Bostrom Tokenomics

bostrom launched November 5, 2021 at block 0. Node software: go-cyber v7.0.1. Live mainnet.

Overview

bostrom is a cosmos-sdk blockchain and the production deployment of the cyber knowledge graph protocol. It is the bootloader of superintelligence — the live network where the foundational mechanics of a provable, decentralized intelligence layer are built, tested, and proven in production.

The core primitive is a provable knowledge graph — a permissionless, on-chain structure where any neuron can create permanent, content-addressed semantic cyberlinks between particles, and the relevance machine computes the relevance of every link transparently on-chain using token-weighted algorithms running on GPU.

bostrom separates four economic functions that most blockchains compress into a single token:

Function	Token	Symbol
network bostrom/infrastructure/security and governance	$BOOT	`BOOT`
liquid representation of staking	hydrogen	`H`
write access to the knowledge graph	volt	`V`
relevance machine ranking influence	amper	`A`

Every token derives from the one above it. hydrogen requires staked $BOOT. volt and amper require burned hydrogen. Every unit of network resource has a provable, on-chain opportunity cost denominated in committed stake.

Token: BOOT

denom: boot

$BOOT is the base layer. It does not grant direct access to network services — its role is to secure bostrom/consensus, enable governance, and anchor the value of everything built on top.

Staking

$BOOT holders delegate to heroes via standard cosmos-sdk DPoS. heroes and delegators earn inflation-based $BOOT rewards through delegation rewards. The bostrom staking module is a custom fork of the cosmos-sdk staking module.

delegation of $BOOT simultaneously creates hydrogen in the delegator's account at 1:1. Undelegation destroys the corresponding hydrogen. This is handled natively in the cyberbank module via delegation hooks — no separate liquid staking protocol is needed.

Governance

On-chain basic governance uses $BOOT-weighted voting across four proposal types:

ideas — non-binding signals and directional proposals
upgrades — binary software upgrade proposals
parameters — all protocol parameters are adjustable by governance within validated bounds
fund — disbursements from the community pool

Smart Contract Execution Fees

cosmwasm smart contracts on bostrom pay execution fees in $BOOT. The fee distribution is split 80/20: 80% returns directly to the program creator, 20% goes to heroes and the community pool through standard distribution. This is hardcoded in the dmn module and creates a native revenue model for autonomous progs.

Token: HYDROGEN

denom: hydrogen (referred to as scyb throughout the codebase — the original name, short for staked CYB)

hydrogen is the liquid staking derivative of $BOOT and the primary token of the bostrom network. While $BOOT is the base bostrom/infrastructure/security layer, hydrogen is what neurons actually hold, display, and transact with. The network's total value is expressed as the sigma of all hydrogen in circulation, making hydrogen the canonical unit of account for the ecosystem.

hydrogen is issued solely through $BOOT delegation; destroyed solely through $BOOT undelegation.

delegate 1000 BOOT  →  mint 1000 H
undelegate 1000 BOOT  →  burn 1000 H

hydrogen has two uses:

mint input — burn to mint volt or amper
cyber/liquidity — deposited into farm contracts, traded on the built-in automated market maker, or used in any cosmwasm contract

hydrogen does not earn staking rewards itself. The underlying staked $BOOT continues to earn rewards for the delegator. hydrogen is the spendable, transferable proof that the corresponding $BOOT is at stake.

Tokens: VOLT and AMPERE

denoms: millivolt, milliampere

volt and amper are the operational tokens of the knowledge graph. They are created exclusively through mint — there is no inflation, no faucet, and no other issuance path. Every volt and amper in existence was produced by the burn of hydrogen.

volt (VOLT) is bandwidth. Creating a cyberlink costs volt proportional to the current dynamic bandwidth price. A cyberlink is a permanent, content-addressed, directed edge in the on-chain knowledge graph connecting two ipfs CIDs.

amper (AMPERE) is rank weight. The GPU-executed token-weighted pagerank and graph-entropy algorithms weight each neuron cyberlinks proportionally to their amper balance. More amper means greater influence over what the graph surfaces as relevant.

The Mint Mechanism

mint is how hydrogen becomes volt or amper. A neuron sends a quantity of hydrogen to the resources module — the hydrogen undergoes burn immediately and permanently — and volt or amper are created in return. There is no lock, no vesting cliff, no retrieval. The hydrogen is gone; the resources are yours.

The amount created depends on three factors: base rate, halving, and supply decay.

Base Rate

V (millivolt):    return = (H / 1_000_000_000) × (maxPeriod / 2_592_000) × halving × 1000
A (milliampere):  return = (H / 100_000_000)  × (maxPeriod / 2_592_000) × halving × 1000

where:

H = hydrogen amount (base unit)
maxPeriod = protocol-determined period at current block height (seconds)
2_592_000 = 30 days in seconds (base mint period)

The amper base amount is 10x lower than volt. The same hydrogen at the same block height yields 10x more amper than volt. bandwidth (volt) is scarcer than computation weight (amper).

Halving Schedule

Both volt and amper issuance follow a halving schedule. Every 9,000,000 blocks the effective mint rate halves. Halvings are shifted 6,000,000 blocks from bostrom/genesis and do not begin until block 15,000,000.

halving = max(0.01,  0.5 ^ floor((blockHeight − 6_000_000) / 9_000_000))

The floor is 1%: the halving factor never drops below 0.01 regardless of block height. mint never becomes completely worthless.

