Roles

What are the main roles in the DeepNode ecosystem?

In Phase 1, DeepNode includes six key roles:

• Model Creators who upload and monetize AI models.

• Validators who validate and score models for quality.

• Miners who provide compute power for inference.

• Stakers who delegate $DN to nodes, securing the protocol.

• Backers who support models directly in exchange for revenue shares.

• Consumers who use AI services and drive demand.

In Phase 2, Domain Architects join, launching and governing domain-specific AI economies.

In Phase 3, Data Providers and Data Annotators expand the ecosystem into the data layer.

What are the responsibilities, rewards, and requirements for each role?

Model Creators

• Responsibilities: Upload, register, and maintain AI models.

• Rewards: Earn $DN per model usage and support from Backers.

• Requirements: AI/ML expertise and compliance with validation standards.

Validators

• Responsibilities: Validate models, assign trust scores, ensure quality.

• Rewards: Earn $DN for accurate evaluations, influenced by Dynamic Trust Weights.

• Requirements: Analytical expertise and optional compute resources.

Miners

• Responsibilities: Run the Node Execution Engine and provide reliable inference.

• Rewards: Earn $DN from task execution, boosted by Stakers’ support.

• Requirements: GPU or CPU hardware and technical operational capacity.

Stakers

• Responsibilities: Delegate $DN to trusted nodes or Validators and monitor performance.

• Rewards: Earn staking rewards and gain governance power.

• Requirements: Hold $DN and evaluate operator performance.

Backers

• Responsibilities: Support promising models by bonding $DN.

• Rewards: Revenue shares proportional to model adoption.

• Requirements: Hold $DN and assess model potential and Validator scores.

Consumers

• Responsibilities: Use models via the portal or APIs, pay with $DN, and provide feedback.

• Rewards: Access diverse, validated AI services at competitive cost.

• Requirements: Hold $DN and choose models based on ratings.

Domain Architects (Phase 2)

• Responsibilities: Launch domains, set rules, and coordinate operators and Validators.

• Rewards: Earn fees and reputation from subnet activity.

• Requirements: Technical, governance, and economic design skills.

Data Providers (Phase 3)

• Responsibilities: Supply raw datasets for training and evaluation.

• Rewards: Earn $DN when datasets are used.

• Requirements: Data ownership rights and formatting capability.

Data Annotators (Phase 3)

• Responsibilities: Label and structure datasets to improve quality.

• Rewards: Earn $DN for quality annotations.

• Requirements: Annotation expertise and accuracy.

What environments are supported for running different roles?

DeepNode supports a wide range of operating environments so participants can choose setups that match their scale and expertise:

• Bare metal servers — Ideal for Miners needing direct access to high-performance GPUs or CPUs, with maximum control over efficiency and uptime.

• Virtual machines (VMs) — Common for Validators and Miners, offering isolation and resource guarantees within enterprise or data center clusters. This is useful when separating roles (Validator in one VM, Miner in another).

• Cloud infrastructure — Supported across all roles, including Model Creators (for model hosting), Validators, and Miners. Platforms like AWS, GCP, and Azure provide on-demand scaling, while decentralized cloud providers offer trust-minimized setups.

Can roles be combined or must they be isolated?

Roles in DeepNode are modular, and combinations are allowed depending on participant's resources and risk profile:

• Model Creators can also operate as Miners if they have compute power. This is a common dual role, they can mine, mint, and run their own models. However, their models will still need to pass through validation like any other.

• Validators can technically combine with Miners, but they cannot validate their own models. The protocol enforces separation of validation tasks to maintain fairness and avoid conflicts of interest.

• Stakers and Backers are token-based roles that can be freely combined with any other role.

• Consumers naturally overlap with all roles since everyone in the ecosystem ultimately uses AI services.

• Domain Architects may hold multiple roles, such as running nodes within their subnet, but governance encourages separation where possible to preserve neutrality.

In practice, the most common dual role is Creator + Miner, while Evaluator roles are intentionally isolated when interacting with their own models to preserve trust.