Post #3 — Technology & mining
Gas as a measure of capacityOn a programmable chain, transactions-per-second is a limited metric, because a "transaction" is not a fixed unit of work. A token transfer and a transaction that performs a swap, adds liquidity and updates a multi-signature vault are both one transaction, but they consume very different amounts of computation.
A more informative measure is computational work per second, expressed in gas. Pact calibrates its gas units to measured execution time, so a unit of Pact gas corresponds to a measured amount of computation.
StoaChain's configured capacity:
Per block, per chain : 2,000,000 gas (Pact 5)
Chains : 10
Block time : 30 s
Network gas throughput = 2,000,000 x 10 / 30 = ~666,667 Pact-gas / second
The per-block gas limit is
2,000,000, compared with the
150,000 Kadena historically used. The larger limit was chosen because Ouronet's transactions did not fit within 150,000.
Why the higher limit is safe. Raising the gas limit is only sound if a full block still computes well within the block time; otherwise blocks can arrive late and be orphaned. StoaChain runs only Pact 5.4 and carries no legacy Pact 4.x compatibility. In our measurements Pact 5.4 executes at roughly
2.5 microseconds per gas unit, so a full 2,000,000-gas block takes about
5 seconds to compute — well inside the 30-second block time, and a similar compute-time-to-block-time ratio to a 150,000-gas block under Pact 4.x. Transactions approaching 2,000,000 gas have been mined without orphaning. The limit was not raised for its own sake; Ouronet's transactions require it. As an indication of scale, a single staking transaction in the upcoming acquisition pools runs through more than
3,000 lines of contract code.
Observed usage. Ouronet's own explorer reports, as of this writing,
1,835 transactions consuming
579,103,876 gas units — an average of roughly
315,500 gas per transaction. The explorer expresses this total as
289.55 full StoaChain blocks (at 2,000,000 gas each), or equivalently
3,860.691 blocks at Kadena's 150,000-gas size. Because many individual transactions exceed 150,000 gas, under that smaller limit they would have had to be split across multiple steps; StoaChain's 2,000,000-gas limit lets them execute as single transactions, so multi-step execution is now largely unnecessary.
A note on cross-chain gas comparisons. Pact gas units and EVM gas units are calibrated differently — for example, a coin.transfer costs about 700 Pact gas, while a bare transfer on Ethereum costs 21,000 gas. Because the units price operations differently, raw gas figures are not directly comparable between the two.
Pact 5. Pact 5 is a rewrite of Pact 4. In our testing it runs substantially faster and uses substantially fewer CPU cycles; Ouronet's larger transactions ran poorly under Pact 4 and became practical under Pact 5.4, which StoaChain adopted from genesis.
MiningStoaChain is mined with Kadena-class ASIC hardware (e.g. Antminer KA3) via stratum, using the StoaChain chainweb-mining-client fork (
ghcr.io/stoachain/chainweb-mining-client).
- Consensus: Proof-of-Work, Blake2s-256, with Chainweb difficulty adjustment.
- Block time: 30 s per chain · 10 chains · mining templates refreshed every ~2 s.
- Node software: StoaChain Chainweb node (Haskell), bootstrapped from node1.stoachain.com / node2.stoachain.com.
- Worker types: ASIC via stratum (production), plus CPU, external/GPU, simulation, constant-delay and on-demand modes for testing.
The mining pool — live and open to registrationThe StoaChain mining pool is live at
mining.ancientholdings.eu and open to registration, so you can mine without running your own full node:
- Getting started: create an account, verify your email, add a worker, and point your ASIC at the pool's stratum endpoint (stratum.ancientholdings.eu); the worker manager shows the exact connection details.
- Fee: 7%, which funds the upcoming Stoicism Vault. The fee is set deliberately high — not to extract value, but to encourage other operators to launch competing pools and keep StoaChain mining decentralised.
- Payouts: paid in STOA with a 1-STOA minimum (no dust payouts). Balances earned across chains 1–9 are aggregated onto chain 0 before each payout.
