Earn rewards - User guide

Everything you need to know to earn rewards with Merkl

Before your start

Make sure you understand:

• The difference between an opportunity and a campaign

• Key terms: daily rewards, APR, and TVL

• How the Merkl App is structured

All yield opportunities from protocols and chains distributing rewards through Merkl are available on the Merkl App.

How to get started

1. Explore opportunities

Visit the Merkl App and browse the available opportunities to find the one that suits you best. You can filter by chain, protocol, category, status, and more for an easy overview.

2. Check campaign details

Select an opportunity and review campaign details such as APR, TVL, daily rewards, end date, and distribution strategy.

Make sure to check the eligibility rules (e.g., blacklist, health factor) to confirm you qualify for rewards.

Do not get lured by high APRs. Rewards may be limited to whitelisted addresses or mostly go to large positions.

3. Interact with the protocol

Use the CTA button on the opportunity page to interact directly with the incentivized protocol (e.g., supply, lend, borrow).

Always do your own research (DYOR) before investing and ensure you trust the protocol you’re interacting with.

Merkl is non-custodial. No funds are held in Merkl smart contracts. You interact directly with the protocols, while Merkl tracks your onchain activity and distributes rewards accordingly.

The main risks when using Merkl come from the underlying protocols, which may have smart contract vulnerabilities or operational issues that could put your funds at risk.

Merkl is not responsible for any issues arising from incentivized protocols running campaigns on the platform.

4. Start earning rewards

Once you’ve interacted with the protocol, you’ll start earning rewards automatically. No staking or additional onchain actions are required.

5. Claim your rewards

Visit your Merkl dashboard to track and claim your rewards. Ensure you are connected with the same wallet used to interact with the protocol. Make sure to claim all your rewards within a year of receiving them!

Rewards usually show up in your dashboard around 8 hours after you interact with the protocol, giving Merkl time to calculate and distribute them. Check the Status page for details on reward distribution per chain.

You can claim all your rewards per chain at once to optimize gas costs!

Advanced features

Rewards on Merkl do not increase block by block, but can be claimed at a frequency which depends on the chain. You can check the claim frequency on the Status page.

Note that, by default, rewards can only be claimed by the address that earned them. You can however approve an operator to claim on your behalf by calling the function toggleOperator on the distributor smart contract. However, rewards will still be sent to the original address that earned them.

So to sum up, assuming Alice earned the rewards:

• by default only Alice can claim and rewards are sent to Alice.

• by calling toggleOperator, Alice can allow Bob to claim on her behalf. Then, Bob can claim for Alice by sending Alice's proof to the contract, and rewards are then sent to Alice.

If you can't call toggleOperator and are stuck, please open a tech ticket in our Discord , the team may be able to call it on your behalf.

Claiming from a multisig

When claiming rewards from a multisig address, we recommend delegating the claim process to an operator. This is because Merkl reward proofs are only valid for on average four hours (varies depending on the chain). If you fail to gather the necessary signatures and execute the claim transaction before a Merkle root is updated, your claim transaction will fail.

Claiming as an operator

Once an address has approved you as an operator by calling toggleOperator on the distributor smart contract, you can claim rewards on behalf of that address directly from the Merkl frontend.

How to claim via the frontend

1. Navigate to the user's dashboard: Go to https://app.merkl.xyz/users/[ADDRESS] where [ADDRESS] is the wallet address for which you want to claim rewards.

2. Enable Operator mode: On the right side of the dashboard, you'll find a button with three vertical dots (⋮). Click on it and select "Operator mode (advanced)" to enable it.

   Operator mode (advanced)

   Claim rewards on behalf of addresses that approved you. Claims without approval will fail.

3. Connect your operator wallet: Connect the wallet that has been toggled as an operator for the address you're claiming on behalf of.

4. Claim the rewards: Once connected, you'll see the rewards available for the address, and you can claim them as you would normally. The rewards will be sent to the original address that earned them, not to your operator address.

If you need to claim rewards programmatically or via the API instead of the frontend, see the Integrating User Rewards section in the integration guide, which explains how to retrieve Merkle proofs from the API and build claim transactions.

Address Remapping

If a smart contract you use can’t claim rewards, ask the Merkl team to remap those rewards to a claimable wallet by reaching out on Discord with the campaign ID, source address, and destination address. The full walkthrough lives in the Reward Forwarding guide.