LIQUA — a molecular, fair-launch Layer-1.

1Introduction

Most chains are account books — a flat map of address → balance. LIQUA models its state as an organism.

Cells (individual app/state surfaces) aggregate into organs; organs aggregate into the body; the whole is hashed by a domain-keyed BLAKE3 Merkle tree whose root — the SOMA-256 root — is the organism's fingerprint. EVM-shaped on the outside (addresses are keccak(pubkey)[-20:], Solidity runs, JSON-RPC answers), molecular on the inside. The chain also carries a deterministic, replayable on-chain mind-state that can be snapshotted and forked from any height — a design language, not a sentience claim.

The thesis: a chain whose every quantity is a continuous function of block height — emission, decay, validation reward, governance quorum — with no epochs and no halving cliffs. The chain breathes per block.

2SOMA-256 consensus

SOMA-256 is LIQUA's content hash. It is not a new cryptographic primitive — rolling your own hash is how chains die — but a house construction on audited BLAKE3 whose tree mirrors the cell → organ stack. The cryptography is audited; the integration is the contribution.

• BLAKE3 keyed tree — each molecular layer is domain-separated with its own key; the Merkle root is the block's organism state.
• keccak membrane — anything an existing EVM must verify is keccak-256. SOMA lives inside; keccak at the skin.
• Memory-hard PoW seal — the L1 proof-of-work is ASIC/GPU-hostile by design, so the L1 stays CPU-fair; GPU hashpower is directed at the Ethash mining pool, bridged to L1.

The genesis SOMA root is reproducible by anyone from public inputs — deterministic, no Date.now(), no RNG. Today's devnet genesis root is 0x37d309f2…091ec80a.

3The five mechanics

Each is implemented as a real, compiled contract running on the EVM, and verified by a deterministic demo — not a whitepaper promise.

§2 · ve-lock staking

Holders vote-escrow LIQUA on a continuous sliding scale up to 4 years. A longer remaining lock earns a higher reward boost (capped at 1.5× at the 4-year cap) and more governance weight; both decay linearly toward expiry. Principal is withdraw-locked until expiry — no early exit, enforced in VeLock.sol.

§3 · Locked-liquidity list

Every lock is an append-only, chain-verifiable row — the public proof-of-lock surface. The list is the chain state, not an assertion.

§4 · Continuous emission

Block reward = a smooth decay envelope × the validation work actually performed × a bounded fast-twitch term, evaluated every block. Twitch reacts fast but is clamped inside the decayed envelope, so emission never breaks its schedule. Parameters: e₀ = 50, halflife 2,100,000 blocks, twitch 0.85–1.15×.

§5 · Reward-in-instance

A block's reward is not credited as a balance — it is escrowed to a dual-seed instance the miner controls: the public escrow key is blake3(soma ∥ minerPub ∥ height), but the claiming private key is blake3(minerSecret ∥ rewardSeed), derivable only by the miner. The reward is claimed via an L2 getting-tool after a confirmation gate (R6 · instance = auth). Verified by npm run claim:test.

§6 · 98% governance

Rollback and parameter change each require 98% of attesting ve-weight in a rolling window — near-unanimity, with the liveness tradeoff named openly. See §7.

4Tokenomics

LIQUA is 98% GPU-mined from block 0. The only allocation taken from genesis is a single 2% studio / launch allocation — funding development, a security audit, and locked launch liquidity — time-locked and released on the ship date, August 1, 2026, and published on the locked-liquidity surface. Not a wei more is pre-allocated.

5Presale & the token swap

The presale sells a portion of the 2% studio allocation to fund the studio. Contributors don't wait until mainnet to hold something — they receive a token now and swap it 1:1 at launch.

pLIQUA — the presale receipt

LiquaPresaleToken.sol (pLIQUA) is a standard, transferable ERC-20 minted to contributors at the published rate. It is not the network asset — it is a redeemable claim on it, so it can even trade before launch.

The swap — pLIQUA → LIQUA, 1:1

LiquaSwap.sol redeems pLIQUA for real LIQUA at 1:1, but only on/after the ship date. Each redeem burns the pLIQUA and releases LIQUA from a reserve funded by the studio allocation, so total economic supply is conserved across the swap. Before Aug 1, 2026 every swap reverts SWAP_NOT_OPEN.

// LiquaSwap.sol — gated, 1:1, reserve-backed, burn-on-swap
function swap(uint256 amount) external {
  require(block.timestamp >= swapOpensAt, "SWAP_NOT_OPEN");   // Aug 1 2026
  require(liqua.balanceOf(address(this)) >= amount, "reserve");  // 1:1 backed
  pliqua.burnFrom(msg.sender, amount);                          // burn receipt
  liqua.transfer(msg.sender, amount);                           // release LIQUA
}

Together with the existing wLIQUA.sol cross-chain wrapper, LIQUA can move between the presale chain, the L1, and an L2 — all 1:1, all reserve-backed.

6Architecture & the running system

LIQUA isn't a deck — the devnet is running. Every layer below is built and verified:

• Network — discv4 peer discovery (lnode://), an encrypted secp256k1-ECDH / ChaCha20-Poly1305 transport, genesis-gated tx/block gossip, and re-execution block sync (late joiners converge). A peer dashboard + CLI drive it.
• Mining — a continuous SOMA-PoW miner (CLI + live dashboard + explorer), and a real Ethash GPU pool (Stratum, PPLNS, persistent ledger) whose blocks bridge into real L1 blocks crediting miners on-chain.
• Validation — a persistent validator with real on-chain ve-lock staking over the pool world-state, EIP-6963 wallet connect, and live head co-signing.
• Contracts — a solc-compiled suite (LiquaToken · VeLock · LiquidityLocker · Governor98 · RewardEscrow · wLIQUA · LiquaPresaleToken · LiquaSwap) running on a real EVM.
• Reward claim — the §5 dual-seed escrow → gated L2 claim, as a CLI and a browser UI.
• Interop — an EVM JSON-RPC (eth_chainId / getBalance / …) and a real cross-chain bridge (wLIQUA on an L2, authority-attested, conservation-checked).

Full operator manuals are in the Codex docs; the protocol is specified §0–§8 in the spec.

7Governance

Two powers — rollback (revert to a prior height) and change (update a parameter) — each require 98% agreement. The denominator is attesting ve-weight summed over a continuous rolling window, not all-time supply, so dormant stake cannot freeze governance and a malicious change needs almost everyone.

The committed parameters a vote can change are exactly those baked into genesis — ve-lock bounds, emission shape, the confirmation gate, the quorum window. Changing one is, in effect, re-constituting the chain — which is precisely why it takes 98%.

8Risks & honest limits

• Experimental & unaudited. LIQUA is devnet software. The contracts are faithful, runnable skeletons that pass their demos, but they have not been audited. A security audit precedes mainnet.
• §5 emission path. The reward-in-instance claim is built and verified, but making seal() the default live-emission path (vs. the current direct-credit) is a remaining toggle.
• Persistence & NAT. Pool balances persist; the L1 block history and peer NAT traversal are partial. Public bootnodes + genesis-block distribution are pre-mainnet work.
• Forward-looking statements. Dates, the presale, and the listing path are plans, not guarantees, and are subject to change and to local regulation. Nothing here is financial advice or an offer of securities.