Genesis Block Transparency

Purpose

This document provides a complete, verifiable account of the original Shekyl chain and the rationale for the Shekyl NG reboot. It is intended to be read by anyone evaluating the fairness and integrity of the Shekyl NG genesis distribution.

The founding team is committed to the same standard of transparency that motivates the Shekyl name itself: trust through verifiability, not through authority.

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1) The Original Chain — Verified Statistics

The original Shekyl blockchain data has been preserved and independently verified. The LMDB database containing the full chain was inspected directly using standard tooling (mdb_stat, Python lmdb library) against the raw data.mdb file. The following statistics are derived from the block_info table's cumulative emission field and the tx_indices table entry count:

Metric	Value
Total blocks	168,947
Total transactions	168,981
Non-coinbase transactions	34
Total atomic units emitted	2,745,081,907,831,749,734
Total whole coins (12-decimal basis)	~2,745,081 SHEKYL
Chain start	~January 2018
Chain end (last block)	~March 2026

The raw database schema confirmed the chain used the original CryptoNote txs table structure, predating the pruning-era m_txs_pruned / m_txs_prunable split introduced in later Monero releases. The data is intact and readable.

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2) Why the Original Parameters Were Broken

The original chain launched with a critical misconfiguration in src/cryptonote_config.h:

MONEY_SUPPLY = 2^32          // interpreted as atomic units, not whole coins
COIN = 10^12                 // 12-decimal precision
CRYPTONOTE_DISPLAY_DECIMAL_POINT = 12

In CryptoNote-family code, MONEY_SUPPLY is expressed in atomic units. With 12-decimal precision, the effective whole-coin supply ceiling was:

2^32 / 10^12 = 0.004294967296 SHEKYL

This means the chain crossed its nominal supply ceiling almost immediately after genesis and entered minimum-subsidy (tail emission) behavior for its entire operational lifetime. Every block reward paid since approximately the first few blocks was the FINAL_SUBSIDY_PER_MINUTE floor — not a meaningful geometric emission curve.

In addition, 2^32 whole coins with 12-decimal atomic accounting is not representable in uint64_t:

2^32 * 10^12 = 4.294967296 × 10^21  >  2^64 - 1 = 1.844 × 10^19

The original configuration was therefore not only economically non-functional but would have caused integer overflow had the intended supply ever been approached. The chain was, in a technical sense, broken by design from its first block.

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3) What the Chain Actually Was

Given the verified statistics above, the original Shekyl chain is accurately characterized as:

• A proof-of-concept mining chain. 168,947 blocks were mined over approximately eight years by a small group of participants keeping the network alive.

• Economically inactive. Only 34 non-coinbase transactions occurred in the chain's entire history. There was no meaningful commerce, no token market, and no user base beyond the founding miners.

• Running entirely on tail emission. Every block reward was the minimum subsidy floor. The intended geometric emission curve never operated as designed.

• Not recoverable as a balance snapshot. CryptoNote's privacy model uses one-time stealth addresses, meaning the chain records outputs against one-time public keys — not wallet addresses. There is no mechanism to extract a per-wallet balance from chain data without the private view key of every recipient. Even if such a snapshot were technically possible, the 34-transaction history means the UTXO set is trivially small and entirely held by the founding miners.

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4) Why a Clean Reboot Is Justified

The founding team considered several options for the Shekyl NG launch:

Option A: Proportional snapshot airdrop. Attempt to map original chain outputs to Shekyl NG genesis allocations. Rejected because: (1) CryptoNote privacy makes wallet-level balances unextractable without private key cooperation; (2) the original emission was entirely tail-emission subsidy, making the "earned" framing difficult to justify; (3) the 34-transaction history means the UTXO set is de facto a small founder allocation by another name.

Option B: View-key submission. Ask original holders to submit their view keys to prove balances. Rejected as privacy-invasive and operationally impractical.

Option C: Clean genesis with founder allocations. Treat Shekyl NG as a fresh start with an explicit, transparent founder allocation at genesis and the new Four-Component economic model governing all subsequent emission. Adopted.

A clean reboot is justified on the following grounds:

1. The original monetary parameters were technically misconfigured and produced no functional emission curve.
2. The original chain had no real economic activity or user base.
3. The Shekyl NG design (documented in DESIGN_CONCEPTS.md) introduces a fundamentally different and carefully validated economic architecture that cannot be meaningfully grafted onto the old parameter set.
4. All founding participants have reviewed the original chain data and voluntarily agreed to accept genesis allocations that are substantially reduced relative to what a naive proportional snapshot would suggest — in the interest of a fair, clean launch with no legacy overhang.

