The Stoic Cyberpunk Blockchain

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Download Elektron Node + Wallet (for Windows, Linux, Android), install it and claim hourly some free Elektron from the faucet or start mining if you’re a miner.

Get it here: Binaries & releases on GitHub or build from source (easy on Linux). That easy!

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The Memory of Money, Reimagined.

Elektron Net is a minimal fork of Bitcoin Core. The SHA-256d proof-of-work, the 21-million supply cap, the Nakamoto consensus — all untouched. Two deliberate changes define the protocol:

60-second blocks. Faster confirmations, same economics. The block reward is scaled proportionally to 5 Elek per block, preserving the 21-million cap and the four-year halving rhythm. No pre-mine. No founder allocation. Every Elek is earned.

137-day pruning. Transaction history is mathematically erased after 137 days. Not archived. Not encrypted. Gone.

The Architecture of the Present: UTXO-Only Consensus

Bitcoin’s greatest achievement was the creation of a permanent, unalterable past. But an eternal ledger is also an eternal weight. By encoding mandatory 137-day pruning into the core consensus rules, Elektron Net introduces a paradigm shift: We decouple the absolute security of the network from the burden of its history.

Continuous State-Attestation

Every single block in the Elektron Net pipeline does not merely group transactions; it carries a mandatory, compact 37-byte on-chain UTXO commitment. This cryptographic signature is actively verified by every running node in the network to shield the integrity of current balances. If a single Lepton is altered or manufactured out of thin air, the block is instantly rejected by Nakamoto consensus.

The Present is Valid

Unlike other lightweight protocols that rely on fragile, complex Zero-Knowledge math or trusted third-party snapshots, Elektron Net remains standard, battle-tested Bitcoin Core C++ at its foundation.

• New nodes joining the network don’t need to request historical transaction records from years ago—records that the network mathematically erases by design.
• Instead, they download the immutable chain of pure Proof-of-Work headers, locate the definitive consensus checkpoint at the 137-day horizon, and instantly verify the current UTXO set against the cryptographic seal forged into the block headers.

Ownership Without a Digital Footprint

This architecture fundamentally mimics the physics of the ancient Lydian Elektron coin or the cash in your pocket: value exists completely in the present moment. You hold the mathematical proof that your coins are real and yours right now, while the tracks of where they came from are cleanly dissolved by time.

Why 137 Days? The Architecture of Forgetting

The 137-day pruning horizon (alpha: α⁻¹) is neither arbitrary nor a simple administrative guess. It is a protocol window derived directly from the fundamental laws of the universe.

In quantum electrodynamics, the Fine-Structure Constant (α⁻¹) dictates the strength of the electromagnetic interaction—the precise coupling that governs the behavior of the Electron itself. Its inverse value is a beautiful, unsolved mystery of theoretical physics:

alpha (α⁻¹) ≈ 137.035999173 (35)

Elektron Net maps this cosmic constant directly onto the dimension of time. By enforcing a strict cryptographic expiration window of exactly 137 days, the network aligns its memory with the physics of the universe.

Transactions do not stay to form an immortal digital monument; they age, dissolve, and are mathematically forgotten in a natural rhythm. Time cleanses the chain, while pure SHA-256d Proof-of-Work guarantees that the present remains unbreakable.

Why Elektron?

Around 600 BC, the Lydians struck the first coins in the world from Elektron – a natural alloy of gold and silver. For the first time, a person could trade without giving their name. Value became transferable, anonymous, mathematical.

2,600 years later, the same problem returns. Bitcoin gave the world a censorship-resistant ledger — and in doing so, created the most comprehensive financial surveillance infrastructure in history. Chain-analysis firms map every wallet. State actors trace every flow. The immutability that made Bitcoin trustworthy became the cage that made its users transparent.

Elektron Net solves this at the root. The GDPR codified the right to be forgotten as a legal principle. We encode it as a consensus rule.

The Pocket Philosophy

When you reach into your pocket, you know three things immediately: how much you have right now, that it is yours, and nothing about where each coin came from. The past is irrelevant. Only the present matters.

Your UTXO set is your pocket. It holds exactly what you possess at this moment. The 137-day pruning window is natural forgetting — the way you do not carry receipts from five months ago in your jeans. Wallet recovery requires only your 24-word seed: scan the current UTXO set, recognise your outputs, reclaim your balance. No history required.

What Each Node Stores

Permanently: all block headers, the current UTXO set, and one checkpoint per pruning window — a threshold-signed UTXO Merkle root that lets any new node verify the chain state without a full sync.

For 137 days, then deleted: full transaction content, input and output scripts, amounts.

Never: user identity, IP mappings, transaction graphs.

By Year 10, total permanent storage sits at roughly 5–8 GB. Bitcoin’s chain is unbounded. The difference is structural, not cosmetic.

Quantum Resistance

Standard Bech32m addresses publish only a hash of the public key. Coins at rest are quantum-safe. When a transaction is broadcast, the public key is visible in the mempool for at most 60 seconds before the block is confirmed and the output is spent. Deriving a private key via Shor’s algorithm within that window — accounting for error-correction overhead — is not feasible with any credible near-term quantum hardware. After 137 days, all spent outputs and their revealed public keys are pruned. A future adversary cannot harvest historical keys from the chain. If a credible quantum threat matures, the network can soft-fork to post-quantum signature schemes through Bitcoin’s established upgrade path.

Network Parameters

Consensus	SHA-256d Proof-of-Work
Block time	60 seconds
Unit	Elektron (Elek)
Smallest unit	Lepton (lep) (1 Elek = 10⁸ leptons)
Max supply	21,000,000 Elek
Genesis reward	5.00 Elek
Halving interval	Every 4 years (2,102,400 blocks)
Pruning window	137 days
Address format	Bech32m — be1q… / be1p…
Node storage (Year 10)	~5–8 GB
Pre-mine	None

The Principle

Mathematics secures your money. Time erases your traces. You own the moment.

Elektron Net does not ask you to trust a company, a foundation, or an administrator. The forgetting is not a service. It is a property of the network — demanded by the consensus rules, enforced by every miner, expressed by every node that chooses to run this chain.

The Global Right to Be Forgotten:

By choosing Elektron Net, every user makes an express, informed, and irrevocable declaration of will: they affirmatively exercise their right to be forgotten. This blockchain was selected precisely because it transforms a legal claim — recognised across jurisdictions — into a protocol guarantee. No petition is required. No controller must be persuaded. The right is exercised automatically, by mathematics, every 137 days.

https://github.com/kutlusoy/elektron-net/blob/main/right-to-be-forgotten.md

No party may lawfully retain, against a user’s will, transaction records reaching further than 137 days into the past – including by running a modified version of this software that disables or circumvents the mandatory pruning described above. The 137-day window is the mechanism by which this right is exercised automatically in the unmodified reference client; the right itself does not depend on that mechanism. Deliberately defeating it to retain a user’s data against their will is a violation of the right to be forgotten declared above, regardless of which software variant is used to do so.

License: MIT