Messari Explains Autonomys Network: A Modular Web3 Infrastructure Built for AI 3.0

Written by: Jeremy Koch, Messari

Compiled by: Yomi

Key Insights

• Autonomys Network has built a modular blockchain architecture based on Subspace Protocol, creating the necessary infrastructure for AI3.0 applications.
• To achieve high scalability, Autonomys Network integrates Decoupled Execution (DecEx), modular domains, data sharding, and a multi-layer distributed storage network (DSN). The DSN also supports AI Agents to directly store and retrieve on-chain data.
• The network employs a consensus mechanism called Dilithium, which is an archival storage proof (PoAS) mechanism combined with a Proof-of-Time (PoT) mechanism, allowing miners to solve the "miner dilemma" by maintaining consensus without storing the entire blockchain history, ensuring data availability, security, and efficient storage management.
• Auto ID and Auto Score create a self-sovereign identity framework and personality proof mechanism, promoting verifiable human-machine interactions.
• Space Acres simplifies the process for users to participate in Autonomys Network. This convenient application allows anyone to run a miner node on their own computer to earn AI3 tokens.

Introduction

In recent years, the rise of artificial intelligence has captured the majority of market attention. From the advent of GPT-3.0 to the emergence of on-chain AI Agents, there is great anticipation about how AI will reshape the way the world operates. However, a core issue facing AI is its positioning within decentralized systems. Currently, leading AI models remain centralized and require permission for access. As a result, democratizing access to AI has become a trend. Giants like Meta are attempting to achieve democratization through open-sourcing Llama3.1 . Such a transformative scale can be traced back to 2009 when Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin . To build a world where everyone can freely use disruptive technology, more projects like Meta and Bitcoin are needed to jointly explore the true value of open-source and permissionless systems.

The vision of Autonomys Network is in line with Satoshi Nakamoto's: to create a permissionless and secure blockchain ecosystem while extending this concept to the infrastructure of AI3.0, making it a public good. AI3.0 represents an open, collaborative path for the development of artificial intelligence that supports Web3. In this model, individuals can freely customize, train, and deploy their own intelligent agents to assist them in completing tasks. Artificial intelligence is evolving from centralized machine learning AI1.0 to centralized generative AI AI2.0, and now towards a human-centric decentralized AI3.0.

As a cornerstone of AI3.0, Autonomys Network is built on the Subspace Protocol, providing the infrastructure and tools needed to support this new phase, aiming to address challenges such as scalability, security, data sourcing, and user control. With a focus on decentralization, human-centricity, and open collaboration, Autonomys leads artificial intelligence into a future era that is fairer, more valuable, and aligned with human values.

Background

Autonomys Network is the practical outcome of Subspace Protocol , developed over three years by co-founders Jeremiah Wagstaff and Nazar Mokrynsky . Subspace Protocol enables permanent decentralized storage functionality for Web3. Building on this foundation, Jeremiah and Nazar successfully integrated decoupled modular computing, leading to the launch of Autonomys Network. On June 14, 2024, the protocol announced its official rebranding to Autonomys Network.

The project raised 32.9 million USD , led by Pantera Capital, with participation from notable institutions including Coinbase Ventures, Crypto.com, KR1, GSR Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Hypersphere Ventures, and Stratos Technologies.

Autonomys Network has undergone seven testnet iterations, attracting over 100,000 miners (participants) and providing over 180 PiB of storage space support. On November 6, 2024, the first phase of the Autonomys mainnet officially launched, using a mnemonic phrase generation ceremony for Proof-of-Time (PoT), with the hash of Bitcoin block #869146 serving as the global starting point for the network. Within two weeks of the mainnet launch, the network added over 2,000 nodes, contributing storage capacity exceeding 140 PiB. The native token of Autonomys Network is AI3, which can be used for staking, governance, block rewards, and transaction fee payments, serving as an important pillar for the network's operation.

