Architecture
Bitcoin's architecture is brilliant. We kept it. UTXO model, proof of work, 21M hard cap. Then we added everything Bitcoin can't do: post-quantum identity, deterministic smart contracts, local-first AI grounded in verified network data, and a five-lane asset system. All anchored to Bitcoin forever.
Same unspent transaction output model that makes Bitcoin the most auditable ledger on earth. Every coin traceable from genesis. No account balances to corrupt. No global state to attack.
Every block is a financial ledger entry and a source for AI training datasets. Finalized attestos and Memory Blocks are extracted into supervised fine-tuning data. The deeper a fact is confirmed, the higher its trust score in the training set.
ML-DSA-65 (NIST FIPS 204) post-quantum signatures at the consensus level from block #1. No migration path needed because there's nothing to migrate from. Harvest-now, decrypt-never.
Attestos are signed, timestamped, quantum-sealed attestations of fact. Not speculative tokens. Not NFTs. Immutable proof that something happened, someone said it, and the chain confirmed it.
ElliottTM AI reads from Synthetic RAMTM, a local index built from finalized Memory Blocks and attestos. The current pipeline distills that verified material into supervised fine-tuning datasets, fine-tunes local LoRA adapters, and can write signed knowledge attestosTM back to the chain.
A laptop and compatible USB mining hardware are enough to explore BAN's rollout path. No data center. No GPU farm. Consumer hardware from day one.
Consensus
Five independent consensus-level UTXO lanes, each with its own SQLite ledger, independent validation rules, and per-lane SHA3-512 state digest. Parallel validation means one lane can never bottleneck another.
The native unit of value on the Bitcoin Attestation NetworkTM. Hard-capped at 21 million. Pays for transaction fees, attestation sealing, AI inference, and all on-chain operations. Allocated through verified-work participation methods as those programs are enabled.
BAN is designed for a 1:1 Bitcoin vault lane via Taproot on Bitcoin mainnet. Public deposits remain disabled unless and until legal and technical readiness is complete.
Application-specific UTXO lane for smart contract execution, credential issuance, and service payments. AttestoScriptTM contracts deploy here. Isolated from the monetary lanes.
Full-fidelity testnet that shares the same consensus engine. Developers test with real validation rules and real finality, just without real value at stake. Ships with every node.
Unlimited namespaces for tokenized real-world assets. Equities, commodities, property titles, carbon credits. Each namespace has its own rules, its own validation, and its own state. No cap on the number of synthetic asset classes.
Consensus Engine
Proof of work that produces lasting value. Every mining cycle doesn't just secure the chain - it preserves verified source material. Finalized attestos can feed local knowledge indexes, supervised datasets, and signed AI receipts without making AI consensus-critical.
A participant generates a knowledge claim: a credential, a data point, an AI inference result, a signed statement. The claim is structured as an attestoTM.
The attesto is signed with the creator's ML-DSA-65 key, timestamped, and submitted to the mempool. The quantum signature makes it tamper-proof from creation.
Miners include the attesto in a Memory BlockTM. The block's SHA3-512 Merkle root is periodically anchored to Bitcoin via Taproot. Two chains confirm it.
Finalized attestos and Memory BlocksTM are distilled into supervised datasets for ElliottTM. Consensus depth helps determine how strongly a node trusts a fact in training and retrieval.
The AI performs inference over chain-verified knowledge, using Synthetic RAMTM as its local index. Conclusions are traceable to their source attestos.
AI-generated summaries, receipts, and knowledge attestosTM can be written back to the chain. The loop closes: finalized chain data supplies canonical source material, and the AI can contribute new signed knowledge in return.
The AI layer is advisory, never authoritative. If every AI node goes offline, the chain continues producing blocks, processing transactions, and anchoring to Bitcoin. AI can never halt the chain. The blockchain is the source of truth; the AI is a reader and contributor, not a gatekeeper.
Transport Security
Post-quantum transport security WITHOUT certificate authorities. Every node's ML-DSA-65 identity key IS the TLS certificate. No root CAs, no DNS dependency, no certificate renewal. Your identity authenticates your connection.
When two ProofnetTM nodes connect, they verify each other's post-quantum identity directly. The node's public key is the certificate. No third party can impersonate, intercept, or revoke your identity.
