Question 1

What is FLOW?

Accepted Answer

FLOW is the native token of the Flow network. Flow is a proof-of-stake (PoS) Layer 1 blockchain; FLOW is used both for node operators and delegators to participate in network security through staking, and to pay on-chain transaction fees and the minimum balance required for account storage. Therefore, FLOW is not merely a medium of exchange within applications: when users create accounts, deploy contracts, transfer funds, or trade NFTs, the payer must bear the associated network costs; when participants commit tokens to nodes, the tokens also become an economic constraint on nodes' compliance with protocol rules.

Question 2

How are transaction fees on Flow determined?

Accepted Answer

FLOW's on-chain transaction fees are calculated according to the resource costs that an operation imposes on the network, rather than charging the same fixed fee for every operation. The current model can be summarized as: transaction fee = (inclusion fee + execution fee) × congestion factor; the inclusion fee corresponds to basic processing costs such as transaction byte size and number of signatures, the execution fee corresponds to costs such as script execution, result handling, and verification, and the congestion factor reflects network load and market conditions. This means that the costs of transfers, account creation, contract deployment, and calls to complex scripts may differ. Fees are paid by users or the applications they use to compensate for resources needed to process transactions and maintain security, while also increasing the cost of large-scale spam transactions; under normal network conditions, official materials list the congestion factor as 1.0, though it can increase with load.

Question 3

Why must Flow accounts retain a storage balance?

Accepted Answer

The FLOW that a Flow account must retain is a minimum balance functioning as a storage deposit, and is not the same as a transaction fee spent on every transaction. When an account stores contracts, NFTs, or other data on-chain, the protocol requires its balance to cover the corresponding data storage capacity; this associates the cost of long-term occupation of chain state with the account. The current example provided in official tokenomics materials is: a minimum of 0.001 FLOW must be retained when creating an account; once account storage exceeds 100 kB, the balance requirement is calculated according to the number of data bytes at a rate of 1E-8 FLOW/byte. This deposit is not spent because of storage itself, but if an account balance is insufficient to meet the storage requirement for the storage it has already used, the account cannot continue using more storage in the way it can when its balance is sufficient.

Question 4

How do FLOW staking and delegation work?

Accepted Answer

Holders can operate a qualifying node themselves and stake FLOW, or delegate FLOW to a node operator. Node operators must submit node information, proof of control, and the FLOW they intend to stake; before each epoch begins, the protocol checks whether a node meets conditions including the role's minimum stake, operation, and initialization requirements, and only qualifying nodes enter the authorized node set for the next period. Delegators do not operate nodes; instead, they specify a node ID and delegation amount. Delegated tokens are managed under the same cycle mechanism as node stakes. Only if a node remains online during the cycle, participates in the protocol, and does not trigger slashable behavior are the node and its delegated funds eligible for periodic rewards; if rules are violated, the node's stake may be automatically reduced. After delegation rewards are calculated, 8% goes to the delegated node and the remaining 92% goes to the delegators.

Question 5

When can FLOW be withdrawn after unstaking?

Accepted Answer

Changes to Flow staking do not take effect immediately. An epoch is approximately one week, during which the authorized node set and its locked stake remain unchanged; joining, increasing stake, changing a delegation, or requesting exit usually proceeds to the next stage only when the current epoch ends. For unstaking, after submitting a request, in addition to waiting for the current epoch to end, one additional epoch must be waited before tokens can be withdrawn. This waiting phase allows the protocol to release funds only after slashable behavior from the prior period has been handled; therefore, “exit requested” and “funds available for transfer” are different states.

Question 6

Why does FLOW's supply change?

Accepted Answer

FLOW's supply is not fixed. Flow generated 1.25 billion FLOW at genesis in October 2020; since then, network epoch rewards can increase the total supply, so the genesis quantity cannot be treated as a permanent total supply. The order in which rewards are funded determines how supply changes: the protocol first pays validator and delegator rewards from the network transaction fee pool, and only mints new FLOW to cover any shortfall if that pool is insufficient to cover rewards. The more transaction fees cover rewards, the less new issuance is needed; conversely, reward shortfalls are reflected in total supply through newly issued tokens. Real-time total supply and circulating supply should be based on official linked blockchain explorer data, rather than inferred from the genesis allocation table.

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