Vibe Hash (VIBE)

A proof-of-useful-work cryptocurrency. Instead of hashing, "miners" train AI models in small, verifiable chunks sized for mid- and low-end hardware. Every verified chunk is paid pro rata. There's no lottery, so an old laptop earns the same rate per FLOP as a gaming rig.

This is a testnet implementation: validator nodes that take turns leading rounds and vote on every block (BFT consensus, so no single node is in charge), real worker clients that talk to them over HTTP, wallets, and a persistent chain that anyone can audit. See DESIGN.md for the protocol, economics, threat model, and what's still needed before a mainnet (§9).

Install

Python 3.10+. Vibe Hash is on PyPI:

python -m pip install --upgrade vibehash

To work on the source instead, install the project folder in editable mode so your changes apply without reinstalling. Run this in the project folder:

python -m pip install -e .

Either adds a vibehash command (also available as python -m vibehash) and pulls in NumPy and cryptography.

Quick start

Try a whole network on one computer: a node, two workers and a training job. It needs no wallets, files or flags, prints what the workers earn each round, and carries on where it stopped the next time you run it:

python -m vibehash testnet

To watch validators run it instead of one node, give it more validators. Each gets its own port, they take turns leading rounds, and every block needs votes from validators holding more than two thirds of the stake. Add --reset if you've run a testnet before, since the number of validators is fixed when the testnet is first made:

python -m vibehash testnet --validators 4

To join someone else's network as a worker, run the guided setup with their node's address, then start working:

python -m vibehash setup --node 192.168.1.20

python -m vibehash worker

To train a model, save your examples as a CSV file (a header row, numeric input columns, and the column to predict last), then:

python -m vibehash train my-data.csv --budget 100

python -m vibehash job status

python -m vibehash job download

python -m vibehash predict new-rows.csv

train sizes a model to the data, scales the inputs, holds back a fifth of the rows to measure accuracy, and prints what it will train and what it costs before posting. job status shows the accuracy climbing round by round, job download saves the model as one file (my-data-model.npz), and predict labels new rows (--out predictions.csv saves them all). python -m vibehash example writes a sample, fruit.csv, to try first. On your own testnet, pay with its requester wallet by adding --node http://127.0.0.1:8545 --wallet ~/.vibehash/testnet/requester.json to train. Jobs take turns a round at a time, so a new one starts at the next round.

In a terminal, worker and testnet show a live mining dashboard: a drill boring through rock while you train, the round and phase, your speed, units mined, and VIBE earned as it lands. Add --plain for the classic log lines (piped output and services get those automatically; NO_COLOR turns colours off).

setup saves the node address, creates your wallet (encrypted with a password you choose, in ~/.vibehash/wallet.json), finds your GPU and offers to install the PyTorch build for it, and offers to stake once you hold VIBE. Every command after that uses the saved node and wallet, so --node and --wallet are only needed to override them. Re-running setup keeps what's done.

The new wallet comes with 24 recovery words, shown once. Write them down and keep them offline: they bring the wallet back if the file or its password is lost, and anyone who sees them can take its coins:

python -m vibehash wallet restore

wallet restore asks for the words (the first four letters of each are enough) and a new password. Add --passphrase if you gave the words one, and --out FILE to restore somewhere other than the default wallet.

GPUs. vibehash install-gpu does the GPU step on its own. It reads the card and driver (NVIDIA through nvidia-smi, Intel Arc, Apple silicon, AMD with ROCm on Linux), checks which PyTorch builds are currently published for your driver and Python version, installs the newest one that fits, and self-tests it. vibehash devices shows what's usable. Workers use the first GPU they find; --device cpu|cuda|xpu|mps overrides it.

Publishing a release

Releases publish themselves from GitHub. .github/workflows/publish.yml runs when a version tag is pushed: it checks the tag matches pyproject.toml, runs the fast tests, builds the wheel and source archive, and uploads them to PyPI through a trusted publisher, so no API token is stored anywhere. PyPI's trusted publisher for vibehash names owner AlphaChad5000, repository vibehash, workflow publish.yml and environment pypi.

