Construction Incentive Program

Objectives

Validation, delegation, and rewards

The chain stays secure thanks to the validators: operators who propose and confirm blocks, and who take part in governance.

Anyone who holds coins can delegate them to a validator. Those coins are not transferred: they remain in their account, staked in favor of that operator. The greater the amount delegated, the greater that validator's weight in consensus and in votes.

The protocol issues validation rewards. One part goes to the validator, as a commission. The rest goes to those who delegated to it.

The commission belongs to whoever operates the validator. It is their reward, and they decide how to use it. By that path, validators are the first hands to receive the protocol's new coins, and it falls to them to bring those coins into the markets.

What vesting is

Vesting is a programmed lock. The coins already exist in an account, but they cannot be spent or transferred until time releases them.

In this supply, vesting is continuous and linear over 42 years: in each block a minimal portion unlocks. The rest remains out of reach until its time comes.

What is still locked can be delegated. Delegation does not require unlocking: the coins remain in the account, staked in favor of a validator, and generate rewards like any other delegation.

That term describes only the unlock of this supply.

The Foundation

The Foundation is a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). It is made up of the validators that keep the protocol operational and healthy, in four profiles.

The Deep Thought Laboratory works on the development of the protocol's core. They collaborate voluntarily, as an independent team and as a network. Their members may change over time.

The guardians are a group of anonymous people. They sign the Genesis wallet: the account that, from the start of the chain, holds in custody the coins reserved for its security. They form the council of this program: they oversee its operation and review the audits that verify that the distribution matches the published criteria. Among them are those who drove Infinite from the design: the first validators and those who began to build the protocol.

The operations validators sustain essential chain infrastructure: high-availability nodes and pieces such as RPC, oracles, and interoperability between chains.

The independent builders are ventures that come to the chain to participate and build. Each does so with its own strategy, its own rules, and its own way of operating.

Infinite Drive is an open protocol: no permission is asked to build. That openness follows the texts that guide Project 42 and the Foundation. Among them, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, by John Perry Barlow; A Cypherpunk's Manifesto, by Eric Hughes; and The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto, by Timothy C. May.

Program overview

The Foundation allocates the Construction Incentive Program to the use of the vesting supply: 100 million Improbability coins (42) reserved for the security of Infinite. That capital is not spent. It is delegated.

By delegating them, the chain is protected. That same delegation funds those who make its construction possible: the laboratory, the guardians, the operations validators, and independent builders. Each role receives a different assignment.

The program does not set Infinite's tokenomics, nor does it assign the global power of the ecosystem. The real distribution of power will be an organic phenomenon, over the life cycle of the chain, according to the decisions of each participant —builders and users— about whom to delegate or stake their coins to.

This program concentrates, at the start, an incentive to construction. As community power gains weight, that of the Foundation will be smaller.

The protocol pays validation rewards to both parties: a commission to the validator and the rest to whoever delegated to it. The coins of the supply are not handed over: voting capacity is given so that they can be earned in the protocol.

That commission is the validator's reward. The validator decides how to use it. Validators are the first hands to receive the new coins the protocol issues, and it falls to them to bring those coins into the markets.

Whoever receives this assignment can accumulate those rewards and increase the weight of their validator.

The one who delegates in this program is the Genesis wallet. The rewards that belong to it do not stay in that account, nor are they delegated again from it. The purpose is that this supply not grow.

Those Genesis rewards are sent to the community treasury. It is that treasury that grows, day by day. It can only be disposed of through governance.

The distribution system is operated by the Foundation. The entire supply is not delegated on the first day: each period a budget is opened, and the rest of the supply waits.

The program is maintained over time, without a closing term. The 100 million are the supply allocated to this purpose.

In the first days the program sustains the construction of Infinite and keeps the chain stable and secure.

The Genesis wallet

The Genesis wallet is the account that Infinite opens at its genesis to custody the supply reserved for security and delegation. It is a multisig account. The guardians sign it.

It holds 100 million coins, under continuous and linear vesting for 42 years. That capital can be delegated from the first day, without unlocking or transferring it.

The guardians can sign on behalf of this address. That does not grant them control of the coins, nor access to them. An attempt at extraction would obtain only what vesting had released up to that moment: a minimal portion. In each block a fraction unlocks; the rest remains out of reach during those 42 years. In addition to vesting, it is contemplated that that capital remain locked in staking.

The distribution system

To carry out that delegation without moving the supply, the Genesis wallet grants a permission to a distribution system. The permission is granted once. The coins remain there, still locked in vesting: what travels is the delegation, not the balance.

Through this system, the Foundation supervises, monitors, and assigns the delegations. It operates in large part automatically, always under the human judgment of the Foundation's members. The system stakes the supply in favor of validators, by period, in three allocations: laboratory, guardians, and operations and builders.

What this delegation produces

That delegation produces rewards, like any other. The protocol issues them in the name of whoever delegated, so they belong to the Genesis wallet.

If they were left in that account, they would accumulate as a balance. And if they were delegated again, the weight of this program in consensus would grow on its own over time, without an express decision.

That is why the system moves them to the protocol's community treasury, not to the Genesis wallet. They are not delegated again.

The validator's commission does not follow that path: it is their reward. Only the Genesis wallet's rewards are sent to the community treasury.

The vesting supply, by contrast, remains where it is: locked and delegated, in service of the chain's security.

