How It Works

Denominations and Energy

Every Sharenote has a denomination — a label like 20Z00 or 34Z10. That denomination is not assigned by any authority. It is computed directly from the energy your hardware spent to produce the note.

More energy spent = higher denomination. The denomination is a direct mathematical record of work done, stamped into the note at the moment of printing. It cannot be changed after the fact.

The Open Relay Layer

Sharenote publishes every printed note as a signed record on Nostr — an open network of independent servers that anyone can read and no one controls. Your note is signed with your identity before publishing. The signature makes it tamper-proof: any relay that alters the content breaks the signature automatically.

Any party — a miner, an application, a researcher, an auditor — can read those records at any time, at any relay, without asking anyone for permission.

One Press, Multiple Claims

A computation that meets a high difficulty target automatically meets all lower targets too. A note printed at 34Z10 simultaneously satisfies any target below it.

Sharenote captures all of those claims at once. Your hardware runs at full capacity on one puzzle — a Sharenote-aware Stratum implementation publishes the result everywhere it qualifies.

Concrete example: Your hash hardware solves a puzzle. The protocol integration checks it against every configured target:

1. Hash meets the primary pool’s difficulty → submitted to your pool via Stratum (unchanged)
2. Same hash meets a secondary AuxPoW chain’s difficulty → submitted there too
3. The full work record is signed with your Nostr key and published to the relay network

One computation. Your pool gets the share. The secondary chain gets a valid proof (share or block). The relay gets the public record. No hashrate was split.

The Full Pipeline

Independent observers — called Watchtowers — connect to the relay network and reconstruct the complete history of printed notes, pool settlements, and miner contributions from public records. Their state is derived directly from the relay — no pool cooperation required.

→ Continue to The Z-Bit Standard for the math behind denominations.