Cash Flows
There are two ways to earn on merca.earth. First: when someone buys your parcel, you get 85% of the buyout price in the same transaction. Second: if you own a large territory, you can collect tax from smaller parcels inside it.
These flows are mechanical. They are not guaranteed returns, and this page is not investment advice.
Three Cash-Flow Channels
| Channel | Type | Action required |
|---|---|---|
| Resale proceeds | Passive | None |
| POI proposal income | Semi-passive | Accept or reject proposals |
| Tax collection | Active | Collect periodically |
| Hierarchy exposure | Conditional | Depends on parcel position and later activity |
Resale Proceeds
When someone buys your parcel, you receive 85% of the buyout price as a direct SUI transfer in the same transaction. No claim. No separate step.
The remaining 15% splits between the protocol treasury (7%) and the hierarchy tax pool (8%), which flows to owners of parent-level parcels covering your area.
| Recipient | Share |
|---|---|
| You (seller) | 85% |
| Protocol treasury | 7% |
| Hierarchy pool | 8% |
The buyout price escalates each time a parcel changes hands. See Buyout & Premium → The Resale Ladder for the current ladder.
POI Proposal Income
Block-level parcel owners earn from POI proposals only when they accept an offer.
- Submission fee — every proposal pays a non-refundable minimum fee at submission. That fee goes to the protocol treasury, not to the parcel owner.
- Accepted offer (85%) — when you accept a proposal, you receive 85% of the escrowed offer. The remaining 15% splits between the protocol treasury (7%) and the hierarchy pool (8%).
Set a higher minimum offer on your parcel to attract serious proposals. See Proposing a POI for the full flow.
Tax Collection
Tax collection is the active cash-flow path. When child parcels inside your parcel's area are registered, bought, or expanded, 8% of each payment flows into the hierarchy pool and cascades up to parent owners.
This revenue accumulates in tax buckets. Initial buckets open on the child parcel that triggered the payment. Cascade buckets open on the ancestor parcels above it. Buckets do not pay out automatically. You collect them.
How to collect
- Select your parcel on the map.
- Open the Selected Parcel Panel and find the Taxes section.
- If collectable buckets exist, the total appears with a Collect button.
- Click Collect. The protocol batches up to 20 buckets, collects the tax, and transfers SUI to your wallet.
When you collect, the protocol transfers your share in the same transaction.
Uncollected buckets expire. Once a bucket's expiry epoch passes, anyone can sweep it — and the funds go to the treasury, not to you. This is permanent. There is no recovery.
Check your collectable buckets regularly and collect before they expire.
The parcel detail panel shows:
- Opened tax buckets targeting your level
- Collectable bucket count and total amount
- Expired (sweepable) buckets you've already missed
See Collect Tax → Claiming Tax Revenue for the full collection workflow, and Tax → How Cascade Collection Works for how the cascade mechanism works.
Why Hierarchy Position Matters
Think of it like real estate: if you own a country-sized territory, every city, district, and block registered inside it can generate tax revenue for you. The map is a spatial hierarchy — large places contain smaller ones, and 8% of each qualifying payment flows upward to parent owners.
A parent parcel in an active area collects from every registration, buyout, and expansion beneath it. The deeper the hierarchy below you, the more lower-level activity can pass through your parcel.
What determines how much you collect:
- Activity below you. A parent over a busy area (lots of registrations, buyouts, expansions) sees more tax flow than one over empty territory.
- Depth below you. More hierarchy levels beneath your place means more potential sources of revenue.
- Coverage. Larger places contain more child places — more territory, more possible transactions.
These are descriptions of the mechanic, not recommendations about what to buy.
Collection Routine
Tax collection rewards consistency. A simple routine keeps you from losing revenue to expiry:
- Monitor. Check the Taxes section on your parent parcels periodically. The detail panel shows collectable amounts and bucket counts.
- Collect. Click Collect on each parcel, or use Withdraw All in the Wallet Panel to collect everything at once.
- Watch expiry. The detail panel flags expired buckets. If you see them, you've already lost that revenue — use it as a signal to collect more frequently.
There's no fixed expiry window published in the UI, so err on the side of collecting often rather than waiting for a large balance to accumulate.
Summary
- Resale: 85% of the buyout price goes to the seller in the same transaction.
- POI proposals: the submission fee goes to the treasury. The parcel owner earns only by accepting an offer, and then receives 85% of the escrowed amount.
- Tax collection: requires periodic collection; expired buckets are gone forever.
- Position: hierarchy placement changes how much lower-level activity can flow through your parcel.
Related articles:
- Tax → What a Tax Bucket Is — how the cascade mechanism works
- Buyout & Premium → The Resale Ladder — price escalation and resale math
- Collect Tax → Claiming Tax Revenue — collection workflow in the app