[Solved] Unspent Rewards

Lately I noticed something in my Daedalus Wallet. In the summary page I have this line:


*xxx.x* ADA rewards earned, *x.x* ADA unspent rewards

Just to confirm I haven’t spent any rewards. Why am I seeing it like this? It gives the impression I have spent my rewards.

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Daedalus automatically withdraws rewards in outgoing transactions if it sees fit. So, it might have spent some of your rewards (and spent less of your other funds for that). The “unspent rewards” reported vy Daedalus are the ones still on the reward address.

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Yes I understand that but I haven’t made any outgoing transactions and neither does Deadalus report any outgoing transactions. Was the fund merely moved to my wallet address perhaps out of the staking address?

You could look at the transaction history, when those rewards were withdrawn. Yes, they may have just gone to your wallet, but not automatically, only in transactions initiated and signed by you.

(Not at my computer right now. Can’t check if Daedalus’ transaction history shows withdrawals reasonably clear, Eternl’s does. Look on cardanoscan.io, in case of doubt.)

Hello @faretheewell

Section called “Rewards earned” show total rewards earned since you first started delegating.
Section called “Unspent rewards” shows current amount in your rewards address. This is still counted in your total balance.

Every time you make any outgoing transaction or just a transfer Daedalus spends 100% of all ADA from your reward address (Unspent rewards). If it contains more that enough for transaction total it will return the rest of ADA and it becomes part of the regular ADA balance.

Rewards ADA has to be spent first because unlike all other ADA in your wallet, rewards ADA can’t be used to pay fees. This way you will not end up in situation where only ADA you have in your wallet are rewards ADA, but you can’t use them because you can’t pay transaction fees to use them.

It may be clearer if you take a look at the rewards tab in staking section of Daedalus :point_down:
DRewards

This will give you a list of all your wallets, total ADA in rewards since you started delegating with each wallet and how much in rewards do you sill have “Unspent” (as in how much is in your rewards address). Then after you make any outgoing transaction in any amount that wallet will show 0 Unspent.

Hope this clears it up :smiley:

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@Neo_Spank @HeptaSean I did make a transfer of native tokens to another wallet but these were tokens and no ADA was transferred but of course it got charged with a transaction fee. As I understand from your replies, this might be the transaction were Daedalus took out the transaction fee from with the staking address and sent the change back to my wallet. I haven’t lost any funds nor have any illicit transactions sprung up. I’m just trying to understand what has happened. I will have a closer look when i get to my desk.

All transaction of Cardano assets require minimum amount of ADA to be sent with tokens. Around 1 to 2 ADA plus transaction fee (which is separated). If you check that transaction info you will probably be able to see one output with Minimum ADA + tokens, transaction fee output and (probably) change returned in the form of ADA back to one of your wallet addresses. This is how reward ADA makes its way into eUTxO system.

Reward address is like a sub-wallet of your stake key address and it is account based model (not UTxO yet). This is why it takes this route.

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Yes I had a look at the block explorer. Indeed I needed to bundle a few ADAs with the token transfer and the stake funds were used first. All is clear now. Thanks to you both for responding.

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