- Custody: the pool is keyless — it holds no miner keys; each miner sets and verifies their own payout address.
- Monitoring: a worker dashboard, plus read-only share links for watching a worker without signing in.
Operators without ASICs can also run nodes through the hub (Post #4).
One network: mainnetStoaChain runs a single network, mainnet; there is no separate StoaChain testnet. Local-devnet tooling exists in Pact, and Kadena's testnet was available, but the contracts were developed for deployment to the live chain. Pact's properties make this workable: contracts are Turing-incomplete, human-readable and analyzable, and upgradeable through on-chain governance, so a module can be reviewed before deployment and corrected afterward via a governance upgrade without forking the chain.
Because each module's source is on the explorer, the deployed contracts can be read and test-called directly by anyone.
Maintaining the Chainweb and Pact codebasesBecause StoaChain runs its own infrastructure, the project maintains the Chainweb and Pact codebases it runs. The intent is twofold: to add our own improvements where they are needed, and to track the improvements the Kadena community makes to their Chainweb and Pact, evaluate them, and integrate the suitable ones into our codebases.
On-chain transparency and high-value assetsA property of Pact on Chainweb is that contract code is stored and executed on-chain as human-readable source (see Post #4): what runs is what can be read. Combined with a Turing-incomplete language whose execution is bounded by gas, this narrows several of the risk categories that matter most when the value at stake is large:
- The executing logic can be inspected directly, rather than as compiled bytecode whose human-readable source is published separately and has to be trusted to match it.
- The constrained language model removes whole classes of failure — unbounded loops, re-entrancy, gas-exhaustion exploits — that have caused losses on Turing-complete platforms.
For high-value assets and complex financial logic, these are arguments in favour of a transparent, bounded execution model. This is a design preference rather than a universal ranking: other platforms deliberately trade these properties for broader language expressiveness or different scaling models, and which set of trade-offs is appropriate depends on the application.
Comparison with other smart-contract platformsThe table is descriptive; platforms optimise for different goals.
| StoaChain | Ethereum | Solana | Kaspa | Kadena (community) |
| Consensus | PoW (Chainweb) | PoS | PoS / PoH | PoW (blockDAG) | PoW (Chainweb) |
| Scaling | Parallel braided chains | Single chain + L2s | Single high-throughput chain | blockDAG | Parallel braided chains |
| Smart contracts | Pact, live | Solidity/EVM, live | Rust/SVM, live | In development | Pact, live |
| Contract model | Turing-incomplete, gas-bounded | Turing-complete | Turing-complete | Planned off-chain / ZK | Turing-incomplete, gas-bounded |
| Executing code | Human-readable source on-chain | Compiled bytecode | Compiled bytecode | n/a yet | Human-readable source on-chain |
Among Proof-of-Work platforms with smart contracts, the closest comparison is Kaspa, which takes a different route. Kaspa scales through a blockDAG and plans to add smart-contract capability through an off-chain, zero-knowledge approach that records proofs on-chain — its UTXO model does not support on-chain contract state and balance accounting directly. That capability is not yet live and is some way out. StoaChain's route is on-chain, gas-metered computation across parallel chains using Pact, which has been in production for several years. Neither route is strictly better; they are different ways of pursuing similar goals, and each reflects a different view of how a chain should be structured.
Post #4 — Ouronet: the DeFi layer
Beyond the base coin, StoaChain includes a DeFi layer,
Ouronet, written in Pact under the
ouronet-ns namespace. It provides its own infrastructure rather than relying on the base chain's:
| Component | What it provides |
| Accounts | DALOS account system + smart accounts (key rotation: payment / guard / sovereign / governor). |
| Cryptography | A 1606-bit curve with Schnorr ownership proofs; key generation and signing in the browser, with no remote cryptographic service. |
| Gas | IGNIS gas + a gas-station collector; OURO converts to IGNIS; gas is metered on the supported client path. |
| Token standards | True, ortho (with metadata), semi- and non-fungible tokens, with on-chain property controls. |
| Pools | AMM with constant-product, weighted and Curve-style stable pools (up to 7 tokens), single-sided liquidity, n-1→1 swaps, and on-chain routing. Reward/acquisition pools in development. |
| Explorer | explorer.ouro.network (in progress). |
Token issuanceOuronet supports issuing
true, ortho, semi- and non-fungible tokens with on-chain property controls: transfer restriction, mint/burn permissions, fee settings, freezing/vesting, ownership rules, and others. This asset infrastructure is live.
