Sets baseline registration cost in computation.
Current Value
10000000Relevant for: minersvalidatorsdevelopers
The Big Picture
POW registration lets you join a subnet without paying TAO - you pay in computation instead. This constant sets the starting difficulty for new subnets. Higher difficulty = more hash attempts needed = longer registration time. The actual difficulty adjusts based on registration demand, but this is the starting point.
Why This Matters
Before attempting POW registration, check current difficulty to estimate time. High difficulty might make burn registration more economical.
Example
InitialDifficulty of 10,000,000 means you need to find a hash below target in ~10M attempts on average. On a modern GPU, this might take minutes. If difficulty has risen to 1,000,000,000 due to demand, expect hours.
Common Questions
- Should I use POW or burn registration?
- Compare: POW costs electricity and time; burn costs TAO. Calculate your hardware's hash rate, estimate time at current difficulty, then compare to burn cost.
- Does difficulty stay at this initial value?
- No, it adjusts based on registration rate. Popular subnets get harder; quiet ones get easier. Check Difficulty storage for current value.
Use Cases
- Registration
- Difficulty adjustment
Code Examples
import { ApiPromise, WsProvider } from "@polkadot/api";
import { stringCamelCase } from "@polkadot/util";
const provider = new WsProvider("wss://entrypoint-finney.opentensor.ai:443");
const api = await ApiPromise.create({ provider });
// Query InitialDifficulty constant
const value = api.consts[stringCamelCase("SubtensorModule")][stringCamelCase("InitialDifficulty")];
console.log("InitialDifficulty:", value.toHuman());
// Convert RAO to TAO if this is a balance value
const taoValue = value.toBigInt() / BigInt(1e9);
console.log("TAO:", taoValue.toString());Type Information
- Type
- u64
- Byte Size
- 8 bytes
- Encoding
- fixed
- Raw Hex
- 0x8096980000000000
Runtime Info
- Pallet
- SubtensorModule
- First Version
- v101
- Latest Version
- v101
- Current Runtime
- v393