Conviction Normalization

Introduction

The v446 upgrade changed how the conviction ownership gate is calculated. It based the threshold on eligible alpha — outstanding alpha minus protocol-owned and burned alpha — instead of outstanding alpha. The accounting is more faithful, but it had a side effect: the denominator shrank, so the gate fell. The TAO a challenger needed to take over a subnet dropped on most networks, and on some it dropped a lot.

This upgrade brings the expected TAO cost of a takeover back to — and above — its pre-446 level. It does so by turning exactly two parameters:

1. The gate measures one hotkey alone. Previously the threshold was compared against the sum of all conviction on the subnet, while the winner was simply the hotkey with the most. Anyone's locks — including the owner's own defensive locks — counted toward a challenger's quorum. Now the winning hotkey must clear the bar with its own conviction only.
2. The threshold rises from 10% to 18%.

eligible alpha = SubnetAlphaOut - SubnetProtocolAlpha - AlphaBurned

ownership transfers when, on a subnet at least one year old,
the highest-conviction hotkey's OWN conviction > 18% × eligible alpha

Coalitions still work the natural way: backers who want to support a challenger lock toward the challenger's hotkey, and their conviction lands in that hotkey's aggregate. What no longer works is winning with a small position because unrelated lockers happened to push the subnet-wide total over the line.

Why 18%

18% is already the network's ownership number. The subnet owner cut — the share of a subnet's emissions paid to its owner — is 18%. The bar to claim ownership now matches the reward of holding it: to earn the owner's 18% of emissions, you must first hold 18% of the subnet's eligible alpha as matured conviction on a single hotkey. One number describes both sides of the trade, instead of a 10% figure with no economic anchor.

The symmetry also gives owners a clean defense rule. To win, a challenger must clear 18% and out-hold the owner's own conviction. An owner's locks mature instantly while a challenger's take about 43 days, so an owner who watches their subnet can always lock enough to stay ahead before a challenge matures.

What this does to takeover cost

We priced a takeover of every mainnet subnet that has passed the one-year age gate — 88 subnets — under three rule sets: pre-446, v446 as it runs today, and this upgrade. Each cost is a real AMM quote: the TAO needed to buy enough alpha from the pool, with fees and slippage, so that one fresh hotkey both beats the current conviction leader and clears the gate.

Takeover cost per subnet under each rule set, sorted from cheapest to dearest, log scale. Finney block 8,844,344.

The v446 curve sits below the pre-446 curve across the board — that is the accidental lowering this upgrade corrects. The new curve sits above both. The median cost roughly doubles against pre-446, the number of subnets takeable for under 1,000 TAO falls from 23 to 5, and on 21 subnets the required 18% position cannot be assembled from the pool at all: buying that much alpha in one market exhausts what the AMM will sell at any price.

If you own a subnet

Nothing about your locks or conviction resets, and no takeover becomes easier — every change in this upgrade raises the bar. For your subnet to change hands, all of the following must now hold at once:

• The subnet is at least one year old.
• A single hotkey holds more than 18% of eligible alpha as conviction — locked to that one hotkey, not spread across the subnet.
• That conviction has matured. A challenger's conviction approaches its locked mass on the MaturityRate timescale, about 43 days to most of full weight — the position is visible on chain through subnet-convictions the entire time.
• The challenger out-holds you. Your locks mature instantly, so out-locking a challenger's position at any point before it matures ends the attempt.

In practice this delays the effects of conviction. On every mainnet subnet past the age gate today, the conviction leader is the owner's own hotkey — no challenger leads anywhere, let alone above 18%. A challenge that starts now must buy against the pool, then wait out maturity in full view. Conviction remains the path by which a committed, majority-scale backer can eventually earn a neglected subnet — that is by design — but it is no longer a lever that a small, well-timed position can pull.

Upgrade checklist

• Recompute takeover dashboards: the gate is per-hotkey conviction versus 18% of eligible alpha; subnet-wide totals no longer gate anything.
• Owners who want a standing defense: keep more conviction locked on the owner hotkey than any challenger holds. Owner locks mature instantly, so topping up at any point before a challenge matures ends it.
• The subnet-convictions read now projects each hotkey against the 18% bar directly.