Understanding Balances

Your rewards wallet holds MNEE — the digital dollar in electronic cash form on HeartBadge. Dollar balances are organized into three states that determine what you can do with them. Understanding these states helps you know what you can send, what you're waiting on, and when restricted rewards unlock.

The three balance states

Available

Dollars you can spend or send right now. This is the balance you see at the top of your wallet. Available dollars have cleared all restrictions and are fully yours to use.

Transferable

A subset of Available. Transferable dollars can be sent to another member's badge. Some dollars may be Available (you can spend it on content, pay for inbox access) but not Transferable (you can't send it P2P). The distinction matters for rewards that came from specific sources.

Restricted

Dollars that's in your wallet but not yet available. Restricted rewards have a hold on them — typically 180 days from the date of the card purchase that funded them. You can see your restricted balance and when it unlocks, but you can't spend or send it until the hold lifts.

Why restrictions exist

When you buy a membership with a credit card, the rewards funded by that purchase carry a 180-day hold. This protects the network against chargeback fraud: if someone buys a membership with a stolen card, disputes the charge, and then sends all the rewards elsewhere, the network would lose money. The hold ensures that by the time rewards are transferable, the payment is definitively settled.

Rewards you earn from participation (event check-ins, quest completions, referrals) are typically available immediately or on a shorter schedule, depending on the program's configuration.

The Next Unlock indicator

Your wallet shows a "Next Unlock" date — the next time some of your restricted balance becomes available. The unlock schedule is deterministic: each batch of restricted MNEE has an unlock date set when it was issued. The wallet aggregates these and shows you when the next tranche frees up.

Two-tier ledger (how it works under the hood)

HeartBadge uses a two-tier ledger for rewards:

• Fast tier (accrual). When you earn a reward, it shows up in your wallet immediately. This is an in-memory update on HeartBadge's real-time infrastructure.
• Settlement tier (on-chain). Periodically, accrued dollars are settled on-chain via the rewards pipeline. This makes the balance auditable and verifiable by anyone.

You don't need to think about the two tiers — your wallet shows one balance. The architecture exists so that sending someone dollars feels instant (like sending a message) while still being cryptographically auditable (like a bank wire). Technical deep dive: Two-Tier Ledger.

Summary