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  • Welcome to the Autonomys Academy
  • A Preface for OG Subspacers
  • Autonomys Vision
    • Intro to AI3.0 & the Age of Autonomy
    • Use-Cases
  • Autonomys Network
    • Introduction
    • Terminology
    • Architecture
    • Advancing Blockchain
    • Nodes
    • Subspace Protocol (PoAS Consensus)
      • Genesis
      • Data Flow
      • Proof-of-Archival-Storage (PoAS)
        • Archiving
        • Plotting
        • Farming
      • Proof-of-Time (PoT)
      • Security
    • Distributed Storage Network (DSN)
    • Decoupled Execution (DecEx)
      • Domains
        • Taxonomy
        • Auto EVM
        • Cross-Domain Messaging (XDM)
      • Staking
    • Networking Protocols
    • $AI3 Rewards & Fees
      • Gemini Testnets
    • Scalability
  • Auto Suite
    • Introduction
    • Space Acres | CLI
      • Farmers | Store to Earn $AI3
      • Operators | Compute to Earn $AI3
    • Astral
      • Nominators | Stake to Earn $AI3
    • Auto SDK
    • Auto Drive
    • Autonomys Agents (Auto Agents)
    • Autonomys Identity (Auto ID)
      • Auto Score
      • Auto PKI
  • Additional Learning
    • AI & Agentics
      • Current State of AI
      • What is an LLM
      • Personal AI
      • What is an AI Agent
      • The Coming Age of Agentic AI
      • Open vs Closed Models
      • Provenance in a Generative World
      • AI Empowering Bad Actors
      • Proof-of-Personhood
    • Identity & Security
      • DID & Verifiable Credentials
      • OAuth and OIDC
      • Public Key Infrastructure
    • Web3
      • What is a Blockchain?
      • The Blockchain Trilemma and the Cost of Scalability
      • What is a Cryptocurrency
      • General Information about SDK
      • What is a DAO?
      • Challenges of Participating in a DAO
  • Feedback
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  • Node roles
  • Farmer
  • Operator
  • Timekeeper
  • Node types
  • Full nodes
  • Archival nodes
  • Light nodes (clients)

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  1. Autonomys Network

Nodes

Autonomys Network node roles and types

PreviousAdvancing BlockchainNextSubspace Protocol (PoAS Consensus)

Last updated 2 months ago

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Node roles

Farmer

Farmers secure the chain by pledging disk space to the network. They are incentivized to store data through block rewards and fees. A farmer plots pieces of archival history to disk, farms the created plot for block rewards, and joins the as a data retrieval node (for syncing nodes and returning data to clients). As they do not have to store the blockchain history alongside their plot, farmers can dedicate all their available space to farming. Farmers only an SSD drive and an off-the-shelf CPU to participate, making Autonomys one of the most accessible blockchain networks, and allowing it to become the most decentralized.

Operator

Operators maintain the state of chains and run computations on . They are incentivized to execute transactions and manage state transitions through transaction fees.

Timekeeper

Timekeepers run the chain and maintain the randomness beacon for the chain. They are responsible for evaluating the delay function (within the target time slot duration of 1 second) and announcing the outputs to other nodes, requiring a powerful last-generation CPU. The maintains several timekeepers as a public good.

Node types

Full nodes

Full nodes process all blocks and serve peers, preserving the blockchain's state and recent history for a configurable number of recent blocks until it is archived and pruned. Full nodes support newly joined nodes by providing them with the necessary block data to start their participation. Running a full node allows the participant to verify all blocks, ensuring independent auditability. All farmers, operators and timekeepers are full nodes by default.

Autonomys promotes network decentralization by keeping the hardware requirements for running full nodes low enough for an individual to set up and run one at home. The health, robustness and censorship-resistance of the Autonomys Network lies in the continuous online presence of numerous independently managed full nodes spread .

Archival nodes

Light nodes (clients)

Archival nodes process all blocks and serve peers, preserving the blockchain's state and entire history. Archival nodes are useful for faster historical block retrieval and block explorers. All farmers, operators and timekeepers can become archival nodes. The maintains several archival nodes as a public good, but they are not necessary for the long-term functioning of the chain.

Light nodes (clients) connect to full nodes and process block headers, but do not preserve the blockchain's state or history. Light nodes are useful for low-resource devices used by clients (users interacting with the network) and can be run in a browser with .

PoAS consensus
$AI3
DSN
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DecEx
domains
$AI3
Proof-of-Time
consensus
Subspace Foundation
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