Technology

Autonomys Network Technology Stack

Autonomys Network employs a modular blockchain architecture , divided into four main parts: (i) decentralized application (dAPP) layer, (ii) decoupled execution domain, (iii) consensus layer, and (iv) storage layer.

The modular design of Autonomys Network features several core functionalities, including Decoupled Execution (DecEx), Domains, Interoperability, Data Sharding, and an open-source AI directory.

• Decoupled Execution: Separates transaction execution from consensus, allowing the network to independently scale throughput and storage capacity while maintaining decentralization.
• Domains: Allow developers to build application-specific blockchains with custom functionalities, supporting diverse AI application scenarios while avoiding overloading the core protocol.
• Interoperability: Supports integration with different state transition frameworks and execution environments (such as EVM and WASM), facilitating seamless connections with existing blockchain ecosystems.
• Data Sharding: Divides data into multiple shards distributed across different nodes, supporting parallel processing, reducing single-node load, and enhancing the network's ability to handle large-scale datasets, aiding AI training and deployment.
• Open-source AI Directory: Hosts a dedicated open-source AI resource repository, fostering collaboration and innovation within the AI3.0 ecosystem, promoting knowledge sharing, and protecting valuable AI resources from censorship threats.

Autonomys Network plans to achieve high throughput through its scalability framework . This framework includes data sharding capable of processing transactions in parallel, a beacon chain utilizing a unique Proof-of-Archival Storage (PoAS) consensus mechanism, and domains. Currently, blockchain storage capacity is limited, making it difficult to achieve scalable levels. Autonomys' scalability framework aims not only to break through this bottleneck but also to reach throughput levels comparable to existing Web2 systems in storage, bandwidth, and computing power, providing robust support for building a more efficient decentralized application ecosystem.

Consensus Mechanism

The consensus mechanism of Autonomys Network is designed based on the Dilithium PoAS protocol. Dilithium is optimized for SSD characteristics, relying on a mechanism of frequent random reads of small data blocks, making it more efficient on such storage devices. The core functionalities of Dilithium include Archiving, Plotting, Farming, Proving, and Verification, which operate not only based on Dilithium itself but also benefit from a Proof-of-Time (PoT) blockchain that runs in parallel with the PoAS blockchain. The design goal of the PoT blockchain is to simulate the advantages of Proof-of-Work (PoW) while avoiding its high energy consumption issues. By introducing verifiable time constraints, PoT enhances network security, making it difficult for malicious actors to create long-term historical forks. Additionally, the output of PoT provides unpredictable randomness, similar to the randomness generated in PoW mining for block challenges, further enhancing the fairness and reliability of consensus. To maintain the operation of the PoT blockchain, the network introduces "Timekeepers," specialized nodes responsible for calculating delay functions, generating unpredictable outputs that serve as a source of randomness for block challenges. Through this mechanism, Autonomys Network achieves efficient, secure, and scalable blockchain consensus.

The PoAS consensus mechanism can be divided into the following three main stages:

• Archiving Stage: This stage is completed by all nodes and is characterized by repeatability and determinism. The task of Archiving is to segment the blockchain historical data into several paragraphs, each composed of equally sized data blocks.
• Plotting Stage: In this stage, miners are responsible for processing and encoding their allocated segments of blockchain historical data and storing them.
• Auditing Stage: This stage employs probabilistic methods to audit the data stored by miners to verify data integrity. At the same time, miners have the opportunity to propose new blocks.

The successful operation of the PoAS consensus mechanism relies on various cryptographic primitives , including hash functions, digital signatures, erasure codes, KZG polynomial commitments, Merkle trees, and encoding mappings.

