Miles are Fast Protocol's loyalty system — a cumulative record of the mev value your swaps generate for the protocol.

Think of Miles like frequent flyer points for Ethereum. Airlines reward passengers based on the routes they fly and the fares they pay — not every trip earns the same. Similarly, Fast Protocol rewards users based on the mev their swaps produce. The more mev value you generate, the more Miles you accumulate.

How earning works

Miles are earned when your swaps generate extractable mev. Not every swap produces mev — it depends on the factors below. When mev is generated, earning is:

• Automatic: No staking, claiming, or additional transactions required
• Proportional: Swaps that generate more mev earn more Miles
• Cumulative: Miles accumulate over time, building a record of your total mev contribution
• Instant: Miles are credited immediately after your swap confirms

Important: If a swap generates no mev (for example, a stablecoin-to-stablecoin swap in deep liquidity during calm markets), it earns zero Miles — regardless of swap size. Volume alone does not guarantee Miles.

You can track your Miles balance in the My Miles dashboard.

What affects earning rate

Whether a swap earns Miles — and how many — depends on how much mev it generates. Several factors determine this:

Swap size

Larger swaps generate more mev, which translates to more Miles. A $10,000 swap earns more than a $100 swap.

Pair volatility

Volatile pairs generate more mev because the price impact and arbitrage opportunities are larger. Swapping between volatile tokens earns more Miles than swapping between stablecoins.

Liquidity depth

Swaps in less liquid pairs create bigger price impacts, generating more mev and therefore more Miles. Trading where liquidity is thin earns more than trading in deep, efficient markets.

Market conditions

During volatile market periods, mev generation increases across the board. Swaps executed during high-activity periods tend to earn more Miles.

The common thread: Miles are a direct function of mev generated. If a swap doesn't create extractable mev — because the pair is stable, liquidity is deep, and markets are calm — it won't earn Miles, regardless of the dollar amount swapped. Conversely, a smaller swap in a volatile, thin market can earn significant Miles because it generates real mev.

Why miles might be delayed

Miles are designed to credit quickly after your swap confirms, but several conditions can cause delays or prevent miles from being credited at all. Understanding these helps set expectations.

Provider commitment delays

Your swap is sent through Fast RPC, where a provider (the block builder who includes your transaction) makes a preconfirmation commitment. The provider must then open that commitment on the mev-commit chain — revealing the bid details and confirming the mev value generated. If the provider delays opening this commitment, your miles are held in a pending state until it's resolved. This is the most common reason for delayed miles.

If a provider hasn't opened the commitment after an extended period, the protocol can step in to resolve it — but this requires manual intervention and doesn't happen instantly.

Swap too small to generate mev at auto slippage

Smaller swaps may not generate enough mev — at auto slippage — to cover the preconfirmation bid cost (the amount paid to the provider for committing to include the transaction). When the bid cost equals or exceeds the mev captured within the slippage tolerance, the default estimate is zero.

This isn't always the final word. Opening the Calculate Miles pill below the buy card lets you raise your slippage tolerance to capture surplus that would otherwise be unreachable — see About the miles estimate. If the calculator shows "Swap too small to earn miles." even at its maximum slippage, the swap genuinely can't generate enough mev — that's the expected outcome below a certain threshold.

Token sweep profitability

When you swap to a non-ETH token output (ERC-20s), the protocol needs to sweep (convert) the mev surplus tokens back to ETH to calculate and distribute rewards. If the accumulated tokens from your swap aren't enough to make the sweep transaction profitable, miles are withheld until enough of that token accumulates across multiple users' swaps to make the sweep worthwhile.

This means your miles for small ERC-20 output swaps may appear later — potentially in a future processing cycle when the sweep becomes profitable. Your miles aren't lost; they're deferred.

What you can do

• Check your transaction: If miles haven't appeared after a few minutes, the provider commitment may still be pending. Give it up to 15 minutes.
• Swap size matters: Very small swaps (especially to ERC-20 tokens) may not generate enough mev for immediate miles crediting.
• ETH output is faster: Swaps with ETH as the output token don't require a token sweep, so miles process more quickly.

