Genesis and tokenomics¶

The complete emission and supply specification.

Headline numbers¶

All values are constants in core/constants.py::BlockchainConstants.

Emission curve¶

Block subsidy at height h:

epoch       = h // HALVING_INTERVAL
subsidy(h)  = INITIAL_BLOCK_REWARD / (2 ** epoch)

The subsidy halves every HALVING_INTERVAL = 2,100,000 blocks. At ~60s per block that is approximately 4 years per epoch — matched to Bitcoin's halving cadence.

Why 5 WAVE × 2.1M blocks instead of 50 WAVE × 210k? Block time is 10× faster than Bitcoin's, so per-block reward and halving interval are both scaled by 1/10× to preserve a four-year halving cadence on the same 21M cap. The geometric series still sums to 21M:

sum(2 × INITIAL_BLOCK_REWARD × HALVING_INTERVAL)
  = 2 × 5 × 2,100,000
  = 21,000,000

Genesis block (block 0)¶

Genesis is constructed deterministically by every node on first boot.

Genesis distribution tx¶

{
  "sender":    "genesis",
  "recipient": "34378b1ba5be9d0999acd60be3a8a1f1",
  "amount":    1000000.0,
  "fee":       0.0,
  "data":      null,
  "nonce":     -1
}

The sender "genesis" is a sentinel string accepted only in block 0. The 1M WAVE premine lands at GENESIS_FOUNDATION_ADDRESS — a real ML-DSA-87-derived foundation address whose private key is held offline by the BDFL.

Every node computes the same genesis hash because every input (timestamp, distribution amount, foundation address) is a compile-time constant.

Coinbase (per block)¶

Each non-genesis block's first transaction is a coinbase:

{
  "sender":    "mining_reward",
  "recipient": "<miner address>",
  "amount":    "<subsidy(h) + sum(tx_fees)>",
  "fee":       0.0,
  "signature": "reward_signature"
}

• signature is the literal string "reward_signature" — validated structurally, not via ML-DSA.
• Adding the coinbase must not cause total supply to exceed MAX_SUPPLY. If it would, the block is rejected.

Supply check¶

total_supply = GENESIS_DISTRIBUTION + sum(subsidy(h) for h in 1..tip)
assert total_supply <= MAX_SUPPLY

Enforced on every block apply. Past max supply, blocks can still be mined but the coinbase must be zero (fees only) — otherwise the block is rejected.

Fees¶

Fees are collected entirely by the block miner via the coinbase amount. No protocol-level burn.

Bohms (gas unit)¶

Smart contract gas is denominated in bohms, a sub-unit of WAVE:

1 WAVE = 10^18 bohms
GAS_PRICE = 10^9 bohms per gas unit

A contract tx's fee (in WAVE) must cover gas_limit × GAS_PRICE bohms or it is rejected before mempool admission with InsufficientFee. Unused gas is not refunded in v1.

Example: a 100,000-gas call requires 100,000 × 10^9 = 10^14 bohms = 0.0001 WAVE, exactly at the floor.

Staking (Phase 2, disabled)¶

Hybrid PoS + Proof-of-Hardware design is reserved in code but disabled:

Stakers will earn the right to mine but must still produce a valid QRNG attestation; staking is Sybil resistance, not a replacement for hardware-backed PoW.

Mainnet vs testnet¶

The testnet difficulty cap exists because single-CPU performance-1x VMs spiral past difficulty 4 into multi-minute blocks; capping at 4 hex zeros keeps blocks at ~1s on shared CPUs.