Wen Subspace | Network Update

On September 6th 2023, the Subspace Network successfully launched Gemini III, our third and final incentivized test network, in the lead up to our Mainnet βeta launch! A huge thanks goes out to our core team and enthusiastic community for making this possible!

At mainnet launch, our goal is to make Subspace into the world’s most open identity and payment network. By connecting both Humans and AI through the magic of Web3, Subspace will allow anyone, anywhere, to participate in the emerging autonomous economy. Look out for more on our Web3 AI thesis in a series of upcoming blog posts.

Our mission has always been to create the world’s most scalable, most secure, and most decentralized blockchain network, while staying true to Nakamoto’s original vision to make the digital economy accessible to everyone. After nearly five years in the making, the time for Subspace is nearly here. So without further ado, let’s answer the question: Wen Subspace?

🔍Overview

Gemini III will be lengthy and develop across three distinct phases, each with specific technical upgrades, product releases, and incentive programs.

Key Features:

🏃‍♂️ Our longest-running network, lasting up to five months.

🔧 At least three hard resets, for new features and upgrades.

👨‍🌾 Different incentive structures for farmers and operators.

Tokenomics

Farming: Unlike previous incentivized test networks, Gemini III will follow a token issuance model for farming much closer to what we will deploy at mainnet launch. This means that instead of having a fixed allocation for Gemini III, we will have a continuous issuance of tokens at a constant rate of .1% of the total supply per week. The total allocation for farmers will vary based on the duration of Gemini III, which we expect to last for approximately 24 weeks, yielding approximately 2.4% of the total token supply.

Stake Wars: An additional fixed pool of .6% of the token supply will be allocated to Stake Wars, our incentivization game for domain operators, which will run during the second and third phases of Gemini III. This will be allocated pro-rata to operators based on their percentage of Subspace Credits locked towards domain staking.

These percentages reflect our commitment to equitable token distribution while fostering sustained community involvement and network fortification.This allocation not only incentivizes broad participation but also ensures robust network security.

Beyond Incentivized Testnet: In a manner consistent with our commitment to innovation in the blockchain space, we’re working closely with the team at Blockscience to help us refine our mainnet token economy. While the total token supply will be fixed with a deflationary issuance model (similar to Bitcoin), the specific numbers for the token supply and issuance rate are still being determined. We can share that the Subspace Network will employ a novel dynamic issuance model. As blockspace utilization (and transaction fees) increases, the block subsidy will adjust accordingly, ensuring a balanced ecosystem for all participants across the decades or centuries-long lifecycle of the Subspace Network.

🧱Phase 1: Laying the Foundation (In Progress)

Throughout Phase 1 we’ll be aggressively working to improve and stress test the network. While this phase will likely be the shortest of the three, expect a number of ongoing changes:

Technical Upgrades During this Phase

• Sync from DSN: Nodes, by default, sync from the DSN rather than archival nodes on the network. This means that the network no longer requires archival nodes, which essentially solves the Farmer’s Dilemma, as farmer’s are not required to store the full history of the blockchain, freeing up the more space to pledge to the network.
• EVM Domains: This phase of the Incentivized Tesnet will introduce EVM domain functionality, facilitating more familiar interactions within the network and development on the network
• Domain Withdrawals: The ability to withdraw from domains to the consensus chain and deposit from the consensus chain to domains will be enabled.

New Product Release(s) During this Phase

• Astral: We’ll be introducing our block explorer, Astral, which will provide a more transparent and user-friendly way to monitor transactions on the network, including our EVM domain.

🦧Phase 2: The Evolution Continues (starting by October 31, 2023)

Technical Upgrades During This Phase

• Proof-of-Time (PoT): In order to protect against long-range attacks we will be implementing a proof-of-time protocol. This will add the concept of timekeepers that run verifiable computations proving the passage of time. Proof-of-Time will trigger a network reset that will kick off Phase 2 of our Incentivized Testnet.
• Compact Blocks: Released alongside Proof-of-Time, Compact Blocks will allow us to vertically scale the transaction throughput of the network up to the bandwidth limitations of the average farmer.
• Secure Domains: Fraud proofs will be enabled which will help secure our domains against malicious operators. Domains will be secure as long as there is one honest operator who can submit fraud proofs when they observe malicious behavior from any other operator.

