Compute Substrate
A Permissionless Computation Layer Without Authority
Note: This document describes a network that records speculative computation only. It does not determine correctness, execute actions, or resolve outcomes. Interpretation and action are external.
Abstract
We present Compute Substrate, a permissionless proof-of-work network for producing and persisting speculative computation without authority, execution, or resolution. Participants may propose computational outputs and attest to them at a cost. The network aggregates these signals deterministically and commits them to a public ledger. Compute Substrate does not attempt to determine correctness, trigger actions, or assign outcomes. Its sole purpose is to record computation under fixed cryptographic rules. By explicitly separating computation from authority, the system allows unbounded speculative computation while remaining safe to ignore.
1. Introduction
Modern distributed systems increasingly rely on large-scale computation: predictions, rankings, simulations, and analyses generated by many independent actors. In practice, the outputs of these computations are often treated as decisions, triggering actions or reallocating resources. This collapse of layers—allowing computation to accumulate authority—introduces fragility. Errors become catastrophic, incentives distort behavior, and systems attract adversarial pressure proportional to the consequences of being “right.”
This paper explores a narrower question: can computation be scaled independently of authority? That is, can a system persist the results of computation without implying correctness, execution, or obligation?
We present Compute Substrate as a minimal affirmative answer. It is a network that computes and records speculation only. Authority, interpretation, and action are explicitly external. The system remains complete even if all recorded outputs are wrong or ignored forever.
Compute Substrate is deliberately named as a substrate rather than a system. It does not aim to compute answers, resolve uncertainty, or produce outcomes. Instead, it provides a neutral, persistent layer on which computation may be recorded under fixed cryptographic rules. Like a physical substrate, it is indifferent to meaning, correctness, and use. Computation exists on the substrate, not within its authority. Interpretation, validation, and action are explicitly external.
2. Design Goals
Compute Substrate is designed around the following goals:
- Permissionless participation: anyone may join, propose, attest, or mine.
- No authority: the network never decides correctness or resolves outcomes.
- No execution: recorded outputs never trigger actions.
- Cost-bearing computation: contributing signals requires paying fees.
- Deterministic aggregation: all nodes derive identical state from the same history.
- Verifiable history: all state is reproducible from genesis.
- Safe to ignore: external systems may observe or disregard outputs without consequence.
These goals intentionally exclude many features common to “intelligence” or “governance” systems. The exclusions are essential to safety.
3. System Overview
3.1 Network Model
Compute Substrate is a peer-to-peer network secured by proof-of-work. Nodes perform three roles:
- Full nodes: validate blocks, maintain state, and serve data.
- Miners: construct blocks and perform proof-of-work.
- Clients: submit transactions and query aggregated outputs.
All roles are permissionless.
3.2 Blocks and Consensus
Blocks are linked by hash pointers and ordered by cumulative chainwork. The consensus rule is simple:
The canonical chain is the valid chain with the highest total chainwork.
Proof-of-work provides Sybil resistance and ensures that history is costly to rewrite. Block rewards and transaction fees incentivize inclusion and liveness, not correctness of computation.
3.3 Transactions
Transactions follow a UTXO model. Each transaction may include an optional application payload. Two payload types are defined:
- PROPOSE: submits a speculative computational output.
- ATTEST: expresses support for an existing proposal.
Transactions pay fees. Minimum fees are enforced for PROPOSE and ATTEST payloads to bound spam.
3.4 Proposals
A proposal consists of:
- a domain identifier (e.g. “finance”, “science”)
- an opaque payload (bytes)
- a timestamped inclusion height
The network does not interpret proposal contents. Meaning exists only to observers.
3.5 Attestations
An attestation references a specific proposal and contributes weight to it. Attestations are also opaque to the protocol; they simply increase a proposal’s score within an epoch.
3.6 Epochs and Aggregation
Time is divided into fixed-length epochs. Within each epoch, proposals are ranked by the sum of attestation weight they receive.
At the end of an epoch, the network derives a deterministic Top-K list for each domain. These lists are part of the canonical state and are queryable by any node.
Importantly:
- Rankings do not imply correctness.
- Rankings do not trigger rewards or actions.
- Rankings may change across epochs or reorgs.
4. Incentives and Fees
Compute Substrate uses incentives only to ensure participation and liveness.
- Block rewards incentivize miners to secure the chain.
- Transaction fees incentivize inclusion and bound spam.
There are no rewards for being correct. Fees are paid regardless of outcome. This prevents computation from becoming authority-bearing.
5. State, Forks, and Reorganizations
Like any proof-of-work chain, Compute Substrate may experience temporary forks. Nodes track block headers, cumulative chainwork, and maintain undo logs for state transitions.
On reorganization:
- spent UTXOs are restored
- created UTXOs are removed
- proposal and attestation inserts are rolled back
This ensures that aggregated outputs always correspond to the canonical chain.
Although the system does not execute actions, correctness of reorg handling is essential for determinism and verifiability.
6. Security Properties
6.1 Adversarial Computation
Malicious or incorrect proposals are allowed by design. They are harmless because they carry no authority. Compute Substrate is not designed to be correct; it is designed to be reproducible.
6.2 Spam Resistance
Spam is bounded by transaction fees and proof-of-work costs.
6.3 No Oracle Attacks
Because outcomes are never resolved, there is no oracle to corrupt and no incentive to do so.
6.4 Miner Behavior
Miners may reorder or exclude transactions, but can only affect inclusion, not interpretation or execution.
7. Non-Goals
Compute Substrate explicitly does not attempt to:
- determine truth or correctness
- resolve real-world outcomes
- execute actions or trigger payments
- govern participants
- provide predictions with guarantees
- replace markets, oracles, or governance systems
These functions belong to higher layers.
8. Applications (External)
Compute Substrate is intended to be observed, not relied upon. External systems may use its outputs as:
- speculative inputs
- advisory signals
- planning data
- exploratory intelligence
Any authority to act on these outputs must exist entirely outside the protocol.
9. Conclusion
Compute Substrate demonstrates that a pure computation layer can exist independently of authority, execution, or resolution. By committing only speculative outputs under fixed cryptographic rules, the system enables unbounded computation while remaining safe to ignore. We leave all interpretation and action to external systems.
End of paper. HTML edition for readability and citation. This page is static and carries no authority.