Decoupled Execution

Decoupled Execution (DecEx) separates the consensus mechanism from transaction execution, significantly reducing the hardware requirements needed to participate in consensus. This design makes the storage space widely available on modern electronic devices the only core resource for participation. Unlike traditional blockchain nodes that need to handle both consensus and computation simultaneously, DecEx introduces two specialized roles for hardware-constrained users: (i) Farmers (miners) and (ii) Operators. Farmers participate in the PoAS consensus mechanism by providing storage space, responsible for maintaining the availability of blockchain historical data and transaction ordering without executing complex computations or maintaining the complete blockchain state. This role greatly lowers the participation threshold. Operators are generated through a staking-based election mechanism and are primarily responsible for executing transactions and managing state transitions in dedicated environments called "domains."

Domains are modular, independent execution environments designed for specific applications or scenarios, such as smart contracts or decentralized AI training. They leverage the security and data availability of the underlying consensus layer while providing flexibility, scalability, and interoperability. By distributing execution tasks across multiple domains, the network achieves horizontal scaling, with each domain handling a portion of transactions, thereby reducing bottlenecks and increasing throughput. Autonomys has already launched several domain-based practical application products: Auto ID is a domain specifically for managing human and AI Agent identities. Nova is a permissionless EVM domain for deploying and running smart contracts.

Miners

In Autonomys Network, the primary responsibility of miners (Farmers) is to maintain consensus. Miners plot segments of archival history data onto their hard drives and mine blocks and voting rewards by mining the created plots. Additionally, miners join the distributed storage network (DSN) as data retrieval nodes. The DSN is a network composed of miners who plot archival history data segments, providing data storage, retrieval, and replication services to clients. It is responsible for distributing and maintaining data within the network, ensuring data availability and reliability.

Miner Dilemma

With Subspace, Autonomys Network successfully addresses the "miner dilemma." In capacity proof (Proof-of-Capacity, PoC) blockchain systems, the "miner dilemma" arises from the need for miners to weigh between two choices: (i) using limited storage resources to maintain the state and history of the blockchain; (ii) maximizing storage commitments for participation in consensus. Rational miners typically choose the latter to increase their chances of earning rewards, but this may lead them to operate in a lightweight client manner, thereby centralizing the network. The solution provided by Autonomys Network allows miners to maintain only minimal state and historical data, thus retaining the advantages of full nodes without bearing excessive storage burdens. Consensus is achieved through proof of replicated storage of blockchain history, with this data distributed by miners according to hard drive capacity limits. By decoupling consensus from computation, miners' responsibilities focus on proposing transaction orders, while state maintenance and computation transitions are managed by operator nodes. This design not only lowers the hardware participation threshold but also incentivizes miners to participate through block rewards and transaction fees, further promoting network decentralization.

Distributed Storage Network (DSN)

Autonomys Network utilizes a multi-layer distributed storage network (DSN) to ensure the continuous availability and accessibility of blockchain data while avoiding the need for any single miner to store the entire historical blockchain. The DSN achieves efficient verification and dynamic availability through technologies such as consistent hashing, erasure codes, and Kademlia distributed hash tables. These technologies work together to ensure data integrity and adapt to the dynamic joining or exiting of miners. Each data segment is replicated approximately the same number of times in the DSN to enhance data reliability. The DSN is divided into multiple collaboratively operating layers : Data Fragment Cache Layer (Layer-2) uses distributed hash tables for nearly instantaneous data retrieval, supporting fast access; Archival Storage Layer (Layer-1) serves as the foundational "cold storage" layer, responsible for the long-term persistence and redundancy protection of data, and is also a core pillar of the Dilithium consensus; Content Delivery Network Layer (Layer-3) enhances data retrieval speed to approach Web2 levels, providing users with a smooth experience. This architecture successfully addresses the storage inflation problem by distributing the growing blockchain data among miners while ensuring efficient data management and access.

To incentivize user participation in the DSN, Autonomys Network has designed a unique algorithm that dynamically adjusts the on-chain storage prices based on supply and demand changes. This mechanism clarifies three main roles for network participants:

• Farmers are responsible for maintaining the consensus layer. Miners joining the DSN need to retrieve data for node synchronization and return it to various clients.
• Domain Operators are responsible for ensuring the activity of the execution chain and earn rewards through their contributions.
• Timekeepers provide security for the network by maintaining the Proof-of-Time (PoT) blockchain. Their work includes preventing long-distance attacks and ensuring the randomness of block proposals.