Community treasury

The community treasury is a native module of Infinite. What is deposited in it can only be used through a governance proposal.

To dispose of what has already been deposited, the protocol follows this path:

The validators of this program

This program delegates to specific validators: those who build and sustain the protocol. The budget is divided into three allocations, according to profile: laboratory, guardians, and operations and builders.

All of them receive delegation. What changes is the amount, according to the function each one represents.

The validator represents a role

A validator is not only a technical node. It is the public representation of a role: a person, a team, or a project, with vote, commission, and operation attributable to that function.

• Each developer of Deep Thought Laboratory may have a validator associated with their role in the protocol's core.
• Each guardian may have a validator associated with their role as a council member.
• The operations profile represents a technical service of the chain —high-availability nodes, RPC, oracles, and interoperability— and may have a validator associated with that service.
• Each independent project may have a validator that represents it.

The validator fulfills two functions. It is a node that contributes security to the chain. And it is, at the same time, the public identifier of a role: through it, whoever builds or operates receives the reward for that work.

The service someone offers and the validator that represents it are two distinct pieces. Whoever offers a high-availability RPC —historical, fast-query, or another modality— maintains that service, and also has a validator that represents them. The same holds for any other operations service or construction project: the validator is a representation.

Each participant decides how to administer their infrastructure. There is, even so, an indispensable requirement: the validator node must be operationally healthy. The security and stability of those nodes represent the security of the chain, and each operator is responsible for them. The specifications, the rules, and what is expected technically will be published.

Some members of Deep Thought Laboratory are also guardians, as are some builders and founding validators. It is a natural continuity: the protocol is built in community.

How the budget is opened

The entire supply is not delegated on the first day. Every 12 months a budget of 1 million is opened. The rest of the 100 million waits, still in vesting, without being delegated.

That million is divided into three allocations, each with the profiles that compose it: the laboratory, the guardians, and operations and builders. What is not assigned from this last one remains in reserve and may be granted during the period.

At the end of the twelve months a new budget is opened, with the same structure. The cycle does not depend on the vesting unlock term.

Laboratory and guardians

In each cycle the full allocation is assigned again. It is divided in equal parts among those who make up the profile in that period. Thus the laboratory always keeps 25% of the program, and the guardians 5%, even if the number of members changes.

Whoever joins one of these profiles receives their share starting in the next period. Whoever ceases to be part of them stops receiving it.

Thus the allocation can sustain a small team or an army of independent developers who work under the identity of Deep Thought Laboratory.

Operations and builders

The third allocation is 70% of the budget. It is composed of different profiles —operations services and independent builders— and is assigned in seats. There are three sizes, in relative parts of 1, 2, and 4. Which seat corresponds to each case, the criteria, and any other detail are published in the call for that period.

How the period is filled

The laboratory and guardians allocations are assigned to those who make up those profiles. The operations and builders allocation is filled in seats. While reserve remains, whoever meets the profile and the requirements of the call can receive a seat at any time during the period. If there is no capacity, they wait for the opening of the next cycle. Seats already granted are not withdrawn because of a new addition.

When the period closes

At the close of a cycle and the opening of the next, each operations and builders assignment is reviewed. According to the context of that role, the seat is kept, steps up one level, steps down one level, or is withdrawn.

In that same call, whoever already has a seat may request an additional lot for the same project: another complete assignment that is added to the one they already have. Demonstrable and auditable evidence is required that that work deserves it. It is not limited to keeping or stepping up one level.

Laboratory and guardians do not take part in that scale. In the next period, their allocation is divided again among those who make up the profile.

Who joins later

A new builder or service enters at any time during the period if there is reserve and the call admits them. If there is no capacity, they wait for the next cycle. A new member of Deep Thought Laboratory, or a new guardian seat, waits for the next period. Then their profile's allocation is divided among all who make it up, in equal parts.

Seats already granted are not modified by an addition. The laboratory and guardians allocations are divided again, in the next period, among those who make up the profile.

How they look together

These validators coexist in the same consensus and the same governance. In the laboratory and guardians allocations, each node receives an equal share. In operations and builders, the bar indicates the size of the seat.

Assignment criteria

The Foundation administers this system with judgment and impartiality. The guardians, as the program's council, follow that administration and review the distribution audits.

The size of each assignment follows the published allocations and seats, not a negotiated figure. Whoever meets the requirements of the call keeps their assignment.

From the Foundation's power to community governance

In the first days, the weight the Foundation represents is, in practice, very high: it protects Infinite as it is born and funds those who build it. That weight does not include disposing of the locked capital.

If a validator meets the requirements of the call, they keep their assignment. Growing is not a reason to take it away.

The Foundation does not increase those coins. That supply was used to fund construction at the start. This program is not designed to concentrate the vote forever.

The community does increase its coins: the new ones the protocol issues and those already circulating in the markets. With those holdings, its vote grows. Over time, the Foundation and those who receive its delegation will have, together, a smaller share of the total vote.

That chart can be read in two ways.

When we say that the Foundation's weight falls and the community's rises, we are speaking of the source of the vote. While the Foundation delegates, it funds that power. When its weight is smaller, the vote is funded by those who already hold the coins: the community, in a decentralized way.

Decisions, by contrast, are communal from day one. The funding comes from the Foundation; the vote is in the hands of each validator. Those validators represent independent builders, and with them, the community.

Closing

This program funds, at the start, those who build Infinite. It does not set the power of the network.