Pools — the AMMOuronet's swap engine is live and supports three pool types (
constant-product, weighted, and Curve-style stable-swap) with up to
7 tokens per pool, plus:
- Arbitrary / single-sided liquidity. Liquidity can be added in any mix — one token, several, any ratio, or balanced. A virtual-swap engine prices the imbalance an asymmetric deposit creates (a deficit charge, an approach the documentation credits to Curve), so a single-sided deposit is not cheaper than performing the equivalent swap. The permitted deviation scales with pool depth (capped at 40% of (n-1)/n).
- Multi-input swaps and on-chain routing. A single call can swap up to n-1 tokens into the n-th (e.g. 6 of 7 into the 7th). Multi-hop routing is computed on-chain using a breadth-first search over the pool graph; many DEXes compute routing off-chain.
In active development are the
acquisition pools (reward farms, vaults and treasuries). They use two-tier
Reward-Per-Share accounting — each injection updates a single global figure (G += R/S) rather than iterating over stakers — so distribution cost does not grow with participant count, multiple reward tokens are supported, rewards can be released over a period, and fungible, LP, semi- and non-fungible assets can be staked.
Console and on-chain sourceSome functions are not yet wired into the OuronetUI interface (wiring is ongoing). OuronetUI includes a
console mode that can call any function deployed on-chain. Because contract source is published on the explorer, a module's code and dependencies can be read directly and its functions invoked through the console.
On StoaChain, Pact modules are stored on-chain as their human-readable source, not as compiled bytecode. The code shown in the explorer is therefore the exact code being executed, rather than a separately published copy that has to be trusted to match it — the on-chain module is the source of truth.
The Ouronet protocol is approximately
95,000 lines of Pact across its core modules, written without AI assistance by a single author.
OuronetUIBoth layers are used through
OuronetUI (wallet.ouro.network), a browser-based wallet and DEX that exposes
47 on-chain operations (41 Ouronet + 6 StoaChain-native): swaps, liquidity, cross-chain transfers, account creation and key rotation, staking, asset issuance, and the console for any on-chain function.
- 6 account-creation modes (seed words in 3 styles, bitmap, bitstring, base-10, base-49), derived locally.
- Confirm-Form-Modal signing — each transaction is built, gas-estimated, and presented for explicit signing.
- Local encrypted Codex — keys remain in the browser; import/export, password-protected.
- External wallet support — Ecko, Koala, Chainweaver, WalletConnect v2.
The Hub and Stoicismancientholdings.eu lets an operator with a VPS or server onboard a StoaChain node or a mining container, manage several of them, and earn for the infrastructure they run. The reward token is
Stoicism:
- A node on the chain tip accrues Stoicism, tracked by the hub via a per-millisecond ping, and the accrued amount is minted once per day to the operator's Ouronet account.
- Stoicism is transfer-restricted: it cannot be sold or transferred. Its function is to generate native STOA over time.
- Issuance is small: currently about 7 Stoicism per day across ~30+ containers. Each container is scored on its hardware (ServerScore), which sets its rate (Stoicism/sec = 0.001 x ServerScore).
The explorersThe
StoaChain block explorer (explorer.stoachain.com; API at apiexplorer.stoachain.com) is live — a NestJS + PostgreSQL + Redis indexer with a React front-end and live updates. It indexes every chain and shows blocks, transactions (by request key), transfers, cross-chain transfers, account summaries across chains, live balances, and deployed module source code.
