Median weight300.0 kBthe penalty starts above this
Hard limit600.0 kBtwice the median
Last 180 blocks120.2 kBmean · heaviest 344.8 kB
Block weight, last 180 blocks20 went past the median and paid a penalty. Dashed: median · dotted: limit.
block 3,805,4233,805,602
The penalty zone
Share of the 0.6 XMR base reward a miner burns, by how far the block goes past today’s median.
What it costs
Block weight
Burned
Kept
315.0 kB (+5%)
0.0015 XMR
0.5985 XMR
330.0 kB (+10%)
0.006 XMR
0.594 XMR
375.0 kB (+25%)
0.0375 XMR
0.5625 XMR
450.0 kB (+50%)
0.15 XMR
0.45 XMR
600.0 kB (+100%)
0.6 XMR
0 XMR
Computed with monerod’s own integer formula (get_block_reward) against the median above. Fees are never penalised.
Median from get_miner_data, weights from the block headers of our node. The blocks themselves are in the explorer; the daily mean is on the charts.
Questions
Does Monero have a block size limit?
Not a fixed one. A block may weigh up to twice the median weight of recent blocks (the median is never taken below 300 kB). Past the median, the miner loses part of the block reward, so blocks only grow when the fees pay for it.
How is the Monero block penalty calculated?
For a block of weight W above the median M, the base reward shrinks by the share ((W / M) − 1)². At 10% over the median the miner gives up 1% of the reward; at twice the median, all of it. The penalty is not paid to anyone — those coins are simply never created.
What is the difference between block size and block weight?
Weight is the size in bytes, with a correction for transactions with more than two outputs, whose compact Bulletproofs+ would otherwise make them cheaper than their verification cost. Fees and the block limit both use weight.