A proof-of-work network with a public reading fund.

Abstract

Slithy Tove is a transparent proof-of-work cryptocurrency with a built-in literacy treasury. The network follows the familiar shape of a public blockchain. Owners sign transactions, miners group them into blocks, and proof of work orders the chain. Miners receive most of each block reward. A fixed share of each block subsidy goes to a public treasury address for children’s literacy.

The project does not try to be everything. It is not a privacy coin, a smart-contract platform, or a promise of financial return. I want it to stay smaller and clearer than that: public software, public rules, and a reading fund you can verify.

1. Why Slithy exists

Most people will never run a command-line miner or read a protocol specification. That should not keep them from helping a network or understanding where the money goes. Slithy starts from the user side with a simple wallet, clear mining controls, visible node status, and a treasury balance that does not depend on a private report.

The name is a nod to Lewis Carroll and to the project’s mission. The point is not to dress finance up in storybook language. The point is to keep the mission close enough that it cannot be forgotten: part of the network’s new coins should help children learn to read.

2. Design principles

3. Network model

Slithy follows the basic peer-to-peer model used by Bitcoin-like networks. Nodes receive transactions, check them against the rules, share valid transactions with peers, and accept the chain with the most valid accumulated work. A full node can verify the history for itself.

This prevents the literacy treasury from becoming a black box. You can run a node, inspect the chain, and confirm that the treasury output appears where the rules say it belongs.

4. Proof of work and mining

Mining gives the network a shared transaction order without appointing one operator. A miner builds a candidate block, searches for a header that satisfies the current difficulty target, and broadcasts the block when it finds one. Other nodes reject the block if its transactions, reward, treasury output, or proof of work are invalid.

The current design uses yespower, a proof-of-work algorithm intended to perform well on general-purpose CPUs. A person should be able to install the Slithy desktop app and contribute mining work with the processor already in a normal computer. This lowers the initial equipment barrier, gives more people a practical way to participate, and can help distribute mining across homes, communities, and regions instead of requiring specialized mining machines from the start.

CPU-friendly does not mean one person, one vote, guaranteed rewards, or equal mining power. Faster processors, more computers, lower electricity costs, optimized software, and mining pools can still concentrate hashrate. Specialized hardware may also appear over time. The project should publish hashrate observations, test mining software openly, and review concentration risks with the community. Any proposed proof-of-work change would require public software, clear notice, testing, and adoption by independent node operators. CS Idea Labs LLC or a future foundation cannot change the rules for nodes that do not accept the change.

Slithy targets 2-minute blocks. Difficulty adjusts from observed block timing, so the network can react when miners join or leave. Official project nodes should relay and verify the chain without mining. I do not want to pretend every laptop will earn coins every day. The goal is to keep mining understandable and reachable while the network matures.

5. Block reward and literacy treasury

The first reward era uses a 10 SLTHY block subsidy. The miner receives 90 percent of the subsidy and the literacy treasury receives 10 percent. Transaction fees are paid to the miner. In normal terms, a 10 SLTHY subsidy block pays 9 SLTHY to the miner and 1 SLTHY to the treasury, plus fees to the miner.

Slithy targets 2-minute blocks. The subsidy reduces every 1,051,200 blocks, which is roughly four years if blocks land near the target. The first era starts at 10 SLTHY. The next era drops to 5 SLTHY, then 2.5 SLTHY, and the same rule continues from there.

The split follows the subsidy. In the first era, a normal block creates 9 SLTHY for the miner and 1 SLTHY for the literacy treasury. After the first reduction, it creates 4.5 SLTHY for the miner and 0.5 SLTHY for the treasury. Transaction fees are separate. They go to the miner who includes the transactions, because fees become part of the long-term reason to secure the chain as the subsidy shrinks.

The treasury share is part of the block validity rules. Honest nodes reject a block that omits the required treasury payment or sends the wrong amount. As a result, treasury funding stays regular and public.

6. Treasury use

The literacy treasury is for children’s books, reading materials, literacy programs, and practical costs directly tied to that work. The public website should show the treasury address, balance, incoming funds, outgoing grants, and plain notes about what each grant supported.

At launch, CS Idea Labs LLC will hold the encrypted spend key in one controlled offline wallet. This is a disclosed early-stage custody arrangement, not permanent community governance. No treasury funds should be spent without a written mission purpose, an internal approval record, and a public transaction record.

Once the network has meaningful activity and an established community, the plan is to let the community vote on proposed donations and treasury spending. A proposal must further the literacy mission to be eligible. The voting system does not exist yet, so no current decision should be described as a community vote. Before voting begins, the project will publish proposal eligibility, voter eligibility, quorum, approval thresholds, conflicts rules, review periods, execution controls, and a process for disputed results.