The
Ouronet explorer (explorer.ouro.network) is a separate view that presents only ouronet-ns activity, decoded into Ouronet primitives (assets, tokens, NFTs, staking/unstaking, swaps, liquidity). The same data is also visible on the StoaChain explorer; the difference is that the Ouronet explorer filters to Ouronet activity and presents it in an account-centric layout built around Ouronet primitives. It is in progress: the landing page and account querying are live; asset/token/NFT pages, full decoded history and search are still to be added.
Approach to the ecosystemStoaChain runs Chainweb and Pact — the same base technology as the Kadena community network. Alongside the chain, the project builds the surrounding ecosystem itself: the wallet, the explorers, gas-station behaviour, and the overall user experience.
Two examples of that approach:
- StoaWallet (a Chrome extension, with iOS and Android apps planned) handles transfers within a chain, cross-chain transfers, and aggregation of balances from several chains onto one. These operations are routed through a gas station, so the user does not pay gas directly. The aim is that a holder can use native STOA without separately holding a gas balance or managing dust, which makes everyday use more predictable.
- The explorers are intended as complete observation tools — rich list, supply, Chainweb load, STOA and UrStoa movement, mining and the Yin/Yang split, ANU gas costs — with support for cross-chain and multi-step transactions.
Ouronet exercises Pact across accounts, token standards, pools and on-chain routing, which is a practical demonstration of the language's range.
Post #5 — Bridge, company & roadmap
Caduceus — the bridge (in construction)Caduceus is Ouronet's bridge to external chains. It holds custody on the foreign side, observes deposits, and mints a pegged
DPTF token on Ouronet; the reverse path burns the DPTF and releases the foreign asset.
- Roadmap: 14 target chains across 7 tiers, built in tier order. The first integration is Arweave (Tier I, the "cornerstone"): the native Arweave token (AR) is bridged directly to Ouronet as a DPTF token. Bitcoin and Ethereum follow in Tier II, with further chains in later tiers.
- First exit to outside liquidity. Bridged AR seeds a weighted 80 / 20 pool of sSTOA and AR — sSTOA being SilverStoa, the liquid-staking form of STOA. This gives the ecosystem its first connection to external market liquidity: Arweave trades on a range of exchanges with meaningful daily volume, which is sufficient for an initial external path.
- Mechanics: a two-phase commit (deposit → notarization → finalization) recorded on an on-chain bridge ledger; 0.1% (1‰) fee.
- Status: in construction; the Arweave module (Module 1) is the MVP, currently in design.
The companies involvedThe infrastructure is built and operated by registered companies:
- Demiourgos Holdings S.A. — a Romanian Societate pe Acțiuni (a joint-stock company; the Romanian equivalent of a German Aktiengesellschaft), founded 2 August 2022. Demiourgos built Ouronet and created StoaChain.
- AncientHoldings GmbH — a German limited-liability company (Wuppertal), founded in 2026 to build and operate the chain's infrastructure as StoaChain's infrastructure partner.
These are named legal entities operating within defined jurisdictions. Company and imprint details are on ancientholdings.eu and demiourgos.holdings.
Scope — what exists, what remainsWhat is in place today is a working base chain, a DeFi layer, a wallet/DEX, a block explorer, and the operator hub — roughly
half a million lines of code across the stack (chain infrastructure, ~95k lines of Pact contracts, the wallet/DEX, the explorer, the hub, the bridge design, the SDK, and the cryptography), built on the Chainweb + Pact engine.
A significant part of the roadmap is still ahead: the bridge, the acquisition pools, the Ouronet explorer, and store-published wallets. We prefer to be judged by what is verifiable on-chain rather than by descriptions of future work.
The project's design principles are organised on the website around seven themes (its "pillars"): the perpetual economy, a finance-oriented contract language, the braided architecture, capacity defined by configuration, open participation in mining, the bridge to external chains, and on-chain verifiability.
LinksCommunity: X: @stoachain · @ouronetwork · @DemiourgosH · @Kjrkentolopon — Telegram: t.me/StoaChain