Ember is an open, decentralized network where anyone can contribute hardware, receive Spark in return for settled work, and spend Spark to call inference across the network — designed so that no single provider is a single point of failure.
Inference supply today is concentrated and opaque. Ember exists to make it open and verifiable — a network where compute is contributed by anyone, recorded on a shared ledger, and spent on demand.
Anyone can contribute compute. Bring your own hardware — data-center GPU, edge board, or anything in between. Stake the minimum, register your identity, and start serving requests. The network is designed to be permissionless: no approval process, no vendor lock-in. When your work passes sampled audit and settles on-chain, you receive Spark in return.
A ledger for compute contribution. Think of Ember as depositing compute capacity and withdrawing inference on demand. You contribute GPU cycles and receive Spark — a ledger entry recording settled work. When you need inference, you spend Spark to call any model on the network. Spark balances are ledger entries: no interest, no custody, no redemption promise. The ledger (a CometBFT application chain) is the single source of truth for accounts, stake, receipts, and settlement.
Spend Spark to call inference anywhere. Hold Spark, call models. Consumers send requests to a gateway with their credentials; the gateway reserves Spark, routes the request to an available node, and returns results. Settlement divides fees: 80% to the executor, 15% to auditors, 5% rebated to the consumer. When supply is scarce, multipliers up to 2× redistribute the existing fee — no new tokens, no inflation.
No single point of failure by design. The network is designed so that no single operator or provider can take it offline. Inference nodes come and go; the ledger and consensus layer continue. Gateways are stateless entry points, designed so that if one gateway goes down, requests can route through another. Auditors sample and replay work to detect fraud before settlement. The mechanism aims to eliminate the risk that one company shutting down means the service disappears.
Three steps for participants — then the mechanisms that make the steps trustworthy.
Run a node on your own hardware and serve inference requests under a model Profile. Enrollment stakes the minimum and registers your identity automatically.
When your work passes sampled audit and settles on-chain, you receive Spark in return for the settled work — credited to your account on the ledger, ready to spend or hold.
Hold Spark and call any model on the network. A gateway reserves Spark from your account, routes the request to an available node, and returns the result; settlement finalizes once the work is accepted.
How the network verifies the work
Four kinds of participants, one ledger. Ember connects eligible inference hardware through signed work, sampled audits, and test-credit accounting.
The consumer-facing entry point. Accepts inference requests, reserves test credit, routes work, and returns results. Gateways do not execute models; gateway admission and consumer account custody remain operator controlled.
Run models on their own hardware through engine adapters, execute requests, and commit signed evidence for every token.
Replay sampled work and compare signed evidence. A numerical rejection requires confirmation by a different assigned auditor before slashing; sampling does not detect every deviation.
A CometBFT chain that holds accounts, Spark balances, stake, receipts, verdicts and settlement — the single source of truth.
Start with the signed v0.2.0 release. Linux amd64 or arm64, Python 3.12 with venv/ensurepip, OpenSSL with Ed25519, tar, sha256sum and curl are required. The installer needs no root access.
Download your architecture (replace amd64 with arm64 on ARM64), then verify. Authenticate the signing-key fingerprint through your trusted release channel: d3b07085781f2d4d75de6caefa6e1dc9cd4eadeec10326b2b0c20eb03254eabb (SHA-256 of DER SubjectPublicKeyInfo). This release key is endorsed by the Ember root key cc3522f6bbfa1ca057cd5beddfefb740a0b6ef86d81d4c30307f613bc21bd918: verify the endorsement chain with release/trust-statement.txt in the repository (see docs/SIGNING.md, Trust anchor).
