Staking

The Staking system provides the economic framework for prover participation. By requiring provers to lock collateral, the protocol ensures a highly active and responsive marketplace where every actor has a measurable commitment to the network’s operational success.

Prover Lifecycle

The StakingController manages the journey of an operator through a defined set of states and requirements to ensure all active participants remain economically aligned with the protocol.

Prover States

• Null: The initial state for any operator before registration or vault initialization.
• Active: The prover is fully operational and eligible to bid on and fulfill proof requests in the marketplace.
• Deactivated: A cooldown or exit state. The prover can no longer take on new work but remains in the system to fulfill or mature existing unstake requests.
• Jailed: An administrative penalty state. Jailed provers are ineligible for new work until they are reactivated by an authorized administrator.

Registration & Initialization

Operators enter the network by calling initializeProver. This function triggers two simultaneous actions:

1. Vault Deployment: The deterministic deployment of a dedicated ProverVault (ERC-4626) specifically for that operator.
2. Initial Deposit: An initial stake that satisfies the minimum self-stake requirement, moving the operator directly from the Null state to the Active state.

Self-Stake Requirement

To maintain an Active status, provers must adhere to strict collateral rules:

• Mandatory Collateral: Provers must maintain a specific amount of their own assets (minSelfStake) within their vault at all times.
• Non-Transferable Shares: The portion of vault shares representing the minimum self-stake is locked and cannot be transferred while the prover is active.
• Automatic Enforcement: If a prover’s self-stake falls below the required threshold, the system transitions them to the Deactivated state to ensure all active work is properly collateralized.

The Staking Process

Asset management within the network is handled through a streamlined process for both provers and their stakers utilizing isolated vaults.

• Direct Staking: Users can stake with any active prover by depositing BREV tokens into the StakingController. The controller manages the deposit into the isolated vault and issues vault shares to the user.
• Compounding Yield: Rewards from the marketplace or foundation are added directly to the vault assets. This increases the value of all shares automatically, allowing for seamless compounding without manual claims.

Two-Phase Unstaking Process

To ensure provers cannot bypass commitments to pending work, all withdrawals follow a mandatory two-phase process:

1. Phase 1: Request (requestUnstake): A user initiates an unstake by specifying the number of vault shares to redeem. The shares are burned, and the equivalent asset value enters a mandatory Unstake Delay period.
2. Phase 2: Completion (completeUnstake): After the delay period has passed, the user calls completeUnstake to transfer the BREV tokens from the vault directly to their wallet.

Note: Assets in the “Pending” phase remain part of the prover’s economic accountability until the second phase is completed, ensuring provers remain responsive to assignments even during their exit period.