1. Bump version in pyproject.toml (PyPI never accepts the same version twice; 0.4.0 is out), commit it, and push.
2. Tag the commit with that version and push the tag. This publishes it:

git tag v0.4.1

git push origin v0.4.1

Follow the run under the repository's Actions tab. To try a build locally first, python -m build writes the packages to dist/.

Run a network for other people

vibehash testnet --host 0.0.0.0 is the quick way: other computers on your network can join it with setup --node YOUR-IP, and it prints how to send them VIBE to stake. Its wallets are unencrypted test keys, so for anything longer-lived, set the network up by hand:

The commands below use bash syntax; on PowerShell set environment variables with $env:VIBEHASH_PASSWORD = "..." instead.

1. Make wallets: one for the node operator, one per worker, one for whoever posts jobs. Each prints its 24 recovery words once.

python -m vibehash wallet create --out node.json

python -m vibehash wallet create --out alice.json

python -m vibehash wallet create --out requester.json

2. Write a genesis file (use the addresses printed above). --validator names the node as a validator, with the address other machines reach it at, and --bootstrap gives it bootstrap stake: enough to vote on block one, but it can never be withdrawn or spent, and it's burned if the validator leaves. Workers need nothing. By default they start with no stake and earn it in: their first 5 VIBE of pay goes into their stake, and until then they get small batches of work and don't check anyone else's. So every spendable coin starts from work. --no-earn-in makes workers be given stake instead (--stake). --economics mainnet picks the long issuance schedule (3.125 VIBE a round, halving about every 4 years, 21M VIBE at most) instead of the fast testnet one. The genesis hash commits to all of it. Here only the requester is handed coins, to pay for training:

python -m vibehash genesis create --chain-id my-testnet-1 --out genesis.json --bootstrap NODE_ADDR=10 --validator NODE_ADDR=http://192.168.1.20:8545 --alloc REQUESTER_ADDR=500

3. Start the node. Use --host 0.0.0.0 to accept workers from other machines.

python -m vibehash node --genesis genesis.json --wallet node.json --data-dir node-data --host 0.0.0.0

For more validators, give each its own staked wallet and its own --validator ADDR=URL in the genesis, and start one node per wallet on its own machine, all with the same genesis.json. They find each other from the addresses in it. A staked account can also join a running network as a validator. Its node announces the address where other machines can reach it:

python -m vibehash validator join --url http://203.0.113.7:8545 --wallet bob.json

python -m vibehash node --genesis genesis.json --wallet bob.json --data-dir bob-data --host 0.0.0.0 --announce http://203.0.113.7:8545 --peer http://192.168.1.20:8545

A node whose wallet isn't a validator, started with --peer, follows the chain: it checks and serves every block, and points workers at whichever validator is leading. vibehash validator list shows the validators and their share of the votes.

4. Each worker runs setup with the node's address and their wallet, then starts contributing. With earn-in there's nothing to stake first.

python -m vibehash setup --node http://127.0.0.1:8545 --wallet alice.json

python -m vibehash worker

5. Post a training job: from a CSV with train, or with full control over every setting from a job file and a prepared .npz dataset.

python -m vibehash train my-data.csv --node http://127.0.0.1:8545 --wallet requester.json --budget 150

python -m vibehash post-job --node http://127.0.0.1:8545 --wallet requester.json --spec examples/job.json --budget 150 --dataset examples/demo-dataset.npz

