An overview of a Tier 1 blockchain called Subspace

Hi all, today we are going to talk about the new Subspace Network blockchain and how you can interact with it.

Subspace is a new consensus Proof-of-Archival-Storage (PoAS) blockchain that provides a persistent, scalable, decentralized storage solution.

Subspace Network is designed as a scalable and distributed infrastructure for Web3, providing rich networking capabilities.

It is believed to be the first fourth-generation blockchain. By this is meant the following: obviously Bitcoin is the first generation. Etherium is the next big upgrade, the next refinement of the blockchain idea. There are many competing third-generation protocols. For example, there is Polkadot, Near, Solana, Cardano and Ethereum2. All this leads to a number of tradeoffs to achieve scalability in this so-called blockchain trilemma. So the Subspace is the fourth generation that fundamentally overcomes this trilemma. Subspace supports the mass participation of ordinary people with ordinary equipment in the consensus. It is sort of a return to the ideal of single-computer mining, which is where Bitcoin began, but unlike the former, it is done without waste, without electricity costs.

Subspace can support user-side mass deployment, so users can build decentralized blockchain-based applications that can actually work at the scale of the Internet. Thus, Subspace as a blockchain is a platform for both storage and computation, i.e. smart contracts, it is a fundamentally new level of scalability. The data doesn't have to be stored on a centralized server or controlled by some company releasing e.g. NFT, things related to games and the meta universe, and many other uses of the same NFT that eventually just boil down to billions and trillions of NFTs in one day, and all with lots of data associated with them.

I think one of the most exciting things about Subspace, is that unlike many other projects, we do not fundamentally embrace the blockchain trilemma. You could say that we don't have to compromise between scalability, decentralization and network security. We can have it all in one place. And to achieve that, you have to really go deep into the basics and start from first principles to design a network that has a fair consensus, based on a resource that is widely distributed storage.

You may ask why this consensus is proof-of-use storage? The answer is: We call it Proof-of-Archival-Storage (PoAS), where all blocks and transactions that people send to the network will be archived by farmers. Then, in proportion to how much data you keep in history as an objective useful service, in proportion to that will be your chance to win the farm block award. Subspace considers decentralization very important, and so all the blocks we have and all the farmers who will compete for block rewards (all these rewards will go to the farmers), this is a big part of the tokenomics of the project. We really think this is the key part, unlike some networks that use Proof-of-Stake.

On the other hand, storing data is good, and having consensus is cool, but we also want to have some computation on the blockchain. This is a big innovation that Ethereum has brought to the table. And we have several parts to it. One is untethered execution, where farmers produce blocks but don't manage the blocks. That's why farming in Subspace is very energy efficient, and anyone can do it as soon as they have some space.

There's another role online: performers. These will be slightly more powerful machines, such as gaming desktops, that can perform transactions and receive rewards, such as transaction fees. They will also be distributed, probably a little less than farmers, but it is important to remember, that despite the fact that these nodes are powerful, control of the network is still in the hands of farmers.

That's a big difference between Proof-of-Space, Proof-of-Archival-Storage, which we have, and Proof-of-Stake, where the performers are something like validators in those networks. But the one who controls the network in our case is the farmers who control the network. All the doers do is deterministically control what the farmers decide to do.

Where is the data stored?
They are stored in the blockchain, it sounds ridiculous to some people who came from Ethereum, but basically what you do is you put your data in a transaction, you send the transaction to the network, and the transaction is stored. Farmers work. That data is then archived as part of the normal history. People keep a canonical copy of the blockchain. They store the converted copy of the rearranged copy, which is what they prove. They are proving that they are storing it in this unique way. That's how consensus works.

How do we avoid data hoarding or an overloaded network?
Let's say we have one segment that can support X transactions per second, do X megabytes per second, etc. But in return, we just add another segment and then we can split the load in half. And depending on how much demand and how many farmers and how many execs we have on the network, we can just keep adding those segments as needed, and that way we can scale.

A way to integrate Subspace with other blockchains.
We can just integrate at will, or even our community or developers can extend our protocol to integrate it with any other blockchain, like Uniswap. They just created the protocol, and anyone can add a pair of tokens to Uniswap.

Tokenomics
Will there be a token limit? Yes, there will be.

The current tokenomics is actually a bitcoin-style halving, only more often. Right now it's one year every time there will be a halving. Another important thing about tokenomics that I didn't mention is that more than 51% of the token supply is going to farmers, the community.

Executors receive only the transaction fee. They don't get the new tokens being created. This will all be part of the official token document that will be released in the next few months, but we'll see.

The network currently has more than 20,000 active nodes managed by the community, making Subspace one of the most decentralized networks.

Thank you for your interest in the Subspace Network. Good luck!