Spek is a post-quantum, unbonded proof-of-stake ledger where every 30 seconds the network elects one block from
the eligible miners by a draw nobody can predict or grind, with no hashing race, nothing locked or slashed.
Genesis
Not yet announced
The clock starts from the genesis timestamp once the open launch fixes it.
Open launchNot yet announced. The launch values are published at each step, never before.
Three things to know
No energy race
One draw per stake output per slot decides candidacy, and nobody can see a winner coming until its header is
published. Honest operating cost is a node.
Each draw hashes the epoch's beacon with the height, the miner's key and a slot secret the miner committed
before that beacon existed. There is no nonce to search, so faster hardware cannot improve a draw.
How the election works
A score is the distance of one hash from the centre of the 256-bit hash space. Both ends score highest; the centre scores lowest.
Post-quantum from day one
SQIsign for every signature (Level V for long-lived custody), public keys hidden behind hashes until spent, a
versioned migration path.
SQIsign is a candidate in NIST's process, not a NIST standard, and the code has been reviewed only by AI
models. Both facts are stated below and on every cryptography and security page.
Cryptography
Time is the schedule
A block, or a deterministic null, exists for every slot since genesis; the chain never stalls and timestamps
cannot be forged.
The header carries no timestamp: a block at height h is dated genesis plus 30h seconds.
Nodes take time from an authenticated Roughtime quorum, and a slot with no winner gets a null block every node
builds the same way.
Time and the clock ·
Null blocks
Slots run back to back from genesis. A slot with no committable candidate gets the null block, score 0, which any real block for that height outranks.
Is this PoW or PoS?
Unbonded proof of stake, with a 45-day RandomX ticket phase that distributes the first coins.
After the first 45 days, a miner is eligible when its stake address holds one output worth at least 80% of the
block reward, created at least a day before it counts. Nothing is locked or slashed: the output is an ordinary
coin the miner can spend at any time, and spending it ends eligibility from the next block. During the first 45
days nobody holds coins yet, so eligibility is priced with a RandomX ticket per 3-day round instead. That is still
not proof of work: the work buys eligibility for a round, never a block.
an ordinary computer is enough (the published minimum is 4 dedicated cores, 8 GB of RAM and an SSD);
no recurring fee just to take part: the only participation cost is one ordinary transaction fee to fund a stake
output whose slot-secret horizon covers about 8.4 years (1,024 segments of 3 days), plus one renewal transfer the
node makes about a year before that horizon ends;
each stake unit gets exactly one draw per slot, so beyond owning coins there's no advantage to being big.
Where to go next
Run a nodePublished with the node release
Get a launch seatPublished when the open launch is announced