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Introduction to Clarity
A fast, cheap blockchain where the people who keep the network running are accountable to the people who use it.
Clarity is a new blockchain with its own currency ($CLRTY). Validators — the computers that produce blocks — rotate regularly, so no single operator can control the chain. When a validator tries to cheat, the network has cryptographic proof, and the cheater loses part of their stake.
This document is for two kinds of readers:
- If you want to use Clarity — hold or spend CLRTY, create a token, earn staking rewards.
- If you want to run a validator — help keep the network running and earn CLRTY for it.
A plain-English introduction. If you want the technical version, see the main README.
- Fast. Blocks are designed to come every 1 second. In practice, the network targets continuous production with no waiting around.
- Cheap. Transaction fees are a fraction of a CLRTY and are set by the sender. Higher fees get priority when the network is busy.
- Final. Once a block commits, it's committed. There is no waiting for confirmations, no longest-chain rule, no risk of a reorg.
- Honest. Most of the validators have to agree before anything happens. A validator that tries to cheat loses money.
- Pre-launch. The network is running on a private test network for development. It is not open to the public yet.
- Send CLRTY from one address to another. Fast and cheap, like an email that carries money.
- Create your own token. Name it, give it a symbol and decimals, set a maximum supply. You can mint more up to the cap (only you), and burn it from circulation.
- Trade tokens through a built-in marketplace (an automated market maker). Provide liquidity to earn fees from other people's trades, or swap one token for another.
- Stake CLRTY to earn rewards. Any balance over 100 CLRTY is staked automatically. You can opt out at any time.
- Claim staking rewards. Rewards accrue every epoch (~1 minute) and can be moved into your spendable balance whenever you want.
Staking rewards pay a base of 5% per year, plus up to 5% more when the network is busy and up to 3% more when the reward pool is full.
That's a maximum of about 13% per year under ideal conditions. The actual rate depends on how active the chain is.
If you hold at least 1,000 CLRTY staked, your rewards are weighted 3% higher than a smaller staker's.
Every transaction pays a fee in CLRTY. The sender chooses the amount; higher fees get priority when blocks are full. In practice, a transfer costs a small fraction of a CLRTY.
Staking itself is free. There is no lock-up, no withdrawal delay. Your CLRTY stays spendable even while it's earning rewards.
- The network isn't live. Clarity is being tested on a private network.
- There is no exchange integration yet. When the network launches, you'll get CLRTY by running a validator, by staking, or by receiving it from someone who already has some.
- A graphical wallet is planned, but today the wallet is a command-line tool. If you've used a hardware wallet or a desktop wallet before, the interface will be different.
A validator is a computer that helps produce the chain. Validators take turns: at every height, one of them proposes a block, and the rest vote on whether it's valid. When enough vote yes, the block commits.
Validators earn CLRTY for this. They're the backbone of the network.
- At least 1,000 CLRTY staked. This is the minimum to register.
- A small server. A modest cloud VPS is sufficient. Detailed requirements will be published before mainnet launch.
- Reliable uptime. See below — going offline costs you rewards but does not cost you your stake.
Every block pays 10 CLRTY. Of that:
- 60% goes to the validator set. Of the validators' share, the one who produced the block earns an extra bonus, and the rest is split equally among all active validators.
- 40% goes to stakers (the people who hold CLRTY and are earning staking rewards).
A validator earns from every block it participates in, not only the ones it produces. With the current active-set size, that's a steady stream of rewards for being online and honest.
On top of this, a validator's own stake earns the same staking rewards described above.
You lose the rewards you would have earned. You do not lose your stake. Offline validators are removed from the active set after 20 consecutive missed blocks and can rejoin once they're back online.
This is deliberate. A network blip, a bad ISP, a reboot — none of these should cost you money. Only cheating does.
A validator "cheats" by signing two conflicting blocks at the same height — for example, voting for two different versions of the same block. This is called equivocation, and it's the only thing that gets a validator slashed.
When someone produces a cryptographic proof that a validator equivocated:
- 5% of that validator's stake is slashed.
- The validator's future rewards are permanently reduced by 20%, and this stacks. A validator who equivocates repeatedly loses more.
- Slashed CLRTY goes into the reward pool that pays stakers.
There is no vote, no appeal, no discretion. The proof is a mathematical fact, and any node can verify it. The network enforces the penalty automatically.
Seeds — the two bootstrap validators run by the project itself — are exempt from slashing. This is a governance safeguard, not a privilege.
If you decide to stop being a validator, you can unregister at any time. Your stake is returned after a short unbonding period of 120 blocks (~2 minutes). During that window, the network still treats your validator as live — this is so any evidence of cheating that surfaces shortly after you leave can still be applied.
Seeds cannot unregister.
Most validators have to agree before a block commits. Out of every 100 validators, up to 33 could be offline or malicious and the network would still work correctly. In a smaller set, the ratio is tighter but the principle is the same.
When a validator cheats, its misbehavior is a mathematical fact anyone can verify. The network applies the penalty automatically. There is no committee deciding who to punish, no vote, no appeal.
Validators also rotate. The set of active validators changes every epoch (~1 minute). This makes it harder for a group to collude, and it means that no small group permanently controls the chain.
The result is a network where being honest is the most profitable strategy, and cheating has a predictable cost.