Frequently Asked Questions

Cosmic Signature is a procedural on-chain art protocol on Arbitrum. Participants make gestures during a Performance Cycle; every gesture shapes the cycle’s final Signature. When the cycle finalizes, the protocol distributes its reserves across more than ten allocation tracks — including Protocol Guild, the funding mechanism for 170+ Ethereum core contributors.

Each cycle opens with a Calibration Window where Gesture Cost descends from the Calibration Ceiling toward the Calibration Floor over roughly two days. The first gesture starts the Cycle Finalization Time (initially ~24 hours). Each subsequent gesture increases the Gesture Cost by approximately 1% and extends the Cycle Finalization Time by about an hour. When the Cycle Finalization Time expires, the participant who made the Final Gesture may finalize the cycle and receive the Signature Allocation.

Gestures can be made with ETH or Cosmic Signature Tokens (ERC-20 CST). You may also attach a Random Walk NFT to your gesture to receive a 50% reduction in Gesture Cost. The CST Gesture Cost drifts downward continuously within its own Calibration Window, allowing more cost-efficient participation later in the cycle.

Yes. Anyone can participate in a Cosmic Signature Performance Cycle by making a gesture. An unused Random Walk NFT can be attached to an ETH gesture for a 50% Gesture Cost reduction.

You can participate by making gestures during a Performance Cycle, or by contributing an NFT from your project to be attached to a participant’s gesture. Join the Discord to meet other participants.

Each cycle begins with an initial Cycle Finalization Time of approximately 24 hours once the first gesture is made. Every gesture extends the time by about an hour, so cycles frequently last longer than a day. The cycle ends when the Cycle Finalization Time expires without another gesture arriving.

Yes. Each gesture imprints 100 Participation CST into your wallet, increases your entry count for Stellar Selections, and shapes the cycle’s evolving Signature.

The Signature Allocation is received by the participant who made the Final Gesture of a cycle. It includes one Cosmic Signature NFT, a Recognition CST imprint of 1,000 CST, and 25% of the Cycle Reserve in ETH, plus any tokens or NFTs attached to participant gestures during the cycle.

Every gesture imprints three things: 100 Participation CST (ERC-20), one entry in end-of-cycle Stellar Selections, and a record of your Endurance Window contribution toward the Endurance Champion and Chrono-Warrior tracks.

Each gesture records one entry in Stellar Selection. At the end of each cycle, the smart contract randomly selects participants from the entry pool: 3 participants share 4% of the Cycle Reserve in ETH, 10 participants each receive 1,000 CST and a Cosmic Signature NFT, and 10 anchor-holders of Random Walk NFTs also receive 1,000 CST and Cosmic Signature NFTs. Selection frequency increases with the number of gestures you make.

Recipients of the Signature Allocation retrieve their share of the Cycle Reserve through the protocol contract. Visit the My Allocations page or the cycle allocation page to initiate the retrieval after the cycle finalizes.

Cosmic Signature NFTs can be anchored to the protocol to receive Anchor Distributions. Anchoring pays 6% of the Cycle Reserve each cycle, distributed proportionally across all anchored Cosmic Signature NFTs. Random Walk NFTs can also be anchored for Anchored-NFT Stellar Selection eligibility. Visit the My Anchors page (from your account menu) to manage anchors.

You can receive Cosmic Signature Tokens (ERC-20) for helping promote the protocol. The Outreach Reserve imprints 3,000 CST per cycle and distributes it to ecosystem contributors. Contact the Outreach Custodian via Discord for guidance.

In the vast majority of cycles, 24 Cosmic Signature NFTs are imprinted: one for the Signature Allocation recipient, one for the Final CST Gesture recipient, one for the Endurance Champion, one for the Chrono-Warrior, 10 for NFT Stellar Selection recipients, and 10 for Random Walk NFT anchor-holders selected through Anchored-NFT Stellar Selection. Each of those 24 NFT allocations also includes 1,000 CST.

