A proof-of-work algorithm that inverts the ASIC advantage. By making CPU architecture—caches, branch prediction, speculative execution—the load-bearing computation itself, any attempt to optimize Stratum would, by definition, become a CPU. Structural parity achieved.
SHA-256 and similar algorithms strip CPUs to bitwise operations. Every CPU feature—cache hierarchies, branch prediction, speculative execution—becomes wasted overhead. ASICs eliminate this overhead, achieving efficiency ratios of 100,000× over CPUs. This structural advantage makes CPU mining economically unviable.
efficiency advantage
efficiency gap
Stratum makes CPU overhead the computation. Multi-level cache hierarchies, branch prediction, and out-of-order execution are not wasted—they are load-bearing to the algorithm. Any ASIC that attempted to replicate this behavior would, structurally, be a CPU. Commodity hardware becomes competitively viable.
Currency-agnostic. The whitepaper defines the algorithm. Implementation can use any payment method. Commodity hardware mining becomes economically viable for the first time.
Deterministic execution. Software-emulated cache guarantees identical output across all hardware that faithfully implements the model, regardless of physical cache behavior or thermal throttling.
Transparent verification. Full nodes verify STARK proofs in milliseconds, without re-running the computation. No trusted setup. No intermediaries.
Read the whitepaper for complete technical specification, mathematical foundations, and security analysis.