Use Hotkey Instead of UID for Comparison Thresholds

[aliyuldashev]

Use Hotkey Instead of UID for Comparison Thresholds

We'd like to propose a small change to how our comparison thresholds are determined, and we'd really appreciate feedback from all miners before making any implementation changes.

The Problem

Currently, we use two thresholds:

• General comparison: 0.6
• Same UID comparison: 0.8

The idea behind the higher 0.8 threshold is simple: when we're comparing a commit against another commit from the same miner, we want to apply a stricter standard.

The problem is that UIDs can change when a miner is deregistered and registers again.

For example:

Before:
Hotkey: H1
UID:    25

After re-registration:
Hotkey: H1
UID:    73

The UID changed, but it's still the same miner.

With the current system, the miner may therefore be treated as a different miner during comparison, which can make it harder for the miner's own previous script to pass the comparison.

Proposed Change

We'd like to use hotkey instead of UID to determine which threshold applies:

Same hotkey      → 0.8
Different hotkey → 0.6

So in the example above:

H1 == H1
→ Same miner
→ Use 0.8

This keeps the higher threshold while avoiding the problems caused by UID changes.

Why Hotkey?

For this purpose, hotkey is a more useful representation of the miner's identity than UID. UID is tied to registration, while the hotkey remains associated with the miner when its registration changes.

Importantly, we are not proposing to change the thresholds themselves. We're only changing how we decide whether the higher threshold should apply.

What About Hotkey Lineage?

We know that hotkey lineage provides an even better long-term solution for tracking identity when a miner changes its hotkey.

However, our subnet is currently running on v10.3, so lineage isn't available to us yet.

For now, we believe same hotkey is a simple and practical improvement. When we eventually move to a version supporting lineage, we can revisit this and consider using lineage instead.

We Want Your Feedback

Before implementing anything, we'd really like to hear from the miners.

Please vote and, if possible, leave a comment explaining your reasoning. In particular, we'd love to hear about:

• Edge cases we may have missed
• Situations where the same hotkey might not represent the same miner
• Whether 0.8 feels appropriate for same-hotkey comparisons
• Any alternative approach you think would be better

There is no implementation decision yet. The final approach will be decided after considering the vote and community feedback.

Our goal is simply to make the comparison system fairer, more predictable, and less affected by registration changes.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to read this and share your thoughts. 🙏

— RedTeam Subnet

[minions514]

I agree with this suggestion 100%, as hotkey is a much more consistent way to identify the same miner across registration changes than UID. It also makes the comparison threshold more predictable and prevents miners from being treated as completely different just because their UID changed. I would also suggest applying the same hotkey-based approach to emission eligibility, rather than relying only on UID. In some cases, a miner can have an accepted answer but get deregistered before the emission is distributed, meaning they lose the emission even after re-registering with the same hotkey. This seems like an unfair edge case because the work was already accepted, and the miner's identity through the hotkey has not changed. Resolving this would make both comparison and emission handling more consistent and fair for miners.