Competitive Deposit Recovery
To participate in Glow's solar mining incentives and earn GLW tokens, solar farms must post a Protocol Deposit. This deposit enforces substantial skin-in-the-game for farms and enables competitive redistribution, where farms compete based on carbon displacement per dollar of revenue. Competitive farms recover their deposits faster and capture surplus from weaker competitors, while underperforming farms forfeit portions of their deposits to higher-impact farms. See our article on Glow's Competitive Recursive Protocol for a detailed overview of the mechanism.
Glow V2 Introduces GLW Delegation
Glow V2 enables GLW token holders to delegate their own tokens to solar farms, allowing solar farms to satisfy their protocol deposit requirements without needing to lock up enormous sums of their own capital. Delegation is a 100-week commitment, and over those 100 weeks delegators earn two types of rewards:
- Deposit recovery: As solar farms produce carbon credits, they recover the protocol deposit. In the case of delegation, all of the deposit recovery is sent to the delegator. A farm will recover more than its original deposit if it produces an above-average number of carbon credits per dollar of deposit, and it will recover less than its original deposit if it produces a below-average number of carbon credits per dollar of deposit.
- GLW inflation rewards: Solar farms earn GLW tokens based on the size of their protocol deposit. In the case of delegation, a portion of the GLW inflation rewards are distributed to delegators as compensation for covering the protocol deposit of the solar farm. Solar farms that are less competitive typically offer a much higher percentage of the GLW inflation rewards to delegators to ensure that delegators can still come out ahead despite the farm's competitive weaknesses.
Every solar farm has a different level of competitiveness, and each solar farm independently chooses the amount of GLW inflation to offer to delegators. The task of the delegator is therefore to analyze the solar farms and determine which solar farms are offering a worthwhile deal. If a non-competitive solar farm is offering a relatively low amount of GLW inflation to delegators, then delegators are free to ignore that farm entirely and delegate to other farms with more attractive offers. If a farm is too deeply non-competitive, it may be unable to attract delegators even if it offers them 100% of the GLW inflation. If this happens, the market is saying that the farm is too expensive for Glow, and that Glow's incentive budget is better spent on more efficient solar farms. This decision is ultimately made by the delegators themselves, who must be convinced that they will benefit from providing the protocol deposit for a solar farm.
Protection from Operational Risk
Without protocol-level protection, Glow Delegators face potential concerns about weather risk, equipment failures, or operational issues that could impact farm performance and subsequently, their deposit recovery. To protect delegators, the protocol takes on all of this risk itself. Delegators receive rewards based on the audited performance capabilities of the solar farm, rather than the actual performance of the solar farm. This is called expectation-based rewards, and it means that if a solar farm underperforms, the protocol will accept a reduced overall carbon credit production without penalizing delegators.
Therefore, if a solar farm underperforms due to a factor outside the Delegator's control, deposit recovery and GLW rewards continue based on original projections. This protects Delegators from factors outside their control while maintaining competitive pressure on farms through smart construction decisions (location, equipment, installation quality). See our article on expectation-based rewards for the full reasoning behind this economic design choice.
The Glow Launchpad: Where GLW Delegation Happens
The Glow Launchpad platform facilitates GLW delegation by connecting GLW holders with solar farms that need protocol deposits. Each farm listed on the Launchpad displays its relevant competitiveness metrics, expected performance, and a Reward Score. Glow Delegators browse farms, evaluate these metrics, and decide whether to delegate their GLW tokens to a listed solar farm.
The Launchpad fractionalizes farm protocol deposits, allowing multiple Delegators to split a single farm's deposit requirement and rewards proportionally. Delegators select how many fractions to claim based on how much GLW they wish to deploy. Delegation operates on an all-or-nothing basis, meaning a farm only goes live once every fraction has been claimed. If a farm fails to secure full delegation within 4 weeks of listing, it fails to become active on Glow, and all Delegators automatically recover the GLW tokens they committed to post the farm's deposit. If a farm struggles to attract sufficient delegation interest, it can increase its GLW allocation to Delegators, increasing the share of GLW token rewards that flow to all Delegators to that farm, regardless of when they posted their fractional deposit commitments.
Understanding Deposit Recovery
The Revenue Shuffle
Glow's protocol operates through a competitive revenue redistribution mechanism. Solar farms commit their protocol deposits upfront, and the protocol redistributes these deposits based on each farm's competitive performance over the 100-week period. All farms in a region or Infrastructure Project contribute their protocol deposits into a shared pool. Each week, the protocol measures each farm's carbon displacement per dollar of revenue and compares it to the regional average. Farms performing better than average recover their deposits as well as a surplus from underperformers. Farms performing worse than average fail to recover their entire deposit, and forfeit some of their deposit to high-performers.
This creates a zero-sum competition where deposit recovery depends entirely on relative performance within the Infrastructure Project, not absolute performance across the entire Glow Protocol. A farm could be displacing significant amounts of carbon in absolute terms but still forfeit deposits if its competitors are displacing even more carbon per dollar. Conversely, a farm with modest absolute carbon impact could recover deposits quickly if it's the most efficient farm in its competitive pool.
