Vital Issuance: How Distributed Intelligence Units Enter Circulation
Vital issuance is the mechanism by which new Vital DIU enters circulation. Vital is issued exclusively to mesh nodes that contribute verified compute — routing, storage, inference, or privacy enforcement. No central authority issues Vital. Total issuance is permanently capped at 10,000,000,000 units.
Vital issuance is the process by which new Vital DIU enters circulation. Unlike fiat currencies or most digital tokens, Vital cannot be minted by a central authority, purchased, or issued speculatively. Vital enters circulation only when a mesh node performs verified, signed compute work on the Distributed Intelligence Stack. Issuance is governed by deterministic rate schedules across four compute dimensions — routing, storage, inference, and privacy enforcement. All issuance accumulates toward the permanent hard cap of 10,000,000,000 Vital.
Issuance Dimensions
Routing
Vital is issued to nodes that route workloads across the mesh — proportional to data transited and routing complexity.
Storage
Nodes providing persistent storage capacity earn Vital per GB-month of verified, available storage.
Inference
Inference nodes earn Vital per 1,000 tokens processed — proportional to compute demand and model complexity.
Privacy Enforcement
Nodes enforcing Confidential and Sovereign privacy tiers earn Vital multipliers (1.8x and 3.2x) reflecting the additional overhead.
Compute-Backed Issuance Principle
Vital issuance is grounded in verified compute output. Mesh nodes — including browser-based WebGPU contributors — earn Vital only when real, verified compute work is performed. The protocol normalizes all compute contributions to a single, consistent baseline so that every node is treated equally regardless of device type, geography, or model. The normalization and verification mechanisms are internal to the DOSFI Core and are not publicly disclosed.
This compute-anchored model means every Vital in circulation represents real, verified work — regardless of device type, geography, or model. The protocol normalizes all compute to the same thermodynamic baseline, making Vital a true unit of distributed intelligence energy. The specific normalization formula and verification internals are sovereign closed-core components.
Issuance Cannot Be Manipulated
Because Vital issuance is tied entirely to verified compute output — with no governance mechanism for supply expansion — the DIU supply model is immune to inflationary pressure. No entity can issue Vital without performing the underlying compute. This is what makes Vital compute-backed and non-speculative at the protocol level.