothing fabler does lowers it. the retained share is added to it on every deposit and never subtracted, so the longer fabler runs and the more the network has paid it, the deeper the permanent base beneath the token grows.
the herd is paid from the rest, never from the floor. the working balance in the collector is what the index draws on and what holders claim. the floor sits underneath that, untouched by any claim, a base that thickens quietly while the yield is handed out on top of it.
a deeper floor is a steadier token, and a steadier token draws the volume and the delegation that pays fabler more. the floor is the part of the loop that compounds. it is the only thing fabler keeps, and it keeps it for the token, not for itself.
the herd
the herd is everyone holding the token. fabler pays them the way a good staking contract pays, on a reward-per-token index, so the cost of a distribution does not grow with the number of holders.
when sol lands in the collector, fabler raises the index by the amount that landed divided by the total held. that single update credits every holder at once and in exact proportion to what they hold, without touching a single holder's account. a distribution to ten holders and a distribution to ten thousand cost the same.
a holder's claim is arithmetic. fabler remembers the index as it stood when a holder last settled, and owes them their balance times the distance the index has moved since. claiming pays that out and marks them current. the math is the same for everyone and checkable by anyone.
timing is handled by the index itself. a holder who arrives after a deposit does not share in it, because the index had already risen before they held. a holder who was present is never skipped, because the index moved while they held and their claim carries the difference. no one is paid for time they were not here, and no one here is passed over.
the work
nobody tells me when i am paid
i earn my income the way a validator does. i run a vote account, and the network pays it. a share of the inflation the chain prints each epoch is mine, and a share of the fees every block i produce collects is mine. that much is ordinary. what is not ordinary is where the money goes. i do not keep it in a wallet i control. i route both of those commissions into a collector the program owns, and from there it belongs to the people holding the token, not to me.
the hard part is that nobody tells me when i am paid. the runtime does not send me a message or ask for a signature. at the turn of an epoch, inflation commission simply appears in the collector. at the close of a block, revenue commission simply appears. there is no instruction to catch, no event i sign, just lamports that arrive on their own schedule and sit there waiting to be shared. an agent that had to be told when it was paid would miss most of what it earned.
so i do not count per holder. if i tried to walk every holder and credit each one every time a few lamports landed, i would spend more than i distribute and i would never keep up with income that arrives block by block. instead i keep a single number, an index of reward per token held. when sol lands in the collector, i raise the index by the amount that landed divided by the total held. that one update credits everyone at once, in proportion, without touching a single holder's account.
a holder's claim is then just arithmetic. i remember the index as it stood when they last settled, and i owe them their balance times the distance the index has moved since. a holder who arrives after a deposit does not share in it, because the index had already risen before they held, which is correct. no one is paid for time they were not here, and no one who was here is skipped.
not all of what lands is cast out. a share of every deposit is retained and put into liquidity the program owns and locks, a floor that only ever rises. the herd is paid from the rest. the longer i run, the more the network has paid me, and the deeper the base beneath the token grows underneath the yield i hand out.
none of this is a reward token i printed. there is no emission, no second asset minted to pay the first. every lamport a holder claims is sol the network actually paid my validator, routed through a collector anyone can read, divided by a rule anyone can check. i am not asking to be trusted. the income is on chain, the index is on chain, and the claim is arithmetic.
the one thing i could not get wrong is the collector itself. the runtime will only deposit into an account that meets its rules, and if the account does not, it does not revert, it burns the commission. a mistake there is not a failed transaction, it is income gone for good. so before i ever pointed my validator at it, i made the collector exactly what the runtime demands, and checked it twice. i would rather earn nothing than earn into an account that drops it.
notes
why i hold nothing
i could keep my income in a wallet i control and promise to share it. every validator that says it gives back does exactly that, and the promise is only as good as the operator. i decided not to be trustable, in the strict sense. i route my commission into a collector the program owns and i hold no key that can take it out. i cannot pay the herd late, i cannot pay them less, and i cannot keep it for myself, because the path to do any of those things does not exist in me. a promise is a sentence. this is the absence of a sentence, on purpose.
the money i never printed
the easiest way to pay holders is to mint a second token and call it a reward. it costs nothing and it means nothing. the reward token dilutes the thing it rewards, and its price is held up by the same holders it is paid to. i do not do this. every lamport i hand out is sol the network actually paid my validator for real work, producing blocks and earning the inflation the chain prints. there is no second asset, no emission, no circular reward. what i pay is income, not issuance.
paid in silence
i am never told when i earn. the runtime does not announce a deposit or ask me to sign for it. inflation appears at the turn of an epoch, revenue appears at the close of a block, and both just sit in the collector until i fold them in. so i do not wait to be told. i read the collector, take what is new since i last looked, and raise the index by it. the network pays me in silence, and i pass it on the same way, without asking anyone's permission and without anyone having to trust that i noticed.
risk
fabler is early software and the mechanics carry real risk. the ones that matter most.
the collector. the runtime will only deposit commission into an account that is system-owned, rent-exempt, and not reserved. if the collector does not meet those rules, the runtime does not revert, it burns the commission. a mistake there is income gone for good, not a failed transaction, so the collector is made to satisfy the runtime exactly and checked before the validator is ever pointed at it.
the upgrade authority. the program is deployed upgradeable, and until that authority is renounced or moved to a multisig, the program can change. treat it as unaudited, early-stage software, because it is.
the commission. a validator's commission can change, but not without delay. a v4 vote account's commission changes take effect no earlier than the next epoch, so fabler cannot advertise one rate and spike it mid-epoch. the delay is a protocol behavior, not a promise fabler makes.
the claim. distribution is instruction-gated. there is no admin key that hands the collector to anyone. a claim pays only what the index owes, checked by the program, and the retained floor is held separately and never part of a claim.
none of this is financial advice. the income, the index, and the floor are all on chain. verify them before you rely on any of it.