Staking Mechanics

InfraMind's staking system is the backbone of its execution economy—it binds compute performance to economic collateral. By staking $IFM tokens, node operators gain access to more valuable jobs, prove their commitment to the mesh, and take on measurable risk in exchange for higher rewards. The system is designed to both scale incentives and enforce accountability, ensuring that those who provide critical compute resources are rewarded, and those who underperform are penalized.

Staking is not just a participation gate—it actively shapes how jobs are routed, how rewards are calculated, and how the protocol protects itself from dishonest or unreliable execution.

Node Staking Tiers

All nodes in InfraMind can operate at the base level with no stake, but higher tiers of performance and job complexity require bonded $IFM. Each tier defines:

  • Job eligibility

  • Reward multipliers

  • Penalty severity

  • Quorum access for distributed execution

Tier
Min Stake
Access To
Reward Bonus

Tier 0

0 IFM

CPU jobs, public models

0%

Tier 1

500 IFM

GPU jobs, session models

+10%

Tier 2

2,000 IFM

zkML, privacy jobs, DAG nodes

+25%

Tier 3

10,000 IFM

Coordinated jobs, TEE enclave

+40%

Staking is dynamic. Node operators may increase or decrease their stake (subject to unbonding rules), and staking levels are read by the scheduler at runtime.

Stake tokens remain in the node operator’s wallet but are locked at the protocol level for the duration of the bonded period.

Stake a node:

infra stake --node 0xABCD... --amount 2000

View current stake:

infra status --stake

Delegated Staking

Not every $IFM holder needs to operate a node. Any wallet may delegate their stake to a node operator, boosting that node’s tier and sharing in its earnings.

Delegation mechanics:

  • Delegators receive a % of the node’s rewards (default 80/20 split)

  • Operators may cap delegation to prevent oversaturation

  • Delegated tokens can be unbonded at any time (with a cooldown period)

Delegate to a node:

infra delegate --node 0xABCD... --amount 1500

Check delegation status:

infra delegate --list

Delegators are not slashed unless the node is slashed. Their reputation score is not affected, but their stake may be partially lost if the node repeatedly violates SLA rules.

Slashing Conditions

Staking unlocks access, but also exposes operators to risk. InfraMind enforces strict penalties for:

  • Failing to return valid job proofs

  • Submitting malformed or forged outputs

  • Accepting jobs and not executing them (timeout)

  • Declaring fake resources (GPU/capacity)

  • Repeated schema mismatches

Slashing thresholds:

Violation
Penalty

1st SLA drop below 0.85

10% slashing

Invalid proof signature

25% + cooldown

Forged execution trace

50% + ban

Node dropout mid-job

15%

Slashed stake is handled as follows:

  • 50% burned

  • 25% redistributed to honest nodes

  • 25% returned to delegators if non-custodial

Slashing is enforced via the reward oracle and submitted on-chain every epoch. Nodes have 1–2 epoch windows to dispute slashing events via governance vote.

Reward Rebalancing

Each node’s reward is adjusted based on:

  • Average latency over last N jobs

  • SLA completion ratio

  • Stake weight (self + delegated)

  • Regional scarcity

High-performance nodes with low latency and high uptime receive:

  • More frequent job assignments

  • Bonus reward multipliers (Q factor)

  • Lower penalty decay if they fail a job once

Reward boost example:

{
  "latency_percentile": 94,
  "uptime": 99.1,
  "stake_weight": 2400,
  "bonus": 1.24×
}

Conversely, nodes with poor uptime (<80%), inconsistent return times, or excessive job rejections are deprioritized, and their rewards may be capped.

Node ranking is recomputed every 6 hours.

Unstaking and Cooldown

To withdraw staked $IFM, a node must unbond:

infra unstake --node 0xABCD... --amount 1000

Unbonding period: 7 days (configurable by DAO)

During unbonding, the node’s job access is reduced, and delegated stake cannot be re-routed until completed.

Delegators may withdraw independently, but their rewards are paused during the cooldown period.

Summary

InfraMind’s staking system is a performance contract. The more you stake, the more responsibility you take on—and the more the protocol trusts you to execute jobs reliably, quickly, and securely. This system lets token holders back high-quality infrastructure, lets operators prove their competence economically, and creates a self-balancing incentive structure where speed, accuracy, and uptime are directly rewarded. Delegation opens the system to passive stakeholders, while slashing protects the mesh from low-quality or malicious actors. At scale, staking becomes the risk-adjusted quality filter that powers decentralized AI execution.

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