Tokenomics

Sentio Token ($ST)

The Sentio Token ($ST) serves as the native utility and governance asset of the protocol:

1. Payment: To access blockchain data, users consume Sentio Units (SU), settled via $ST. Payments are distributed at the protocol level to network participants, including node operators and stakers. A small portion of each payment may be burned as part of the network's economic balancing mechanism.

2. Staking: Sentio Nodes stake $ST tokens to qualify for network participation. Token holders may also delegate their stake to node operators. Misbehavior is penalized through slashing (deducting and burning the stake).

3. Governance: $ST token holders can vote on protocol-level parameters and upgrades, promoting decentralized community governance for the network.

Sentio Units (SU)

Sentio introduces Sentio Units (SU) as the standardized billing abstraction across all network services. All usage is metered in SU.

Initial cost parameters (subject to node voting):

Nodes bid on the cost of SU in $ST, and jobs are preferentially assigned to nodes with a lower SU cost.

Key benefits:

• Transparent Pricing — SU rates are fixed by on-chain governance, ensuring predictability for developers.
• Flexibility — Indexers can set their own SU-to-Token exchange rate, enabling market-driven efficiency.
• Extensibility — New service types (e.g., cross-chain queries, AI analytics) can be priced in SU without altering the underlying token model.

Job Assignment

Job assignment is determined by two factors: stake and SU cost.

A node's capacity allowance is calculated as:

Allowance_i = (Stakes_i / Total_stakes) × Total_SU_Consumed_Last_Hour

A node will stop receiving new jobs if its current job count is greater than or equal to its allowance, regardless of its SU cost.

For nodes with available capacity and sufficient hardware resources (as configured by the node operator), job assignment favors the one offering the lowest SU cost. Once a job is assigned, the SU cost is locked for that processor for one month.

Staking Model

For details on epoch-based staking and governance voting, see Network Participation.

Incentives