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5) Founder Allocation Principles

The founding team has agreed to the following principles governing the genesis allocation:

• No hidden pre-mine. The genesis block distribution is published in full before launch. Every address and amount is publicly visible on-chain from block zero.

• Reduced relative to legacy claim. Founders accept materially less than a proportional interpretation of their original mining rewards would imply. This is a deliberate act of good faith toward future participants who had no involvement in the original chain.

• Emission-earned going forward. Beyond the genesis allocation, founders participate in the same emission, staking, and fee mechanisms as all other participants. There is no ongoing preferential treatment.

• Lock commitments. Founding allocations are subject to the same staking lock tiers available to all participants. Founders are expected to demonstrate conviction through the long lock tier (150,000 blocks, ~208 days) for the majority of their genesis allocation, making the commitment public and verifiable on-chain.

• Transparency over time. The founding team commits to publishing their genesis addresses publicly so that any participant can verify lock status, unlock timing, and subsequent on-chain behavior.

Specific Genesis Allocations

Recipient	Amount	Notes
Founder 1	20,000 SHEKYL	Equal share
Founder 2	20,000 SHEKYL	Equal share
Founder 3	20,000 SHEKYL	Equal share
Founder 4	20,000 SHEKYL	Equal share
Founder 5	20,000 SHEKYL	Equal share
Total	100,000 SHEKYL	0.002329% of total supply

All five allocations are identical. There is no tiered or preferential distribution among founders.

For context: the total genesis allocation represents less than 2.4 thousandths of one percent of the 2^32 whole SHEKYL supply ceiling. The remaining 99.997671% of all SHEKYL that will ever exist must be earned through proof-of-work mining under the Four-Component emission model described in DESIGN_CONCEPTS.md.

There is no foundation allocation at genesis. Should the community choose to establish a Shekyl Foundation in the future, that body would be a community- governed institution funded voluntarily — whether through founder donations, community fundraising, or other means decided at that time. No coins are reserved or earmarked for this purpose at launch.

The specific genesis addresses for each founder will be published in docs/GENESIS_ALLOCATIONS.md at the time of mainnet launch.

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6) The Shekyl Name and the Standard It Implies

The Shekyl project takes its name from the historical shekel — a unit of weight-based monetary measure whose trustworthiness derived from physical verifiability, not from the authority of any issuer. Anyone could weigh a shekel. The standard was in the measure, not in the declaration.

This document is written in that spirit. The original chain data is preserved and independently verifiable. The parameter misconfiguration is documented precisely, not elided. The founding team's decision to accept reduced allocations is stated plainly, not dressed up as generosity.

Shekyl NG's monetary policy — a mathematically defined, open-source emission curve with no governance override — is the modern equivalent of that weight standard. The numbers are the policy. Anyone can verify them.

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7) Verifying This Document's Claims

The original chain database (data.mdb) is preserved. The statistics in Section 1 can be independently verified by anyone with access to the file using standard LMDB tooling:

# Install LMDB utilities
apt install lmdb-utils python3-lmdb

# Inspect named databases
mdb_stat -a /path/to/shekyl/lmdb

# Verify emission and transaction counts
python3 - <<'EOF'
import lmdb, struct
env = lmdb.open('/path/to/shekyl/lmdb', readonly=True, max_dbs=64, lock=False)
block_info_db = env.open_db(b'block_info', create=False)
tx_indices_db = env.open_db(b'tx_indices', create=False)
with env.begin() as txn:
    cur = txn.cursor(block_info_db)
    cur.last()
    val = cur.value()
    last_coins = struct.unpack_from('<Q', val, 16)[0]
    block_count = struct.unpack_from('<Q', val, 0)[0]
    tx_count = txn.stat(tx_indices_db)['entries']
print(f"Blocks:             {block_count:,}")
print(f"Transactions:       {tx_count:,}")
print(f"Total atomic units: {last_coins:,}")
print(f"Total whole coins:  {last_coins / 1e12:.6f}  (12-decimal basis)")
env.close()
EOF

Expected output:

Blocks:             168,947
Transactions:       168,981
Total atomic units: 2,745,081,907,831,749,734
Total whole coins:  2745081.907832  (12-decimal basis)

The SHA-256 hash of the original data.mdb file will be published alongside the mainnet launch to allow anyone to verify they are working from the same dataset.

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8) References

• Original chain parameter analysis: docs/DESIGN_CONCEPTS.md, Section 2
• Shekyl NG economic design: docs/DESIGN_CONCEPTS.md, Sections 3–13
• CryptoNote emission formula: src/cryptonote_basic/cryptonote_basic_impl.cpp
• Genesis allocation details: docs/GENESIS_ALLOCATIONS.md (published at mainnet launch)
• uint64_t overflow analysis: docs/DESIGN_CONCEPTS.md, Section 2