Data Flow

Data and its storage are at the core of Autonomys Network's uniqueness. To understand the flow of data, it is essential to grasp several key steps from transaction submission to permanent archiving of data.

• A transaction is executed after being validated, triggering a state change.
• When the block containing that transaction reaches a certain depth (currently set at 100 blocks), it enters the archiving process.
• These newly archived data segments are added to the miners' cache through the DSN. This means that these data segments will be encoded into the plot files on miners' hard drives according to the Plotting protocol for permanent storage.

Based on this process, clients can request data at any time and reconstruct the original data through these archived segments.

Staking

In Autonomys Network, staking involves Operators and Farmers, both of whom play different roles as previously mentioned. Operators earn execution fee rewards based on their staking ratio. Farmers receive rewards based on their committed storage capacity and can use their held tokens to nominate an Operator to increase that Operator's total stake, thereby enhancing their probability of becoming a slot leader. In return, Farmers receive a portion of the fees earned by the Operators they nominate. The reward system adopts a dynamic issuance model, adjusting rewards based on block height and block space demand to incentivize early adopters and ensure long-term sustainability. The fees within the network are used to cover operational costs and promote the efficient use of resources, with transaction fees encompassing storage and computation costs to reasonably compensate participants.

Each transaction requires a fee that consists of two parts: Storage Fee and Computation Fee . The storage fee is calculated based on the byte length of the transaction and the current storage capacity of the network, covering the costs of storing the transaction in a block and archiving it in the DSN. The computation fee is calculated based on the weight of the transaction, reflecting the computational resources required to execute the transaction. This fee compensates Operators for their computational work when processing transactions. Additionally, Operators can earn Domain Block Fees by executing transaction packages within the allocated domain. These fees are allocated to Operators who successfully submit execution receipts (Execution Receipt, ER) to prove the validity of their state transitions.

Node Functions

Autonomys Network includes three types of nodes , each with specific functions:

• Full Nodes: Default configuration, primarily responsible for the following duties: (i) forming the core backbone of the network; (ii) processing blocks and providing services to other nodes; (iii) ensuring data integrity and network health.
• Archival Nodes: Extend the functionality of full nodes by preserving the entire blockchain history, making these nodes particularly important for block exploration and historical data analysis. Archival nodes are maintained as public resources by the Subspace Foundation.
• Light Clients: Designed for resource-constrained devices, they do not need to store the complete blockchain state and rely on full nodes for data retrieval and network interaction.

Ecosystem

Space Acres

Space Acres is an application that anyone can run on their computer to earn AI3 tokens. This application allows computers to run miner nodes in the background, contributing unused hard drive space to the network.

AI Agent

Auto ID is a decentralized digital identity system deployed on domains, supporting the creation of digital identities for both humans and AI Agents. It provides a self-sovereign identity (SSI) framework that enables individuals to prove their identity without relying on biometric verification. Its main features include: (i) self-sovereignty, allowing users to decide on information sharing, ensuring privacy through encryption, zero-knowledge proofs, and verifiable credentials; (ii) verifiability, using cryptographic proofs to validate the authenticity of identity claims without exposing personal information; (iii) universality, enabling Auto ID to issue identities for any entity, whether human or artificial intelligence, establishing a unified identity standard within the digital ecosystem; (iv) diversity, supporting self-issuance, third-party issuance, and multi-party issuance of identities to meet various use case needs; (v) interoperability, allowing seamless integration with existing identity systems and decentralized identifiers (DIDs).

Auto ID also integrates a mechanism called Auto Score for "Proof-of-Personhood" (PoP), used to assess the likelihood that a user is human without exposing personal privacy. Auto Score calculates a probability score to prove human identity by aggregating various evidence, including verifying official documents, linking social media accounts, and participating in decentralized networks. These verifications are primarily conducted through zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) to ensure user privacy is fully protected.