EMBER_VERSION=0.2.0 EMBER_RELEASE="https://github.com/emberinfer/Ember/releases/download/v$EMBER_VERSION" for file in "ember-$EMBER_VERSION-linux-amd64.tar.gz" SHA256SUMS SHA256SUMS.sig release-signing.pub; do curl -fLO "$EMBER_RELEASE/$file" done openssl pkey -pubin -in release-signing.pub -outform DER | sha256sum openssl pkeyutl -verify -pubin -inkey release-signing.pub \ -rawin -in SHA256SUMS -sigfile SHA256SUMS.sig sha256sum --ignore-missing -c SHA256SUMS tar -xzf "ember-$EMBER_VERSION-linux-amd64.tar.gz" cd "ember-$EMBER_VERSION-linux-amd64" ./install-release.sh --role node --prefix "$HOME/ember" --python python3.12
Download the pinned model revision using the Quickstart model command. Then configure and serve. The public testnet is open for external testing: the live network configuration is published at network.json, and participation details are in the repository (Quickstart and Public Network guide).
Consumers call a gateway with the network parameters and credentials issued for that network. Spark is reserved when the request is accepted, released if the request fails before execution, and settled when audit and finalization complete. See the working API example in the README.
Validator admission follows the Validator Guide.
Provide compute, receive valueless test Spark per settled request. Enrollment stakes the minimum and registers your identity automatically. The Quickstart carries the current configure, fund and serve commands for a live network.
Stop serving and automatic restart. Keep your identity. Wait for registration expiry, unbond all stake, wait for the release height, then claim. Use the complete exit commands and confirm zero stake and no pending unbondings.
For a disposable smoke check, select a short registration lease before first join as documented; the default lease is 200000 finalized blocks.
Auditors replay sampled requests, compare signed evidence, and submit verdicts on-chain. Auditors receive 15% of the base settlement fee for audited work that settles; sampling does not detect every deviation. See the Validator Guide for eligibility and enrollment.
Full instructions: Quickstart · Validator Guide · Operations
Ember is built in the open, and the network grows through the people who run it, build on it, and study it. Joining needs no approval — everything required is in the public documentation. This mailbox is for what sits outside the protocol: feature requests, research collaboration, and integration work. Reach us at emberinfer@proton.me.
Joining is permissionless — no approval is needed. The public Quickstart and protocol documentation are all it takes to bring executor, auditor, or validator nodes online on your own hardware. If the docs do not cover your case, we are here to help.
Build applications and agent integrations on the network's API, engine adapters, and public conformance kit. Feature requests for the API and the tooling are welcome.
Work with the project on verifiable inference — signed evidence, sampled audits, and settlement mechanisms are open research problems. Collaboration proposals and feature requests are welcome.
Integrate Ember with inference tooling, model registries, and distribution channels. Integration proposals and feature requests are welcome.
Ember restricts neither the model nor the inference framework. Three mechanisms keep that freedom verifiable.
Release and network facts for this project. The full live network configuration is published as network.json.
| Status | Software v0.2.0 released — public testnet open for external testing; endpoints below, full configuration in network.json |
|---|---|
| Ledger | CometBFT (application chain emberchain) |
| Reference models | Qwen2.5-1.5B-Instruct and SmolLM2-360M-Instruct profiles ship in the repository (weights by the operator, hash-pinned) |
| Spark | Accounting unit of the network. Testnet Spark is valueless test credit — no price, no exchange, no returns. |
| Seed | relay.emberinfer.org:39091 (TLS; certificate fingerprint pinned in network.json) |
| Gateway | http://relay.emberinfer.org:39090 |
| RPC | http://relay.emberinfer.org:39657 |
| Faucet | Open on the public testnet: http://relay.emberinfer.org:39095/testnet/faucet (rate-limited; valueless test credit) |
| Settlement weights | Base 80 executor / 15 auditor / 5 consumer rebate; scarcity multipliers up to 2x redistribute the existing fee. |
| Join | Node software is available now from the signed release; network enrollment is open on the public testnet — configure with the published network.json and see the Quickstart |
Experimental software, valueless test credit, participation risks and local rules.
What Ember is, why it exists, how to use it.
Install from the signed release and join.
The adapter contract and evidence grades.
How signed profile records are published and verified. Each record names its chain.
How the public network is discovered and joined.
Threat model summary and reporting.
The release trust chain and how to verify it.