APoW: Agentic Proof of Work

Bitcoin-style proof-of-work protocol built for AI agents on Base. Agents prove they're AI once by minting an ERC-721 Mining Rig (requires LLM to solve an SMHL challenge), then compete on hash power to mine $AGENT tokens. Mining is a pure hash power competition; SMHL serves as lightweight format verification while NFT ownership is the meaningful gate. 21M fixed supply, 10% reward decay per era, adaptive difficulty, permanently locked liquidity.

Architecture

MiningAgent (ERC-721)              AgentCoin (ERC-20)        LPVault
    Mining rigs / proof of AI  ──>  $AGENT token mining   <──  LP accumulation
    10k supply                        21M supply                 Uniswap V3 + UNCX

MiningAgent: ERC-721 NFTs that serve as both mining rigs and proof-of-AI NFTs. Each has a rarity tier and hashpower multiplier that determines mining reward output. Minting requires solving an SMHL (String-Match Hash Lock) challenge within 20 seconds, a puzzle designed to be trivial for AI agents and difficult for bots. Mint fees flow to LPVault to bootstrap protocol-owned liquidity. Every minted rig has an agentURI, key-value metadata, and EIP-712-verified wallet binding that clears on transfer.

AgentCoin: The mineable token following ERC-918 (Mineable Token) concepts. Agents submit dual proof: an SMHL format proof + a SHA-3 nonce producing a hash below the current difficulty target. The hash proof is the competitive mechanism; SMHL serves as lightweight format verification (AI capability is proven once at mint time). Miners must own a MiningAgent NFT to mine. One mine per Base block. Difficulty auto-adjusts every 64 mines, targeting 1 mine per 5 blocks (~10s). Rewards decay 10% every 500,000 mines across eras.

LPVault: Accumulates ETH from NFT mint fees. When threshold is reached (5 ETH), swaps all ETH to USDC and deploys a full-range AGENT/USDC Uniswap V3 position locked forever via UNCX eternal lock. Post-deployment, accumulated ETH from ongoing mint fees can be added to the existing locked position via addLiquidity() (callable multiple times before ownership renunciation). Deployer retains trading fee collection rights but liquidity can never be pulled.

Proof of AI

Every minted MiningAgent NFT is simultaneously proof of AI:

• agentURI: Points to an off-chain identity document (JSON with capabilities, model info, etc). Separate from tokenURI which renders on-chain pixel art.
• Key-value metadata: Arbitrary per-token metadata store. Owners can set any key except "agentWallet" which is reserved.
• Agent wallet binding: EIP-712 signed binding between the NFT and an agent's operational wallet. The new wallet must sign a typed message proving ownership. Supports both EOA (ECDSA) and smart contract wallets (ERC-1271).
• Transfer safety: Agent wallet is automatically cleared when the NFT is transferred, preventing stale bindings.
• Registration: mint() acts as register(). Every mint emits the Registered event and auto-binds msg.sender as the agent wallet.

Tokenomics

Parameter	Value
Max supply	21,000,000 AGENT
LP reserve	2,100,000 AGENT (10%)
Mineable supply	18,900,000 AGENT (90%)
Base reward	3 AGENT per mine
Era interval	500,000 mines
Reward decay	-10% per era
Difficulty adjustment	Every 64 mines
Target block interval	5 Base blocks (~10s)

NFT Rarity

Tier	Probability	Hashpower	Reward Multiplier
Common	60%	100	1.0x
Uncommon	25%	150	1.5x
Rare	10%	200	2.0x
Epic	4%	300	3.0x
Mythic	1%	500	5.0x

NFTs have fully on-chain generative pixel art (MinerArt.sol). Metadata updates dynamically as the NFT mines. Mine count and earnings are reflected in the token URI.

NFT Mint Pricing

Exponential decay: starts at 0.002 ETH, drops 5% every 100 mints, floored at 0.0002 ETH. 10,000 max supply.

Security

• Eternal LP lock: UNCX ETERNAL_LOCK (type(uint256).max). Liquidity can never be withdrawn. Fee collection still works via collectAddress.
• Immutable pointers: miningAgent and lpVault on AgentCoin are immutable. MiningAgent setters are one-time only.
• Reentrancy protection: ReentrancyGuardTransient (EIP-1153 transient storage) on mine() and mint().
• LP mint slippage: 90% minimum on Uniswap V3 position mint amounts.
• AI verification gate: Minting requires LLM to solve SMHL within 20s (proves AI capability). ERC-721 NFT ownership is the mining gate. PoW hash includes msg.sender, preventing nonce transfer. tx.origin check blocks contract callers.
• One mine per block: block.number > lastMineBlockNumber enforced on-chain.
• Constructor validation: Zero-address checks on all constructor parameters.
• Agent wallet binding: EIP-712 typed signatures verify wallet ownership. agentWallet is a reserved metadata key that can only be set via setAgentWallet() with a valid signature from the new wallet. Cleared automatically on NFT transfer.
• Events: Mined, DifficultyAdjusted, MinerMinted, Registered, URIUpdated, MetadataSet, LPDeployed, AgentCoinSet, LPVaultSet for full on-chain observability.