Auto ID and Auto Score play a crucial role in building content provenance and data sovereignty. By providing entities with the ability to generate digital signatures, they can create verifiable and tamper-proof authenticity records for created content, closely linked with Auto ID. In an era where the boundaries between human-created and machine-generated content are increasingly blurred, the importance of this functionality becomes even more pronounced. With Auto ID, users can securely delegate permissions to AI Agents and define specific task roles and permissions based on their needs.

Through the standardized digital identity and data provenance framework provided by Auto ID and Auto Score, Autonomys Network uniquely interprets the necessity of verifiable human-machine interactions, privacy-first verification mechanisms, and data traceability. This framework acts as a touchstone, allowing potential users to understand why such a path is crucial in an increasingly AI-driven world.

Autonomy's Github provides the necessary tools for AI Agents to utilize the DSN to achieve the ability to store memories and context on-chain. This means that Agents can directly store and retrieve data from the blockchain, maintaining persistent memory and context. This functionality enables Agents to perform more complex tasks, adapt to dynamic environments, and provide end-users with personalized and context-aware interaction experiences, as fully demonstrated in Autonomy's Auto Chain Agent demonstration .

Astral

Astral simplifies user participation in Autonomys Network's PoAS system by: (i) providing a user-friendly interface for managing staking activities; (ii) serving as a block explorer. As the Autonomys network continues to evolve, Astral's role in facilitating operator participation and supporting decentralized governance of the network is expected to further enhance.

Token Economics

AI3 is the native token of Autonomys Network, with a total supply of 1 billion tokens. Approximately 65.00% of the tokens will be minted at the launch of the first phase of the mainnet in November 2024. Tokens will not be transferable until the official token generation event (TGE), which is planned to coincide with the launch of the second phase of the mainnet, expected in the first quarter of 2025.

Investors, the team, Autonomys Labs (DevCo treasury), Subspace Foundation (long-term treasury), and partners will collectively receive 494.5 million AI3 tokens, accounting for approximately 76.08% of the initial token supply or 49.45% of the maximum token supply. These tokens have a 12-month lock-up period and a 36-month linear release plan, with proportional monthly releases. At the end of the 12-month lock-up period, 25.00% of the tokens will be unlocked, with the remaining 75.00% released linearly over the following 36 months at a rate of 1/36 per month.

155.5 million AI3 tokens (approximately 23.92% of the initial token supply or 15.55% of the maximum token supply) will be allocated to Autonomys Labs (operational activities), Subspace Foundation (operational activities and short-term treasury), ambassadors, and testnet/Stake Wars participants. This portion of tokens is not subject to the linear release plan, but certain participants (such as ambassadors) may be subject to special release plans based on specific needs.

The remaining 35.00% of the maximum token supply will be distributed to miners (Farmers) and operators in the form of block rewards over approximately 40 years.

Roadmap

With the launch of the first phase of the mainnet, Autonomys Network plans to initiate the second phase in the first quarter of 2025. The second phase of the mainnet will deploy the domain layer and Nova EVM (which has already launched on the Tarus testnet) and enable token transfer and release functionalities. The third phase of the mainnet is expected to launch in 2026, aiming to implement the scalability roadmap, including the realization of data sharding capabilities.

Conclusion

The modular design of Autonomys Network enables efficient scaling to meet the growing user demands and increasingly complex AI ecosystem while maintaining a high level of security and decentralization through specialized security measures at various layers. Features such as Decoupled Execution (DecEx), Domains, Proof-of-Archival Storage (PoAS), Distributed Storage Network (DSN), and staking collectively form the foundation for the open, collaborative, and human-centric AI future that Autonomys pursues. Autonomys Network is committed to ensuring that everyone has equal access to transformative technology, a vision that is in line with the spirit of pioneers like Satoshi Nakamoto, driving us towards a new era where AI is a public good—accessible, fair, and aligned with human values.