6. Check balances and independently audit the whole chain. chain verify re-checks every block from genesis, checks each block's commit certificate (the validators' signatures that made it final), and replays every round from the record its block commits to, so it catches a node that favoured a worker, invented a registration or forged a verdict, not just bad arithmetic. It also checks the signed receipts workers on this computer received for their messages (or any receipts file with --receipts FILE), which prove a node that accepted a message and then left it out of the round. For the most recent rounds (the node keeps their checkpoints for --keep-rounds, 10 by default) it downloads the checkpoints and re-runs every check that needs the model weights, so it catches a node that misreported a sanity check or sided with a false accusation.

python -m vibehash balance --node http://127.0.0.1:8545 --wallet alice.json

python -m vibehash chain verify --node http://127.0.0.1:8545 --genesis genesis.json

A dataset is an .npz with x_train, y_train, x_val, y_val. It's never unpickled, and workers check its sha256 against the job before using it.

Fees, HTTPS and rate limits

Fees. Every transaction pays a small fee to the validator that proposes its block. A node relays transactions paying at least --min-fee (0.0001 VIBE by default; --min-fee 0 relays free ones). send, stake, unstake, post-job and cancel-job pay the node's minimum unless you give --fee, and balance shows it. The fee comes out of your spendable balance, so keep a little unstaked VIBE to unstake with. Worker messages are free. When the mempool is full, higher fees get in first.

HTTPS. A node can serve HTTPS itself. For a testnet, make a self-signed certificate for the names and addresses workers will use, and start the node with it:

python -m vibehash tls cert --host 192.168.1.20

python -m vibehash node --genesis genesis.json --wallet node.json --data-dir node-data --host 0.0.0.0 --tls-cert node-cert.pem --tls-key node-key.pem

Both print the certificate's fingerprint (vibehash tls fingerprint node-cert.pem shows it again). Workers pin it in setup, and every later command then trusts that exact certificate from that node and nothing else:

python -m vibehash setup --node 192.168.1.20 --tls-fingerprint FINGERPRINT

With a certificate from a real CA, plain setup --node https://... works. --tls-ca FILE trusts a private CA instead, and $VIBEHASH_TLS_FINGERPRINT or $VIBEHASH_TLS_CA set the trust without setup. Without the cryptography package, tls cert prints the openssl command to run instead.

Rate limits. Each client address gets its own budget of reads, worker messages, transactions and uploads, at most 32 connections (256 in all), and socket timeouts that cut off slow-loris clients. Over budget, a node answers 429, and clients wait and retry. Clients on the node's own computer are never limited, so a local testnet is never throttled. Behind a reverse proxy every client looks local, so limit at the proxy or add --rate-limit-local. --rate-limit off turns the budgets off, --rate-limit tx=1/10,read=100 changes some (requests a second and burst; the buckets are read, worker, tx, upload and other), and --max-connections N sets the overall cap. DESIGN.md §10 has the numbers.

Simulate the economics

Runs the same round logic as a real node, with 14 simulated rigs (7 of them cheating), in a few seconds:

python simulate.py --rounds 20

Tests

python -m unittest discover -s tests -t .

tests/test_network.py starts a real node on localhost with four worker clients (one cheating), uploads a dataset, runs three rounds, audits the chain from the outside, and restarts the node from disk. tests/test_validators.py runs four validators on localhost:

• they take turns leading rounds and outvote a leader that pays itself;
• they carry on without one that goes offline, and it catches up when it's back;
• a new node syncs the whole chain and refuses a block whose certificate is short of two thirds of the stake.

tests/test_consensus.py puts the voting itself through crashed, lying and double-voting validators, lost messages and a split network, on a simulated clock. tests/test_hardening.py covers fees, issuance schedules, HTTPS nodes, rate limits and recovery words, including the official BIP39 and SLIP-0010 test vectors.

Layout

Status

Unaudited testnet software. Don't attach real value to it. DESIGN.md §9 lists the remaining work:

• validators rechecking weight-based results before voting, with on-chain disputes;
• slashing double-signing validators;
• replicating fraud evidence;
• model types beyond MLPs.

§10 covers what's been hardened: fees, the issuance schedule, TLS, rate limits and recovery words.