AI agents are designed to pay for services over PQTLSTM connections using the X402 payment header. Machine-to-machine Bitcoin payments at the transport layer. The protocol is designed so agents can negotiate, pay, and settle without human intervention.
Every connection uses Kyber-768 key encapsulation for forward secrecy. Even if an adversary records every packet today, no future quantum computer can decrypt them. Your traffic is protected against threats that don't exist yet.
No certificate authorities to compromise. No DNS to poison. No renewal deadlines to miss. The identity that signs your transactions is the same identity that authenticates your connections. One key pair, total sovereignty.
Smart Contracts
Deterministic smart contracts that execute in bounded time. No virtual machine. No reentrancy attacks. No gas estimation games. And an EVM intent translator that brings Ethereum's entire ecosystem into the Bitcoin economy.
Every AttestoScriptTM contract executes in at most 64 deterministic steps. No infinite loops. No unbounded computation. You know exactly what a contract will do before you sign it.
AttestoScriptTM is not interpreted in a virtual machine. Contracts compile to native execution with static analysis at deploy time. Bounded execution and the lack of a general-purpose VM materially reduce bug classes that have caused costly failures elsewhere.
MetaMask, Web3.js, ethers.js - they all work. The EVM translator accepts Ethereum-format transactions and maps them to AttestoScriptTM operations. Existing dApps and tooling connect without rewriting a single line.
EVM compatibility is designed to let Ethereum-style dApps and real-world asset workflows reach the Bitcoin economy. Solidity developers can target familiar patterns. Retail users can connect existing wallets.
Mining
Memory-hard proof of work designed to resist ASICs, GPUs, AND quantum speedup. Consumer hardware can mine. The algorithm guarantees that the most efficient way to solve a block is honest computation on commodity silicon.
Every hash requires filling and repeatedly reading a 256 KiB scratch buffer. This memory-hardness makes specialized hardware uneconomical. The bottleneck is memory bandwidth, not raw compute.
The buffer is mixed through 8,192 sequential rounds with data-dependent addressing. Each round depends on the previous result, defeating parallelization. GPUs and ASICs gain no advantage over a laptop CPU.
The final proof is a SHA3-512 digest of the mixed buffer. SHA3 (Keccak) has a well-studied security model under Grover-style search assumptions, where the expected advantage is generally characterized as a square-root speedup rather than a full break.
Difficulty recalculates using the ASERT algorithm with a 48-hour target window. Smooth, responsive adjustments prevent the hash-rate oscillation that plagues shorter windows. The chain stays stable even as miners join and leave.
Key Management
Two recovery phrases. Two independent cryptographic identities. Compromise of one does not compromise the other. Both anchored to Bitcoin genesis for deterministic derivation.
Standard 12 or 24-word BIP39 mnemonic generates your Bitcoin private keys. Compatible with every Bitcoin wallet. This seed controls your BTC, your pBTC peg deposits, and your anchor shares.
A separate recovery phrase generates your ML-DSA-65 identity key pair. This seed controls your ProofnetTM identity, your attestosTM, your PQTLSTM connections, and your AI training contributions.
If your BIP39 seed is exposed, your post-quantum identity remains secure. If your PQ mnemonic leaks, your Bitcoin holdings are untouched. An attacker needs both seeds to fully impersonate you.
Both seeds use the Bitcoin genesis block hash as a domain separator in their derivation paths. This binds every key to the Bitcoin network deterministically. No ambiguity, no cross-chain collisions, no replay attacks.
Legal Framework
Utah didn't just allow blockchain innovation. Utah wrote the laws that protect it. The Bitcoin Attestation NetworkTM is built in Logan, Utah because Utah built the legal infrastructure first.
Recognizes blockchain records as legally valid. Digital signatures on a blockchain carry the same legal weight as ink on paper. The foundation that makes attestosTM legally meaningful.
View HB 230 →The State Electronic Digital Infrastructure bills. Creates a framework for state-recognized digital identity and electronic credentials. Utah is building the regulatory rails for exactly what BAN delivers.
View SB 260 →Utah's AI governance framework. Establishes transparency and accountability rules for AI systems. BAN's chain-verified training data and provenance trails are built to exceed these requirements from day one.
View AIPA →Most blockchain projects lobby for regulation after the fact. The Bitcoin Attestation NetworkTM was designed from the ground up to operate within Utah's legal framework. Every attesto, every identity, every credential is built to be legally recognizable under existing Utah law.