What Is Collateral?

Collateral is a mechanism that requires Gonka hosts to lock GNK coins in order to activate a portion of their earned Proof of Compute (PoC) weight. It connects economic responsibility to governance influence — the more weight you want to activate, the more collateral you need to back it.

Important distinction: voting power is never derived from holding coins alone. GNK serves as economic collateral, not a source of influence. Influence comes from continuous computational contribution.

Grace Period

For the first 180 epochs after launch, no collateral is required. Every participant receives 100% of their potential weight unconditionally. This gives hosts time to accumulate GNK and prepare for the transition.

After the grace period ends, the collateral requirement activates automatically.

Weight Structure

Once collateral is active, your total weight splits into two components:

  • Base Weight (20%) — granted unconditionally, no collateral needed
  • Collateral-Eligible Weight (80%) — must be backed by deposited GNK

Your Active Weight = Base Weight + weight activated by collateral. This is what counts for all PoC-weighted governance decisions.

Example

If your total earned weight is 1,000: - Base Weight: 200 (free) - Collateral-Eligible: 800 (needs backing) - Without any deposit: Active Weight = 200 - With full collateral: Active Weight = 1,000

How Much to Deposit

The required collateral is calculated as:

Required = Weight x collateral_per_weight_unit

You can check current parameters on-chain:

curl "$NODE_URL/chain-api/productscience/inference/inference/params" \
  | jq '.params.collateral_params'

Buffer Recommendation

PoC weight fluctuates between epochs due to normalization. Depositing the exact minimum can lead to temporary under-collateralization at epoch boundaries. The protocol does not auto-top-up.

Recommendation: deposit up to 2x the minimum while collateral levels are relatively small. Smaller weights experience proportionally larger fluctuations.

Depositing Collateral

Collateral must be deposited before the start of the epoch to take effect.

Check your current collateral:

./inferenced query collateral show-collateral <YOUR_ADDRESS> \
  --node $NODE_URL/chain-rpc/

Deposit (always in ngonka):

./inferenced tx collateral deposit-collateral <AMOUNT>ngonka \
  --from gonka-account-key \
  --keyring-backend file \
  --node $NODE_URL/chain-rpc/ \
  --chain-id gonka-mainnet

Withdrawing Collateral

Withdrawals enter an unbonding queue. The default unbonding period is 1 epoch. During unbonding, collateral is still subject to slashing.

After unbonding completes, funds return to your account automatically.

./inferenced tx collateral withdraw-collateral <AMOUNT>ngonka \
  --from gonka-account-key \
  --keyring-backend file \
  --node $NODE_URL/chain-rpc/ \
  --chain-id gonka-mainnet

Check unbonding status:

./inferenced query collateral show-unbonding-collateral <YOUR_ADDRESS> \
  --node $NODE_URL/chain-rpc/

Slashing

Collateral can be slashed for two reasons:

Reason Trigger Frequency
Invalid inference Submitting incorrect results Max once per epoch
Downtime Failing Confirmation PoC or jail Per event

Check if you have been slashed:

curl "$NODE_URL/chain-api/cosmos/tx/v1beta1/txs?query=slash_collateral.participant='<YOUR_ADDRESS>'"

Quick Reference

Parameter Value
Grace Period 180 epochs
Base Weight (no collateral) 20%
Collateral-Eligible Weight 80%
Unbonding Period 1 epoch
Recommended Buffer 2x minimum

Further Reading