Conviction

1. What is conviction?

When you lock alpha to a hotkey on a subnet, the lock builds conviction: a score that grows the longer the alpha stays locked. Conviction is summed per hotkey, and the hotkey with the most conviction can take over ownership of a subnet that is more than a year old (see Subnet king).

Conviction exists to:

• Reward long-term alignment over short-term speculation
• Enable subnet ownership transitions through the subnet king mechanism
• Create skin-in-the-game for subnet owners and their backers

2. How locking works

You lock alpha with the lock_stake(hotkey, netuid, amount) extrinsic:

• One lock per coldkey per subnet. Each coldkey has a single lock on each subnet, pointing at one hotkey.
• Lock to a hotkey. The locked alpha counts towards that hotkey's conviction. This is usually the subnet owner's hotkey, or the hotkey of someone building conviction to challenge for ownership.
• Top-ups must match. Further locks on the same subnet must name the same hotkey, or they fail with LockHotkeyMismatch. Use move_lock to change hotkey.
• You lock stake you already hold. Your total alpha on the subnet (across all hotkeys) must cover the lock, or it fails with InsufficientStakeForLock.
• Locks decay by default. Locked alpha unlocks gradually unless you call set_perpetual_lock(netuid, true).

3. Two types of locks

Decaying locks (default)

A new lock decays unless you opt out:

• locked_mass decays exponentially at UnlockRate. Half of it unlocks in about 90 days.
• conviction grows while the alpha is still locked, peaks after about 71 days, then falls as the locked mass runs down.
• As the lock decays, the unlocked part becomes unstakable again. Nothing has to be claimed.

Perpetual locks

Call set_perpetual_lock(netuid, true) to stop the decay:

• locked_mass stays constant.
• conviction grows towards locked_mass: 50% after about 30 days, 87.5% after 90 days.
• None of the locked alpha can be unstaked. Call set_perpetual_lock(netuid, false) to return to decay.

Locks on the subnet owner hotkey

A lock that points at the subnet owner hotkey gets instant conviction: its conviction always equals its locked_mass. It can be perpetual or decaying like any other lock.

4. The numbers

System parameters

Time constants are in blocks (7,200 blocks ≈ 1 day).

UnlockRate is at its code default. MaturityRate is set on chain to 311,622; its code default is 934,866.

Conviction growth (perpetual lock)

Locked-mass decay (decaying lock)

5. Worked example

Scenario: a coldkey holding 10,000 alpha on a subnet locks all of it to a hotkey.

Default (decaying) lock

Unstakable amount = total alpha on the subnet − current locked_mass.

Perpetual lock, then back to decay

With set_perpetual_lock(netuid, true), locked mass stays at 10,000 and conviction reaches 9,998 after a year, with nothing unstakable. If the coldkey then calls set_perpetual_lock(netuid, false):

6. Subnet-owner locks

• Instant conviction. Any lock on the subnet owner hotkey has conviction = locked_mass, with no growth period.
• Owner-cut auto-lock is off by default. The subnet owner or root can turn it on with sudo_set_owner_cut_auto_lock_enabled(netuid, true) (OwnerCutAutoLockEnabled). When it's on, the owner's emission cut is locked each time it is paid out, to the owner coldkey's existing lock hotkey, or to the owner hotkey if there is no lock yet.
• No initial alpha distribution. Subnet registration gives the owner no alpha. Owner conviction comes from alpha the owner locks, or from the auto-locked owner cut when that is enabled.
• Aggregate tracking. Locks on the owner hotkey are summed in OwnerLock (perpetual) and DecayingOwnerLock (decaying) for the subnet king calculation.

7. Subnet king mechanism

After a subnet has been active for 1 year (365.25 days), ownership can transfer via the subnet king mechanism.

Eligibility requirements

• Subnet must be at least 365.25 days old.
• A single hotkey's own rolled aggregate conviction must exceed 18% of eligible alpha, where eligible alpha = SubnetAlphaOut − SubnetProtocolAlpha − AlphaBurned. The subtraction saturates at zero, so a subnet with zero eligible alpha can never transfer ownership. Other keys' locks (including the incumbent owner's) do not count towards a challenger's threshold.
• The hotkey with the highest aggregate conviction is the candidate, and that same hotkey must clear the 18% bar by itself. Conviction is aggregated per hotkey (from all coldkeys locking to that hotkey), not per coldkey.

How it works

1. Aggregate calculation: For each hotkey, the system sums rolled conviction across all locks targeting it — HotkeyLock + DecayingHotkeyLock, plus OwnerLock + DecayingOwnerLock for the owner hotkey — via a single shared computation (subnet_king_with_conviction), so selection and the admission gate can never disagree.
2. Comparison: The hotkey with the highest aggregate conviction is the subnet king candidate. Ownership transfers only if that hotkey's own conviction exceeds 18% of eligible alpha. The comparison is cross-multiplied in 256-bit integers so high-range takeovers can't saturate.
3. Transfer: Ownership transfers, and the lock aggregates swap:
   • Old owner hotkey's owner aggregates → become non-owner aggregates
   • New owner hotkey's non-owner aggregates → become owner aggregates
4. Instant conviction: Locks on the new owner hotkey now get instant conviction.

Coalitions work because backers lock directly to the challenger's hotkey, so their conviction lands in that hotkey's aggregate.

8. What you can and can't do

✅ Allowed

• Top up an existing lock (same hotkey).
• Move a lock to another hotkey on the same subnet with move_lock(destination_hotkey, netuid). The lock is rolled forward first. Conviction is kept if both hotkeys belong to the same owning coldkey; otherwise it resets to zero.
• Switch between decaying and perpetual at any time with set_perpetual_lock.
• Unstake alpha above the locked amount. On a decaying lock, that headroom grows as the lock decays.
• Transfer locked stake to another coldkey, if the recipient has opted in. Coldkeys reject locked alpha by default; the recipient calls set_reject_locked_alpha(false) to accept it. The lock moves with the stake, along with a proportional share of conviction (reset to zero if the hotkeys belong to different coldkeys).

❌ Not allowed

• Unstaking locked alpha. Your alpha on the subnet must stay at or above locked_mass (StakeUnavailable). Miner registration collateral is held back on top of the lock.
• Moving a lock across subnets.
• Locking to two hotkeys on one subnet from one coldkey.
• Coldkey swap onto a coldkey with active locks. The destination coldkey must have no active locks; the source coldkey's locks transfer to it.

9. Technical reference

Storage

LockState structure

Roll-forward formula

On every read or write, a lock is rolled forward from last_update to the current block. With dt blocks elapsed, $\tau_x$ = UnlockRate and $\tau_z$ = MaturityRate:

Perpetual lock:

Decaying lock:

Owner hotkey lock: after rolling, conviction = locked_mass.

Extrinsics

• lock_stake(hotkey, netuid, amount) — Lock alpha to a hotkey on a subnet. New locks decay by default.
• move_lock(destination_hotkey, netuid) — Move your lock to another hotkey on the same subnet.
• set_perpetual_lock(netuid, enabled) — true stops decay; false returns to decay.
• set_reject_locked_alpha(enabled) — false lets your coldkey receive locked alpha from transfers and coldkey swaps.
• AdminUtils::sudo_set_owner_cut_auto_lock_enabled(netuid, enabled) — Subnet owner or root; turns owner-cut auto-locking on or off.

Previously. Before spec 447, ownership transferred once the subnet-wide total conviction (all hotkeys combined, including the owner) reached 10% of eligible alpha. It is now an 18% bar on a single hotkey's own conviction.