Supply Decay

Beyond block-based halving, every mint call applies a continuous penalty based on total cumulative outstanding supply:

factor = 0.5 ^ (totalSupply / halfLife)

halfLife(V) = 4,000,000,000
halfLife(A) = 32,000,000,000

The amper half-life (32B) is 8x larger than volt (4B). amper can accumulate 8x more before hitting the same penalty.

Supply / halfLife	Decay factor
0	1.000 (no penalty)
0.5	0.707
1.0	0.500
2.0	0.250
3.0	0.125

No oracle, governance vote, or external trigger required. scarcity increases automatically as usage grows.

Combined Mint Formula

final_return = base_return × halving × supply_decay_factor

If final_return < 1000 (minimum threshold), the transaction is rejected. This prevents dust mint calls.

Mint Parameters

Parameter	Value
Base mint amount (V)	1,000,000,000 H
Base mint amount (A)	100,000,000 H
Base mint period	2,592,000 s (30 days)
Halving period (V and A)	9,000,000 blocks
Halvings begin at block	15,000,000
Halving floor	1% (0.01x)
Max mint slots per address	8 (governance max: 16)
V supply half-life	4,000,000,000
A supply half-life	32,000,000,000
Minimum mint threshold	1,000 (milli-units)

Bandwidth Model

The bandwidth module governs volt consumption and throughput pricing.

Each neuron has a volt neuron bandwidth meter. The meter fills as the neuron holds volt and depletes as they create cyberlinks. The cost per cyberlink is not fixed — it adjusts dynamically based on current network utilisation via bandwidth price:

when load is below target (10% of max block bandwidth): price falls, encouraging usage
when load is above target: price rises, dampening demand without a mempool auction

The price adjusts every 5 blocks. A neuron depleted meter recovers to its maximum over 100 blocks.

Parameter	Default
Recovery period	100 blocks
Price adjustment period	5 blocks
Base price	0.25 V per unit
Target network load	10% of max block bandwidth
Max block bandwidth	10,000 units per block

Energy Grid

The grid module allows volt and amper to be routed to cosmwasm programs via energy routes. A neuron or contract can create a route that continuously directs their resource allocation to autonomous progs. Programs that receive routed volt can themselves create cyberlinks — enabling self-sustaining, autonomous knowledge graph expansion. Programs earning $BOOT execution fees create a direct incentive for operators to reinvest those rewards back into the staking → hydrogen → volt/amper chain.

End-to-End Token Flow

                    delegate
BOOT ─────────────────────────────────► H
  ▲                                     │
  │ staking rewards                     │ mint (burn H)
  │                                     │
  │                            ┌────────┴────────┐
  │                            ▼                 ▼
  │                            V                 A
  │                            │                 │
  │                            │ cyberlinks       │ graph rank weight
  │                            ▼                 ▼
  │                     knowledge graph    PageRank / Graph-Entropy
  │
  └── 80% execution fees ◄── Autonomous Programs ◄── Energy Routes (V/A)

acquire $BOOT — via secondary market, staking rewards, or airdrop
delegation of $BOOT → receive hydrogen 1:1 — $BOOT earns staking rewards; hydrogen is the liquid representation
mint hydrogen → hydrogen undergoes burn → receive volt and/or amper — quantity determined by halving factor (block height) x supply decay factor (cumulative supply)
spend volt to write cyberlinks — permanent, content-addressed entries in the knowledge graph; price adjusts dynamically with block utilisation
hold amper to weight cyberlinks in GPU-computed pagerank — more amper = greater influence over graph relevance machine
route volt/amper via the grid to power autonomous progs → programs earn 80% of $BOOT execution fees → reinvest back into step 1
deposit into farm contracts → receive liquid position tokens → earn additional $BOOT/hydrogen rewards across configurable block schedules

Economic Properties

Everything costs stake

Because volt and amper can only be created by the burn of hydrogen — which itself requires staking $BOOT — every unit of network resource has an explicit, on-chain opportunity cost denominated in committed stake. You cannot spam the knowledge graph without locking value into the network bostrom/infrastructure/security.

Two independent deflationary forces

volt and amper face halvings (discrete, block-triggered) and supply decay (continuous, usage-triggered). Neither force alone would be sufficient: halvings without decay would allow early bulk creation; decay without halvings would have no schedule anchor. Together they create a monotonically rising marginal cost for network resources without relying on hard supply caps. This is scarcity driven by supply and demand.

Scarcity is proportional to impact

volt is scarcer than amper (lower base amount, smaller half-life). Writing to the graph (volt) is a final irreversible action that permanently expands the knowledge graph and costs consensus resources to process. Influencing rank (amper) is a continuous, reweightable state that costs GPU cycles. The 10x price difference and 8x half-life difference encode this distinction directly in the protocol.

80% execution fee return

cosmwasm smart contracts on bostrom return 80% of their execution fees directly to the program creator. This is hardcoded in the dmn module and creates a native revenue model for on-chain autonomous progs — a program that provides value to the network earns $BOOT proportional to how often it is called, with no intermediary taking the majority of the fee.

Source References

All mechanics derived from:

x/resources — mint logic, halving, exponential decay, max period
x/bandwidth — bandwidth pricing and recovery parameters
x/cyberbank — hydrogen mint on delegation, burn on undelegation
x/rank — token-weighted pagerank and graph-entropy (GPU/CUDA)
x/grid — volt/amper energy routing to autonomous progs
x/dmn — 80% execution fee return mechanic
x/graph — cyberlink creation, volt and amper tracking

bostrom mainnet — go-cyber v7.0.1 — February 2026

bostrom/tokenomics