How the P2P network, mining rounds, BFT consensus, and settlement fit together.
Wattcoin is a fully decentralized Proof-of-Energy cryptocurrency. Every miner runs a full node — there are no mining pools, no central coordinators, and no single point of control. Each node is simultaneously a miner, a peer, and a validator. This article walks through the architecture at every layer.
Every Wattcoin node runs as a desktop application that is also a full network participant. Each node handles three things at once: mining hardware control, blockchain validation, and peer-to-peer networking. There are no separate server or coordinator machines — every miner is an equal part of the network.
When a node starts for the first time, it has no knowledge of the network. Peer discovery proceeds through several layers, each acting as a fallback for the previous:
The node fetches a list of well-known public peers from wattcoin.ee. This manifest is cached locally and refreshed periodically to ensure the node always has a valid entry point into the network.
In addition to the static manifest, a dynamic registry returns peers that have recently registered themselves. Nodes that choose to act as seed nodes send periodic heartbeats to keep their address available for new connections.
On local networks, nodes broadcast UDP discovery messages. Peers on the same subnet are discovered directly and assigned a higher preference score for routing decisions. This is especially useful in data centers or home labs running multiple mining nodes.
Once connected to at least one peer, the node receives peer URLs from that peer's active connection pool. This gossip mechanism propagates peer information across the network without needing any central directory.
Each peer connection is scored by preference: local network peers are preferred over public ones, and direct connections are preferred over relayed ones. The node automatically avoids connecting to itself and backs off from peers that fail repeatedly.
All peer-to-peer communication happens over HTTP and WebSocket. Nodes exchange mining contributions, block proposals, votes, and probe challenges through a simple request-response API. Real-time communication uses WebSocket connections for efficient probe exchanges.
Nodes behind a firewall or NAT cannot receive incoming connections directly. When such a node connects to a publicly reachable peer, it establishes a reverse tunnel — the public peer routes incoming requests through this tunnel so that every node can participate regardless of its network setup.
Mining in Wattcoin is organized into rounds. Each round corresponds to one block being found and settled. The round lifecycle has four phases:
When a round begins, the round ledger creates a fresh state with a new round number, an empty contribution tracker, and a start timestamp. Each round has a unique, incrementing identifier.
While the round is active, every miner continuously contributes energy by running computational workloads on their CPU, GPU, and memory. Energy is calculated as:
The miner periodically submits the accumulated energy as a signed contribution to the round ledger. The ledger tracks each address's total contribution for the duration of the round. These contributions are stored by peers and can be recovered if the miner reinstalls.
Throughout the round, peer coordinators issue computational probes to verify that each miner is running real hardware at the declared load. Every probe is paired with a VDF (Verifiable Delay Function) proof-of-time that proves a minimum amount of sequential computation has elapsed — replacing the coordinator's wall clock as the authoritative timing source. Four probe types are used:
Each miner accumulates a trust score based on probe results. The trust score scales the effective contribution between 20% and 100% of the calibrated power. Hardware identity is cross-checked through multiple independent channels (OS API, native binary, device type).
A round settles when a miner accumulates enough energy and proposes a block. Settlement is the process of finalizing the round's contributions, distributing proportional rewards, and advancing to the next round.
Settlement includes several integrity checks. A forged contribution cannot be injected because each contribution is signed by the miner's wallet key and verified at settlement time. If a miner's hardware identity changed during the round, their contribution is forfeited. Multiple verifier attestations are required before a settlement is accepted.
The WTC blockchain uses a Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus protocol for block production. Unlike Proof-of-Work where blocks are found by hash lottery, Wattcoin blocks are proposed by the miner who reaches the energy threshold and then validated by peers through a three-phase protocol:
When a miner has accumulated enough energy, they construct a block containing the settlement data, probe results, and any pending transactions. The block is signed with the miner's wallet key and broadcast to all connected peers.
Each peer that receives a proposal validates it and returns a signed vote. The proposer waits for votes from the network within a short timeout period.
Once enough votes are collected, the block is finalized. The required number of votes depends on how many peers are known — a solo miner can finalize immediately, while nodes with many peers need a supermajority. If the vote timeout expires without enough votes, the block is still committed with whatever was collected, because energy proofs cannot be faked and a partial vote carries no extra weight.
The round ledger is the system of record for all mining activity. It keeps track of:
The ledger is stored locally as a signed file, ensuring that any tampering is detected. The file format is crash-safe — a power loss during a write will not corrupt previously saved data.
Block rewards follow the tier-based schedule defined in the tokenomics. Each tier contains 1,000,000 WTC, and the reward per block halves every tier:
Within each block, the reward is split proportionally among all addresses that contributed energy during the round. There is no winner-take-all — every miner gets paid every block based on their share of the total verified energy.
Each miner's hardware is identified through multiple independent channels to prevent misrepresentation:
A benchmark measures the actual performance of each component. A calibration factor is computed by comparing benchmark results against reference values, ensuring that each miner is credited fairly for their hardware's actual capability.
Every miner accumulates a trust score that determines what fraction of their calibrated power is credited. The score is adjusted after each peer probe:
At trust score 0, the miner contributes at 20% of their calibrated power. At trust score 100, they contribute at 100%. The sliding window ensures that even a trusted miner is regularly re-verified — probes are issued continuously throughout every round.
If a miner reinstalls the application mid-round, contributions are not lost. After connecting to peers, the node requests the latest round state from them. Peers store each other's contribution data, and the most recent verified entry is used to restore the miner's position. Mining does not begin until at least one peer is online.
The network includes several monitoring mechanisms to keep everything running smoothly:
The Wattcoin architecture is built around a simple premise: every node is equal. There are no special coordinator nodes, no mining pools, and no privileged validators. The peer-to-peer HTTP network, the round ledger with proportional reward distribution, the BFT consensus protocol, and the multi-layer probe attestation system together create a decentralized energy-backed cryptocurrency where the only competitive variable is the cost of electricity.