About the miles estimate

Before you swap, Fast Protocol shows an estimated miles amount next to the exchange rate. This estimate is a conservative lower bound, not a guarantee or a ceiling — actual miles are computed from real on-chain activity once the swap settles, and are often higher.

What the estimate can show

• ~N miles — the estimator has a confident lower bound at your current swap size and auto slippage. Treat this as a floor, not a forecast; the settled number is usually higher.
• — (dash) — the swap itself is in an error state (the size is below what the protocol can route). Adjust the amount; this isn't a miles problem.
• Apply Miles — at your current swap size, the auto-slippage tolerance doesn't leave room for mev surplus to be captured, so the default estimate is zero. Miles aren't disabled for this swap, they're just not reachable without a higher slippage. Open the calculator to apply manually (see below).

The estimate deliberately errs low. Over-predicting miles would be worse than under-predicting — if the displayed number consistently exceeded the settled number, trust would collapse. The conservative approach means users are sometimes pleasantly surprised, and never disappointed by inflated predictions.

Applying miles manually with the calculator

Below the buy card you'll see a Calculate Miles pill. Opening it reveals:

1. Earn up to N miles — the upper bound on what's achievable at your current swap size with the maximum slippage the calculator allows. ("Swap too small to earn miles." appears here when even max slippage can't capture any surplus.)
2. Enable — switches to an input where you type a target miles number (capped at the upper bound).
3. Apply — confirms the trade-off: the calculator raises your slippage tolerance just enough to capture the target miles. Your minimum received goes down by the same amount. The swap itself isn't resized; only your slippage is.

Once applied, the buy card's headline minimum received reflects the new slippage. The calculator resets when you switch tokens, edit the swap amount, or complete a swap — so applied slippage never silently carries over to a different trade.

What to trust as the final number

• The estimate (or the calculator's "Earn up to") is a pre-trade projection.
• The actual miles earned are computed from on-chain activity after the swap settles.
• Your dashboard swap history shows the finalized miles per transaction. This is the authoritative number.

As more swaps settle, the estimator becomes more accurate. Accuracy improves with volume; the cost of being wrong is paid in caution rather than exaggeration.

Miles and mev rewards

Miles work alongside mev rewards — they're complementary systems, not alternatives.

mev rewards improve your immediate swap execution. At least 90% of the mev your swap generates is returned to you as a better price. This is per-swap value — you earn it automatically on every trade that generates mev.

Miles represent cumulative participation. They don't affect your current swap execution, but they accumulate into a record of your total contribution to the protocol. This cumulative record is where future utility builds.

One system rewards each transaction. The other rewards sustained participation. Together, they create both immediate and long-term incentive to use Fast Protocol.

Future utility

Miles are designed as the foundation for an expanding rewards system. While the core earning mechanics are live today, the utility of accumulated Miles will grow over time.

Potential directions

• Fee reductions for high-mileage users
• Enhanced mev redistribution rates based on Miles tier
• Priority preconfirmations during high-demand periods
• Protocol governance participation weighted by accumulated Miles
• Token conversion when a future protocol token launches

The exact utility roadmap depends on protocol development and community direction. What's established now is the earning mechanism — your Miles accumulate based on real activity, creating a verifiable record of participation that future utility can build on.

The leaderboard

Fast Protocol maintains a public leaderboard showing the top Miles earners. The leaderboard tracks:

• Total Miles earned by each address
• Relative ranking among all participants
• Historical earning trends

The leaderboard creates visibility into who is contributing the most to the protocol ecosystem. It also establishes social proof — active participants can point to their ranking as evidence of engagement.

Why Miles matter

DeFi protocols typically acquire users through token emissions — liquidity mining, airdrops, and yield farming programs that attract mercenary capital and collapse when incentives end.

Miles take the opposite approach. Instead of paying users to participate with dilutive token emissions, Miles record participation and attach future value to it. The earning comes from real activity — swaps that generate extractable mev — which produces real revenue (mev fees). Miles tokenize that relationship.

This means Miles are backed by genuine protocol revenue, not inflationary emissions. The more users swap on Fast Protocol, the more mev the protocol generates, and the more valuable the Miles ecosystem becomes.