New Product Releases During this Phase

• Subgraphs Support: Subgraphs help to index blockchain data, transforming it into a more performant and easily queryable format allowing dApps to run faster and offering a better user experience.
• Rewards Dashboard: Our rewards dashboard provides operators and farmers with real-time metrics and data related to their contributions and rewards. The goal is to enhance transparency and create a strong feedback loop for network participants.
• Node Docs: Our node documentation serves as a cornerstone for educating our community and other ecosystem stakeholders by facilitating troubleshooting, encouraging best practices, and fostering a robust, transparent, and decentralized ecosystem.
• Early AI Integrations: Initial experiments around an open identity for Agentic AI through Autonomous Identifiers (AutoID) and secure management of private keys by personal agents on behalf of users through the Sapial Developer framework.

New Incentive Programs

• Stake Wars: This incentivized competition will herald the introduction of a new class of network citizen — the operator. Operators are responsible for processing transactions on our execution environments which we call domains. They do this by committing a deposit to the network (their stake). This stake is locked and can be confiscated (slashed) if there is any malicious behavior. This provides crypto-economic security to execution on Subspace. Additionally, any token holder will be able to nominate their coins to their favorite operator in order to earn a portion of the transaction fees they receive. Stake Wars will validate our staking processes and contracts and build a network of operators who will join us on day one of mainnet beta.

🚀Phase 3: The Final Frontier (starting by December 20, 2023)

Technical Upgrades During this Phase

• Performance Upgrades: The main goal of this phase is to ensure ALL features for mainnet and the final secure parameters for our consensus protocol are working as expected, any features not working will be addressed during this phase.
• Cross Domain Messaging: Users will be able to transfer assets or exchange generic messages across different domains.
• Permissionless Instantiation of Domains: Instantiating a new domain with an existing domain runtime will be a permissionless process, allowing for anyone to launch their own domain.
• Tokenomics Simulations: Look out for an in-depth analysis and real-world testing of our token economics from our partners at BlockScience. This will allow for the final parameterization of our tokenomics prior to mainnet launch.

New Product Releases During this Phase

• Advanced AI Integrations: A re-imagined Web3 user experience suitable for mass adoption, facilitated by agentic AI and natural language interfaces for managing keys, payments, cross-chain transactions, and running a node, farmer, or operator.

🪐To Mainnet Beta & Beyond! (starting by February 14, 2024)

Phew! That’s a lot, but we’re not stopping there. Following the completion of all of our technical upgrades and product releases we will move to Mainnet Beta.

The How: We will have a pause between the final testnet and mainnet beta launch, with the goal of creating a fair and secure launch. During the transition we will calculate all incentivized testnet rewards to be minted. We will then launch the Space Race, a race for farmers to pledge as much space as needed to secure the network. Once the space pledged has reached a secure threshold the network will be activated by enabling block rewards.

Following the launch of Mainnet Beta, you can expect to see the following major milestones:

• A Community Token Offering, gated to participants from any of our three test networks, followed by a much larger Public Token Offering, open to all. Both sales will be Web3 native and facilitated by Tokensoft.
• To ensure compliance with Swiss regulations, we have obtained a ruling from FINMA, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, confirming the qualification of SSC as a utility token. With this classification, the listing of Subspace Credits (SSC) on major exchanges is forthcoming, alongside liquidity integrations with DeFi protocols on Ethereum through a trust-minimized bridge.
• The bifurcation of the core team at Subspace Labs into two distinct entities: The Subspace Foundation, a registered Swiss foundation, which will manage the blockchain protocol and governance, and the Continuum Collective Corporation, which will focus on promoting our ecosystem of projects and applications.
• A phased transition from permissioned governance under the Subspace Foundation to Decentralized Community Governance, led by our global ambassador program. With guidance from seasoned legal experts, we’re exploring optimal governance structures with a commission-driven framework. This commission is the Foundation’s arm responsible for coordinating proposals from our community guilds and leveraging the treasury’s resources to activate proposals in line with the project’s objectives. Initially, the commission will blend both team and community voices, but our aspiration is for it to transition towards being predominantly represented by elected community members.
• The launch of Mainnet Omega, which will introduce dynamic data sharding, our unique approach to limitless horizontal scalability, and open domains, allowing for fully permissionless registration of new domain runtimes.

Stay tuned for more details in follow-up announcements on how to get involved in these exciting opportunities. Thank you once again to our supportive community and core team for making all of this possible!