- Validators lock XCH into a registration_coin on Chia L1 — the coin's existence is the stake.
- Staked XCH is removed from circulating supply for the validator's life — a demand sink that scales with the validator set.
- On exit, unslashed XCH returns to the operator after the withdrawal delay (attested by Groth16 + BLS).
- Target collateral at launch: ~$5,000 USD-equivalent per validator; governance adjusts as the network scales. (subject to change between now and mainnet)
- The consensus reward — paid every block as a subsidy to the proposer and attesters.
- The L2 fee asset — transaction fees split 50% to validators, 50% burned.
- The payment asset for DFSP storage — clients pay DIG for capacity, retrieval, and namespace operations.
- Storage nodes stake DIG (independent of consensus stake) into a per-node singleton.
Issuance in, demand out
Earned by validating
DIG is minted as a per-block validator subsidy on a Chia-style halving curve toward a non-zero floor — the genesis state holds zero DIG; the first DIG is minted by the first block.
Half of every fee is burned
L2 transaction fees split 50% to validators and 50% burned, tying network usage directly to supply reduction.
Storage pays in DIG
Clients spend DIG to store, retrieve, and name data on DFSP. This is the demand side that balances validator issuance.
Two independent stakes
Validators stake XCH for consensus; DFSP storage nodes stake DIG for availability. An operator running both satisfies each separately.
The numbers
How much XCH locks up at scale
Every validator removes its collateral from circulating XCH for its operating life. As the validator set grows toward the 20,000 cap, the locked total scales with it — a structural demand sink on XCH (at the ~$5,000 launch target, design intent):
Illustrative — scales with collateral_amount and XCH price; governance adjusts the target. Subject to change before mainnet.