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What is Koinos?

Koinos is a general-purpose blockchain whose applications and protocol components run as WebAssembly smart contracts. Its design combines a regenerating resource system called Mana, Proof-of-Burn consensus, upgradeable system contracts, and a node made from cooperating microservices.

Mana and fee-less transactions

Koinos does not require a user to pay a token fee for every transaction. Transactions consume Mana, a regenerating resource associated with KOIN. Mana is temporarily consumed when the network performs work and becomes available again over time.

This changes the cost model, but it does not make network capacity unlimited:

  • an account can submit work only while sufficient Mana is available;
  • applications or other accounts can pay resource costs for a user;
  • holding or delegating resource capacity still has an opportunity cost; and
  • nodes enforce resource limits for computation, storage, and network usage.

The result is a protocol that can support fee-less user interactions without removing resource accounting.

Smart contracts and WebAssembly

Koinos executes smart contracts as WebAssembly (WASM). Current development tooling includes SDKs for:

WebAssembly provides a common execution target. It does not mean that every language can be used without an SDK, compiler support, and Koinos-specific bindings.

System contracts and upgrades

Core behavior such as token logic, Mana accounting, governance, and consensus is implemented partly through system contracts. Approved upgrades can replace system-contract code while the chain continues operating. This is often described as an in-band upgrade.

This design reduces the number of changes that require replacing the node software. It does not guarantee that every possible protocol change can happen without software updates, operator coordination, or a network fork.

Proof-of-Burn consensus

Koinos mainnet uses Proof-of-Burn (PoB). A block producer burns KOIN to receive VHP (Virtual Hash Power). VHP represents production power: a producer with more effective VHP has a greater probability of satisfying the block-production target.

Creating blocks consumes VHP over time, while successful production provides block rewards. Burning KOIN is irreversible, so block production requires an up-front economic commitment without requiring energy-intensive mining hardware.

For the protocol details, see the Proof-of-Burn architecture guide.

Microservice node architecture

A Koinos node is composed of services that communicate through AMQP. Core services handle the chain, block storage, the mempool, and peer-to-peer networking. Optional services expose JSON-RPC, REST, account history, and other indexes.

This separation allows operators to enable the services they need and lets developers build additional services without embedding everything in one node process.

Mainnet and testnet

  • Mainnet is the production Koinos network. Transactions can affect assets with real value.
  • Testnet is a public development network. Its tokens have no monetary value, and its state and chain ID can change after a reset.
  • Local networks are useful for isolated contract development and automated tests.

See Mainnet vs Testnet for current endpoints and the public testnet faucet.

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