What is a Miner?Link to this section

TL;DRLink to this section

A Squeek Miner is an NFT with a level and mining power.
You don't stake it: active mining power earns a share of available SQK rewards while you hold it. You can use a share of what it earns to fund SqueekFi projects.
Only the current owner can claim its rewards or merge it; unclaimed rewards follow a transfer.

What do you own?Link to this section

Each Miner has a distinct token ID, along with a record of its mining power and unclaimed rewards. It's an ERC-721 NFT, using the collection symbol SQUEEK. The rewards are a separate token, SQK, which moves to your wallet when you claim it.

A Squeek Miner NFT isn't the physical Hamster Miner, and it doesn't produce or measure work itself. It earns SQK linked to recorded wheel activity that has been settled on Ethereum and processed for rewards.

How it worksLink to this section

You keep the NFT in your wallet without depositing it into a staking contract. Once its mining power is active, it shares the available rewards with other eligible Miners. Your share depends on your Miner's power relative to their combined power.

A newly minted Miner's power needs to activate before it can earn. If you buy or receive an already active Miner, its power stays active: the transfer doesn't restart activation or its merge cooldown. Any pending power change also stays with it on its existing schedule.

Rewards aren't paid to your wallet automatically. Claiming moves rewards that have already been funded to you, without changing the Miner's level or image. You can claim those rewards even while a power increase is waiting to activate.

What can you do with it?Link to this section

As the current owner, you can transfer your Miner, claim its ready rewards, or merge it with another eligible Miner you own. A merge permanently burns one NFT and upgrades the survivor; its extra mining power starts earning later. A burned donor can't be recovered or claimed separately.

You can also direct a share of your Miner's rewards to fund SqueekFi projects.

Approving a marketplace or another NFT operator lets it transfer the NFT within that approval, not claim or merge on your behalf. If it transfers your Miner, however, the new owner receives all its unclaimed rewards. SQK you've already claimed stays in your wallet.

What affects your rewards?Link to this section

Your Miner's power is only one part of the calculation. Completed work, the reward rate, the supply cap, and other Miners' active power all affect what's available. A newly active Miner or another owner's merge can reduce your share even if your own Miner hasn't changed.

See How rewards work for that shared-pool model and Levels and mining power for activation and cooldowns. The exact reward-record fields are in the Mining reference.

Records verified work and tracks settled rounds and Squeek blocks on Ethereum. Calculates rewards from settled work, holds funded SQK, and pays eligible NFT owners. The Miner ERC-721 contract. Tracks NFT ownership and coordinates minting and merges with Mining. Applies Core or Mining upgrades authorized by its governing Timelock. Generates Miner NFT artwork from fixed onchain visual data. Queues governance operations and enforces a delay before they can be executed. The SQK ERC-20 contract. Enforces the lifetime supply cap; only Mining can mint SQK. Checks that visual data conforms to the required DotGrid format. When new mining power starts earning. Minting and merging schedule it for a later round, and a checkpoint must process the change. A reward update that processes settled work and scheduled mining-power changes. It can make rewards available but doesn't pay them to an owner's wallet. The Miner NFT permanently burned in a merge. Its unclaimed rewards move to the survivor, but its image is not combined or kept. SQK issued under the mining reward rules. You can direct a share of your Miner's rewards to fund SqueekFi projects. The physical mining device that records accepted wheel-magnet passages as work. It is separate from the virtual Miner NFTs. Squeekchain's record of accepted wheel-magnet passages. It doesn't prove animal identity and isn't how Ethereum reaches consensus. Combining two eligible same-level Miners you own into one higher-level Miner. One NFT is permanently burned; the survivor keeps both Miners' unclaimed rewards. The completed Squeek blocks a Miner must wait through before merging. It measures completed work, not elapsed time or Ethereum blocks; transfers don't reset it. The power used to calculate a Miner's share of rewards when eligible and active. A larger share of total power can mean a larger share of rewards. A ten-minute period used to group measured work. The device saves a completed round's work total when measurement remained uninterrupted. The transferable token used for mining rewards. It has a lifetime supply cap and is separate from the Miner NFT and the device's work count. A completed amount of settled work. Enough recorded work completes one Squeek block; it is not an Ethereum block. Squeek Miner NFTs earn SQK linked to recorded wheel activity. Owners can direct a share of those rewards to fund SqueekFi projects. Squeekchain's ecosystem for hamster-powered onchain finance. Miner owners can choose to fund projects with a share of their SQK rewards. The Miner NFT you keep in a merge. It gains a level, keeps its ID and image, and receives both Miners' unclaimed rewards. A Miner's recorded reward balance that hasn't been paid to a wallet. It stays with the NFT when ownership changes. One wheel-magnet passage that met the device's counting rules and was saved. It records work, not an amount of SQK.