How Pocket Network Works
Pocket Network is a decentralized marketplace for open data access. Applications need data — blockchain state, AI inference results, and any other supported service type. Suppliers provide it. The protocol matches them together, verifies the work was done honestly, and handles payment — all without trusting anyone.
This page explains the full cycle from request to payment.
The Four Actors
| Actor | Role | Analogy |
|---|---|---|
| Application | Pays for data access by staking POKT | A customer placing an order |
| Gateway | Routes requests from Applications to Suppliers | A dispatcher connecting customers to workers |
| Supplier | Runs infrastructure and serves blockchain data | A worker fulfilling the order |
| Validator | Produces blocks and validates the chain | A notary recording everything |
The Relay Lifecycle
Every piece of data served through Pocket Network follows the same cycle:
1. Session Assignment
The protocol assigns Suppliers to Applications in time-bounded windows called sessions. Given an Application, a service (like eth), and a block height, every node on the network independently calculates the exact same assignment. There is no central scheduler — the math is deterministic and manipulation-resistant.
2. Relay Serving
During a session, the Application sends data requests (relays) through a Gateway, which routes them to assigned Suppliers. A relay is a data request served through the protocol — the most common relay type today is a blockchain API call (“What’s this wallet’s balance?” or “What happened in this transaction?”), but the protocol supports any service type registered on-chain, including AI inference requests. The Supplier’s RelayMiner queries its backend service and returns the answer.
3. Claim Submission
After the session window closes, each Supplier submits a claim — an on-chain statement declaring how many relays they served. Think of it like a timesheet: “I served 50,000 relays for eth during session #12345.”
4. Proof Verification
The protocol doesn’t trust claims at face value. It requires each Supplier to submit a proof — cryptographic evidence that the work actually happened. Pocket uses a technique called probabilistic proofs: the protocol randomly selects specific relays from the session and the Supplier must prove those particular relays were served correctly. If the sample checks out, the full claim is accepted.
Probabilistic proofs are like a tax audit. The auditor doesn’t check every receipt — they spot-check a random sample. If the sample is clean, the full return is accepted. If not, further investigation follows. This keeps verification costs low while making cheating mathematically impractical.
5. Settlement
Once the proof is validated, the protocol settles the claim:
- Burn: POKT is burned from the Application’s stake (proportional to the compute units consumed)
- Mint: New POKT is minted (97.5% of what was burned — the 2.5% gap is PIP-41 deflation)
- Distribute: The minted POKT is split among participants:
| Recipient | Share |
|---|---|
| Supplier | 79% |
| Validators | 14% |
| DAO Treasury | 4.5% |
| Service Source Owner | 2.5% |
The Economic Loop
This creates a self-sustaining cycle:
Applications burn POKT → Suppliers earn POKT → more Suppliers join → better service → more Applications use the network → more POKT burned
The more the network is used, the more POKT is burned. With PIP-41’s deflation, total supply decreases over time as usage grows — aligning everyone’s incentives with network adoption.
Compute Units: How Work Is Priced
Not all relays are equal. A simple balance check is cheaper than a complex historical query. Pocket uses compute units (CUs) to measure work, and a governance-controlled exchange rate converts CUs to POKT.
The chain: Relays served → Compute units consumed → uPOKT burned/minted → POKT distributed
Different services have different CU costs. High-complexity chains cost more CUs per relay.
What Makes This Different
No trust required. The protocol verifies work cryptographically. Suppliers can’t claim rewards for work they didn’t do.
No central coordinator. Session assignment, relay routing, and settlement all happen through deterministic algorithms running on every node.
Usage-based economics. Rewards scale with actual demand. No fixed inflation schedule — the network pays for what it uses.
Next Steps
- What is Pocket Network? — the highest-level overview
- Sessions, Claims & Proofs — deep technical detail
- POKT Tokenomics — the full economic model
- Shannon Upgrade — what changed from Morse