Spend keys must not live on the website server. Public reporting should use public chain data or view-restricted tooling. I want custody, reporting, and spending rules kept separate because mixing them creates avoidable risk.

7. Wallet and user experience

The Slithy desktop app puts wallet basics, local mining controls, treasury status, and update checks in one place. The safe path should be obvious: create or open a wallet, back it up, see whether the network is reachable, and start or stop mining on your own computer without copying long commands.

Automatic updates are part of the launch plan because a young network will need fixes. Updates must be signed. The app rejects unsigned packages and tells you what it is doing while it updates.

8. Nodes and resilience

A node checks the chain and shares valid data with peers. The project can launch with official seed nodes, but it should not depend on them forever. Community-run nodes give new wallets and nodes more places to connect.

Public nodes expose peer-to-peer service. Wallet RPC stays restricted unless the operator intentionally runs a public service with proper limits. That leaves the network open without turning every node into a public wallet backend.

9. Fair launch posture

Slithy should avoid a premine, hidden founder reward, or private sale. The project’s mission funding is visible in the treasury split instead. I prefer that to pretending there is no project cost and then relying on informal donations or private reserves.

The fair standard is simple: publish the software, publish the rules, publish the treasury address, and let the chain start from those rules.

10. Stewardship and a future foundation

During development, CS Idea Labs LLC operates slithy.io, publishes official software, coordinates project infrastructure, manages contracts, and supports public reporting. These are project services, not ownership of the blockchain. Slithy is permissionless software. Independent miners choose whether to mine, node operators choose which software and rules to run, and users control their own wallets.

After a real community is established, the project intends to evaluate forming a separate Slithy Tove foundation. No foundation exists today, and this paper does not claim that one is already a nonprofit or tax-exempt organization. Its legal form, jurisdiction, board structure, charitable status, and relationship with CS Idea Labs LLC would require community discussion and professional legal and tax advice.

A future foundation could provide durable stewardship for the literacy mission. Possible responsibilities include publishing grant criteria, administering community votes, reviewing literacy proposals, reporting treasury receipts and spending, maintaining conflict-of-interest rules, supporting independent audits, coordinating community meetings, and helping preserve public project resources. Treasury custody should move toward documented controls such as multiple approvers, separated keys, spending limits, and public transaction records as qualified independent stewards become available.

The foundation should not own the coins held by users, direct independent miners, or have unilateral authority to change consensus. Its legitimacy would come from transparent conduct and voluntary community support. Before any transition, the project should publish the proposed charter, board-selection process, custody policy, conflicts policy, financial reporting schedule, and a clear division of responsibilities between the foundation and CS Idea Labs LLC.

11. Roadmap

A roadmap belongs in this paper because Slithy is not just a chain rule. It is wallet software, node software, public reporting, and a literacy treasury that needs careful handling. The roadmap is an engineering path, not a promise about price, exchange listings, or adoption.

The working mainnet target is October 1, 2026. That date can move if the launch gates are not ready. The launch path starts with the public testnet, local mining from the desktop wallet, Linux node tooling, and signed updates. Before mainnet, the final Slithy Tove Treasury wallet must be created and backed up, its public script must be written into consensus, and the final genesis block must be mined from those rules.

The fair launch rule is simple: publish the software, launch time, checksums, treasury address, genesis hash, and official node list before public mining starts. Official Slithy nodes should relay and verify the network, but they should not mine.

After mainnet starts, the next work is practical: run official nodes that people can reach, publish signed Windows and Linux releases, report the treasury from public chain data, and write plain grant notes when treasury funds are used for books, reading materials, or literacy work.

Several decisions remain open and must be resolved publicly before they become final policy: whether the subsidy ends or continues with a tail subsidy, when treasury custody should move beyond the disclosed single-wallet arrangement, the community voting rules, long-term proof-of-work performance, and the conditions for proposing a future foundation. Open questions should be labeled as open rather than presented as settled protocol rules.

12. Risks and limits

Slithy is experimental software. A transparent proof-of-work chain can still face mining concentration, software bugs, weak liquidity, exchange rejection, network attacks, user mistakes, and regulatory uncertainty. A mission does not remove those risks.

Nothing in this paper is investment advice, a fundraising offer, or a promise that SLTHY will have market value. The best version of Slithy is built on working software, public rules, and visible literacy funding.

13. Influences

Slithy learns from earlier networks without trying to copy their purpose. Bitcoin showed the durable shape of a peer-to-peer proof-of-work ledger. Litecoin and Dogecoin showed that simpler payment-focused networks can be understandable to normal users. Ravencoin showed how a Bitcoin-based fork can state a narrow purpose clearly. Decred, Dash, and Zcash showed different ways block rewards can fund ongoing work or public goods.

Slithy’s difference is the target of the treasury. The project is not trying to fund a protocol company first. It is creating a visible reading fund as a native part of the chain.