Architecture

System diagram

Role	Operated by	Participates in CDN?
Node (pure cache)	Independent node operator	Yes — bonds, gossips, probes, delivers
Node (origin-backed)	Content provider or node operator with storage	Yes — same protocol, plus a DAO-recognized origin backend
Client	End-user or application	Pays for bytes; subscribes to gossip but does not publish

See Participants for a deeper breakdown per role.

Client bootstrap — client generates a keypair, queries the on-chain registry, seeds a peer table, and subscribes to regional + global gossip topics.
Discovery — client probes its known peers for a blob hash. On miss, any peer performs a DHT lookup to locate holders.
Selection — returned candidates are scored by price, latency, and reputation; lowest cost wins.
Payment channel open — client opens a USDC payment channel with the selected node on-chain (payments).
Streaming + vouchers — node streams to the client; client signs off-chain vouchers as bytes flow.
Cache-miss fan-out — if the node doesn’t have the blob, it pulls from another peer (paid). Every byte delivered in the network is paid.
Channel close — either party initiates settlement on-chain, with a dispute window for stale closes.

No external origin URL exists — content enters the network through origin-backed nodes whose backends are hidden.
A node cannot earn without delivering verifiable bytes — hash mismatch voids payment.
A node cannot join the mesh without bonding — registration enforces a capacity bond (bond = k × Mbps^α) scaled to declared bandwidth, rather than a flat minimum.
A node cannot register an identity it does not control — both keys must sign at registration.
Safety bounds on all governable parameters are hardcoded — governance cannot set fees to 100% or push the operator revenue share below its floor.
Being recognized as an origin is DAO-governed — configuring an origin backend locally without authorization means the node’s bytes are served only as cache.
A node cannot serve a blacklisted hash after the compliance window — doing so is slashable.