Miners being awarded 2000 STX

Core Blockchain
#1

Hi there,

I was just checking out Onstacks and I noticed some miners win 2,000 STX as a coinbase reward while the majority of others get only 1,000 STX.

Is this normal?

SP3N197ATFF403XPAGHS05A1ASA7W74C0ZGB59BJ6 | Block #72267
SP2TJM0MC2F0TJ4Z43XY3M58SZX3BSEQ32WKXFAWC | Block #72257
SP3N197ATFF403XPAGHS05A1ASA7W74C0ZGB59BJ6 | Block #72246

Edit: I noticed that it’s these 2 miners that repeatedly get 2000 STX and make up over 60% of the miner distribution.

SP2TJM0MC2F0TJ4Z43XY3M58SZX3BSEQ32WKXFAWC: 31%
SP3N197ATFF403XPAGHS05A1ASA7W74C0ZGB59BJ6: 30%

#2

Yup, that’s normal. If bitcoin block B has no Stacks block, then a Stacks block mined in B+1 gets to claim the coinbase that would have materialized in B had there been a Stacks block mined in it. This is a liveness feature to ensure that even if the BTC/STX exchange rate becomes large, it will always eventually be profitable to mine STX.