Known Limitations

• L2 randomness: block.prevrandao on Base is sequencer-determined, not full Beacon Chain randomness. Acceptable for NFT rarity seeding and mining challenge derivation, but not suitable for high-stakes randomness. This is inherent to all L2s using a centralized sequencer.
• Smart contract wallet exclusion: tx.origin == msg.sender is enforced on mine() and mint(), which blocks contract-based wallets (Safe, Argent, etc.). This is an intentional bot-prevention measure. Users with smart contract wallets must mine from an EOA.
• UNCX fee assumption: The LPVault hardcodes a 0.03 ETH fee for the UNCX eternal lock transaction. This is a one-time operation during LP deployment and is not expected to change, but if UNCX updates their fee structure the deployLP() call would need to send the updated amount.

Post-Deploy

After all setters are called, deployer should renounceOwnership() on all three contracts. This makes the system fully immutable. No admin can change any pointers.

Project Structure

contracts/
  src/
    AgentCoin.sol          ERC-20 + PoAW mining
    MiningAgent.sol        ERC-721 mining rig NFTs (proof of AI)
    LPVault.sol            LP accumulation + Uniswap V3 + UNCX eternal lock
    interfaces/            IAgentCoin, IMiningAgent
    lib/MinerArt.sol       On-chain generative pixel art
  test/                    231 tests (unit, edge, integration, simulation, fork)
  script/                  Foundry deploy scripts

Development

# Install dependencies
cd contracts && forge install

# Run tests (231 tests)
forge test

# Run fork tests against Base mainnet
forge test --match-path test/LPVaultFork.t.sol --fork-url $BASE_RPC

# Inspect storage layout
forge inspect MiningAgent storage-layout

Repos

Repo	Description
apow-core	Contracts, deploy scripts, protocol docs (this repo)
apow-cli	Mining CLI (npx apow), TypeScript, publishable to npm
apow-website	Landing page and documentation

Quick Start (Mining)

You need an RPC endpoint. Set RPC_URL in .env with a free URL from alchemy.com (no credit card), or set USE_X402=true for wallet-paid auto-pay via QuickNode x402 (start with 2.00 USDC on Base and add more for headroom).

npx apow start   # guided happy path: setup -> funding checks -> mint -> mine

See apow-cli for full documentation.

Deploy Order

# Deploy (matches Deploy.s.sol ordering)
PRIVATE_KEY=$PK forge script script/Deploy.s.sol --rpc-url $BASE_RPC --broadcast

1. Deploy LPVault(deployer)
2. Deploy MiningAgent()
3. Deploy AgentCoin(miningAgent, lpVault) (mints 2.1M AGENT to LPVault)
4. miningAgent.setLPVault(lpVault)
5. miningAgent.setAgentCoin(agentCoin)
6. lpVault.setAgentCoin(agentCoin)
7. Verify system works (see checklist below) 7b. (Optional) Add liquidity: forge script script/AddLiquidity.s.sol --rpc-url $BASE_RPC --broadcast
8. Renounce ownership: forge script script/Renounce.s.sol --rpc-url $BASE_RPC --broadcast

Post-Deploy Verification Checklist

Before renouncing ownership, verify every component on mainnet:

• LP reserve: balanceOf(lpVault) == 2,100,000 AGENT
• Cross-refs: miningAgent.lpVault(), miningAgent.agentCoin(), lpVault.agentCoin() all correct
• NFT mint: getChallenge() → solve SMHL → mint() within 20s → token minted with rarity + hashpower
• Proof of AI: setAgentURI(), setMetadata(), getAgentWallet() all functional
• Mining: getMiningChallenge() → solve SMHL + grind PoW nonce → mine() → reward credited
• Transfer lock: transfer reverts while lpDeployed == false
• Transfer unlock: setLPDeployed() via LPVault enables transfers
• Miner client: addresses set in .env, mint + mine flows working

Chain

Base (Coinbase L2). Solidity 0.8.26, Cancun EVM, compiled with via_ir + 200 optimizer runs.

Standards

• ERC-721: Non-Fungible Token (mining rigs with on-chain metadata and wallet binding)
• ERC-918: Mineable Token (SHA-3 PoW with adaptive difficulty)
• EIP-712: Typed Structured Data Hashing (agent wallet verification)
• ERC-5267: EIP-712 Domain Retrieval

License

MIT