GLW Emissions Support Delegators
An average-performing farm recovers its full protocol deposit over exactly 100 weeks. This is the neutral baseline where deposits are fully recovered with no surplus and no forfeit. Above-average farms (those producing more carbon displacement per dollar than the regional average) recover deposits faster than 100 weeks and capture surplus from weaker farms. The more competitive the farm, the faster the recovery and the larger the surplus they can claim from underperforming farms. Below-average farms (those producing less carbon displacement per dollar than the regional average) experience slower deposit recovery and forfeit portions of their deposits to stronger competitors. The less competitive the farm, the slower the recovery and the larger the deposit forfeitures.
While below-average farms forfeit some deposit value, they still earn weekly GLW rewards from protocol emissions. For farms that are only slightly below average, these GLW inflation rewards can often exceed deposit forfeitures, making the position economically viable overall. Typically, farms that are less competitive will also give a higher share of their GLW inflation rewards to Delegators in order to provide adequate compensation for the increased risk of deposit forfeitures. This means Glow Delegators can earn positive rewards even on moderately underperforming farms, as long as the farm isn't too far below the competitive threshold. The GLW inflation acts as a cushion that keeps most farms economically viable for Glow Delegators.
Regional Competitive Exposure
Farms only compete with solar deployments in their same region. A farm in Utah competes against other Utah farms, not against farms in Colorado with completely different electricity prices and carbon intensity profiles. For example, a Colorado farm might displace 8.7 tons per $1,000 of electricity revenues due to Colorado's dirtier grid. If the Colorado regional average is 8.5 tons per $1,000, this farm is above-average within its region and will be on track to recover its original deposit plus surpluses from below-average farms. Meanwhile, a Utah farm might displace 5.2 tons of CO2 per $1,000 of protocol deposit over its lifetime. If the Utah regional average is 5.0 tons per $1,000, this farm is also above-average and will be on track to recover rewards in excess of its original deposits. Therefore, Glow Delegators generally evaluate farms relative to their regional peers. The only non-regional Infrastructure Project is the Clean Grid Project, which operates globally and compares farms irrespective of geographic location. For a deeper discussion on regional dynamics and Infrastructure Projects, see the article on Infrastructure Projects.
The Reward Score: Evaluating Farms
With multiple farms available on the Launchpad, Glow Delegators need a way to systematically compare delegation opportunities. The Reward Score is a tool that combines both revenue streams (deposit recovery and GLW inflation) into a single metric representing expected rewards per dollar delegated. Higher Reward Scores generally indicate better delegation opportunities, but do not guarantee realized performance, since a farm's actual competitiveness and rewards may shift as new farms join its region. The Reward Score serves as a comparison tool to evaluate a farm's delegation attractiveness based on its current set of regional competitors:
where:
- WeeklyDepositRewards: Glow Delegator's share of deposit recovery and surplus each week (in USD)
- WeeklyGLWRewards: Glow Delegator's share of GLW inflation rewards each week (in USD at current GLW price)
- MiningMultiplier: Regional discount factor applied to GLW rewards
- ProtocolDeposit: The amount of GLW tokens posted as deposit (in USD value)
The formula adds the two weekly reward streams (with GLW rewards discounted by the mining multiplier), divides by the deposit amount to get a ratio, and multiplies by 10,000 to make scores more readable. The mining multiplier is derived from market prices that Glow Miners pay for GLW streams in each region, revealing expectations about future GLW inflation reward dilution and price appreciation. For example, if the mining multiplier is 4, then $10,000 in GLW rewards is discounted to $2,500 in the score calculation. This means farms with similar expected rewards show similar scores, even if one earns mostly from deposit recovery and another earns mostly from GLW inflation.
Taking the Composite of Deposit Recovery and GLW Token Emissions
Glow Delegators earn rewards over 100 weeks from deposit recovery and GLW token emissions. These revenue streams evolve at different rates, so the Reward Score weights them differently. On one hand, a farm's deposit recovery rate changes gradually because its competitive position depends on its performance compared to regional peers. This competitive landscape shifts slowly as farms innovate through operational improvements and technical upgrades. On the other hand, a farm's GLW inflation rewards can vary weekly as more farms join its region. The protocol mints 175,000 GLW tokens each week and distributes them across all farms. As more farms join, each farm's share of this fixed pile shrinks. If a region has 10 farms receiving 10,000 GLW weekly, each farm gets 1,000 GLW on average. If that region expands to 50 farms within a year, each farm gets 200 GLW per week.
Although farms are expected to receive fewer tokens over time due to network growth and dilution, the GLW token likely becomes more valuable as the network onboards more solar capacity. Each new farm increases the protocol's carbon impact and strengthens GLW's utility as an incentive engine for solar deployment. However, whether token appreciation fully offsets emission dilution depends on a number of exogenous factors. Given this uncertainty, the Reward Score applies a "mining multiplier" discount to GLW rewards before combining them with a farm's expected deposit recovery. This multiplier varies by Infrastructure Project and comes from each region's mining market, where the prices Glow Miners pay for GLW mining rights reveal market expectations about future dilution and appreciation. Lower prices for mining rights result in higher multiplier discounts, because this indicates that the market expects faster dilution relative to price appreciation.
Become a Glow Delegator
With the launch of Glow V2, token holders can begin delegating their GLW tokens towards solar deployment. Visit the Glow Launchpad to browse available solar farms, compare their Reward Scores and competitiveness metrics, and post protocol deposits that earn rewards from both deposit recovery and GLW token emissions. New farms are added weekly as Solar Farm Installers bring more projects to Glow, creating continuous opportunities to participate in Glow's growing solar mining network.