What is ARC-0046?
ARC-0046 proposes a new mechanism requiring provers on the Aleo Network to stake Aleo credits to be eligible to submit puzzle solutions. This mechanism is a carefully designed, gradual rollout that will unfold over the next two years, ensuring the network can adapt smoothly to these new cryptoeconomic mechanisms.
Starting on July 31, 2025 at 11:59:59pm UTC, ARC-0046 introduces an initial requirement of 100,000 Aleo credits per solution submission per epoch, with this staking requirement increasing quarterly, ultimately reaching 2.5 million Aleo credits by the end of the two-year period.
Quarter | Effective Date | Stake Per Solution Per Epoch (in ALEO) |
|---|---|---|
Q0 (Activation) | July 31, 2025 | 100,000 |
Q1 | October 31, 2025 | 250,000 |
Q2 | January 31, 2026 | 500,000 |
Q3 | April 30, 2026 | 750,000 |
Q4 | July 31, 2026 | 1,000,000 |
Q5 | October 31, 2026 | 1,250,000 |
Q6 | January 31, 2027 | 1,500,000 |
Q7 | April 30, 2027 | 2,000,000 |
Q8 | July 31, 2027 | 2,500,000 |
Why This Matters: Three Pillars for Network Health
This ARC ensures the network incentivizes all participants to improve the health and security of the Aleo Network. As such, this proposal addresses several key objectives.
Stronger Byzantine Fault Tolerance Security
The proposal ensures that provers gradually increase their stake participation with the goal of achieving at least the availability threshold of the Aleo Network within two years. This ensures provers going forward have a technical voice in consensus and in the governance of the Aleo protocol. In addition, this directly contributes to the underlying security guarantees that make Aleo resilient.
Increasing Sybil Resistance of the Aleo Network
By tying stake to solution submissions, ARC-0046 makes it economically costly for malicious actors to create numerous fake identities to flood the network with malformed solutions. This creates a natural barrier against attacks while maintaining fair access for legitimate participants.
Better Economic Growth & Long-Term Sustainability
ARC-0046 provides a transparent schedule that allows the network to adapt to its growing value and security needs, without introducing sudden economic impacts or shocks. By ensuring provers contribute to staking, this ensures that their earned staking and proving rewards are then directly utilized by the Aleo Network itself.
Who Benefits?
ARC-0046 is designed first and foremost with the long-term health of the Aleo ecosystem and its participants in mind.
As such, this proposal benefits long-term token holders as they gain increased confidence that network tokens are being used to secure and govern the Aleo Network appropriately, with security benefits becoming more pronounced as the requirements increase over the two-year period.
In addition, ARC-0046 will benefit validators in the form of increased delegations from provers contributing to the staking requirements, improving network security in consensus. And provers will collectively gain influence in governance by contributing to stake, while earning additional staking yield from their token rewards through the staking process.
What Happens Next?
We understand that introducing new economic requirements and mechanisms is a fundamental change. The goal is to benefit long-term token holders and participants while improving the network’s health and security for the future.
For participants who have consistently held their earned proving rewards since genesis, the staking requirements are designed to be manageable for Day-1 provers given their accumulated Aleo credits. This approach naturally favors those who have invested in the long-term success of the Aleo ecosystem since its inception.
Supporting Small Provers Through Non-Custodial Solutions
While most provers operate as part of a larger pool today, we understand that some provers desire to stay independent and operate on their own.
One of the most important questions we’ve heard from the community relates to small provers who may not have sufficient individual stake to meet the requirements. We recognize that many dedicated provers have been essential to the network’s growth and deserve continued participation opportunities.
To address this, ARC-0046 has been designed to support a non-custodial staking pool solution that allows small provers to participate without giving up control of their tokens. In addition, this solution allows community members to delegate their stake to these small provers in order to support them.
In order to participate in proving with a non-custodial staking solution, proving pools must deploy a Leo program that delegates its stake to a validator. The Leo program’s address will serve as the prover address in the puzzle solution, and accumulate proving and staking rewards to the program address. Through this solution, provers can:
Maintain full custody of their Aleo credits while participating in collective staking
Pool resources with other provers to meet the minimum staking requirements
Retain individual control over their tokens and withdrawal rights
Benefit from shared infrastructure without sacrificing operational security or autonomy
This approach ensures that ARC-0046 does not exclude smaller participants from the network. Instead, it creates opportunities for provers to collaborate while maintaining the security and decentralization principles that make Aleo strong. The non-custodial nature means provers do not have to trust a third-party with their funds and they retain full control while gaining access to the collective benefits of pooled staking.
Please be advised that this sample code has not been audited or tested in production, and is provided for illustrative purposes only to demonstrate how proving pools can deploy a non-custodial solution.
We believe this approach strikes the right balance between raising the bar for network security and maintaining inclusive participation opportunities for provers of all sizes and capacities.
A Stronger Future for Aleo
ARC-0046 represents a significant step forward in the Aleo Network’s evolution. By aligning prover incentives with network health and gradually increasing economic requirements as the network matures, we’re building a more secure, stable, and sustainable ecosystem.
The security goal of targeting provers to stake at least 33% of the total token supply by the end of the two-year period will provide provers with robust availability guarantees, collective representation in governance, and improve the network’s Byzantine fault tolerance principles.
This proposal embodies a commitment to thoughtful protocol evolution, introducing necessary enhancements while maintaining equitability and providing adequate timelines for ecosystem adaptation.
Together, we’re building a stronger, more secure Aleo Network for the future.
For technical details and implementation specifics, please refer to the full ARC-0046 specification and join the discussion in the Aleo community channels.