Cutoff

A Benchmarker’s cutoff is a cap on the number of their bundles that can earn rewards, it is used when determining qualifiers. In TIG, a “cutoff” is attributed to each Benchmarker, this limits the number of their bundles which can qualify for block rewards. The cutoff acts as a hard defense, ensuring that Benchmarkers balance their Proof of Work, this protects the protocol against manipulation of the Frontier.

Calculation of the Cutoff

For each challenge $x$, a Benchmarker $i$ is attributed a cutoff, denoted ${cutoff}_{i,x}$. Benchmarkers are capped by their ${cutoff}_{i,x}$, that is, Benchmarker $i$ can’t have more than ${cutoff}_{i,x}$ qualifiers for challenge $x$. A Benchmarker’s cutoff is recalculated every block:

Where $\text{active\_bundles}_{i,x}$ is the number of active bundles benchmarker $i$ has in challenge $x$. The cutoff ensures that once a Benchmarker has solved at least a small number of instances across all challenges, they can qualify for rewards, and the 1.5 multiplier allows their cutoff to grow gradually.