About half of the Cycle Reserve rolls forward into the next Performance Cycle as the Compounding Cycle Reserve, increasing the starting balance for the following cycle. The protocol compounds rather than extracts.

Seven percent of the Cycle Reserve is forwarded to a Public Goods Beneficiary selected through Protocol Coordination on the Cosmic Council. The current beneficiary is Protocol Guild — the collective funding mechanism for 170+ Ethereum core contributors.

Each gesture increases Gesture Cost by approximately 1% — a Gesture-Cost Drift that adds a strategic element. Gesture early for lower cost and more Stellar Selection entries, or gesture later when the cycle matures. At the start of each new cycle, Gesture Cost resets to approximately 100x lower than the previous cycle’s Final Gesture cost, then opens a Calibration Window.

When you gesture with ETH, you imprint 100 Cosmic Signature Tokens (ERC-20 CST). These tokens can be used to make another gesture through the CST Calibration Window. A Calibration Window is a price-discovery window in which the Gesture Cost descends from a Calibration Ceiling to a Calibration Floor over a known duration. As time passes, Gesture Cost falls — giving cost-efficient participation to later entrants.

The participant who remained the most recent gesture maker for the longest consecutive interval within a cycle (the longest gap before another gesture arrived). When the cycle finalizes, the Endurance Champion receives a Recognition CST imprint of 1,000 CST and one Cosmic Signature NFT.

The Final CST Gesture is the last gesture made with Cosmic Signature Tokens (CST) during a cycle. When the cycle finalizes, the participant who made it receives a Recognition CST imprint of 1,000 CST and one Cosmic Signature NFT.

The participant who held the Endurance Champion position for the longest consecutive interval. Analogous to the Endurance Champion being the longest-reigning recent gesture maker, the Chrono-Warrior is the longest-reigning Endurance Champion. When the cycle finalizes, the Chrono-Warrior receives 8% of the Cycle Reserve in ETH, 1,000 CST, and one Cosmic Signature NFT.

No. The time added after each gesture starts at approximately one hour, but gradually increases over time. The increment is designed to be slow — approximately 10% to 20% per year, exponentially.

The mechanism limits the long-term rate at which Cosmic Signature NFTs are imprinted. Slower cycles mean fewer new NFTs enter circulation per unit time, preserving scarcity.

As the time added per gesture increases, cycles run longer on average. The change is gradual, preserving a smooth participation experience while limiting total Cosmic Signature NFT supply over long time horizons.

Transactions on Arbitrum are processed in the order they are included by the sequencer. If two gestures arrive at the same moment, the one confirmed first is the valid gesture.

Yes. Participant timing, gesture frequency, and method (ETH vs CST vs Random Walk attachment) all shape how allocations distribute. The social dynamics and protocol design are designed so that multiple strategies can succeed across different allocation tracks.

Every gesture imprints Cosmic Signature Tokens (CST), which express Coordination Weight on the Cosmic Council. The Council coordinates the protocol on-chain: CST holders submit Coordination Proposals and express Support or Opposition. The Council decides which Public Goods Beneficiary receives the 7% allocation each cycle and adjusts other on-chain parameters.

CST (Cosmic Signature Tokens) can be used as an alternative to ETH for gestures. You imprint 100 CST per gesture, so active participants naturally accumulate CST for future cycles. They also express Coordination Weight on the Cosmic Council.

Cosmic Signature NFTs are on-chain and self-sustaining. Each NFT is imprinted with a randomly generated seed stored in the smart contract. The image and video are rendered from this seed using an open-source Rust pipeline. The seed determines the three celestial bodies’ starting conditions, producing a unique chaotic trajectory for each NFT.

Each Cosmic Signature NFT visualizes the three-body problem in Newtonian gravity. The protocol simulates three celestial bodies under gravity and spectrally renders their trajectories across 16 wavelength bins, creating a unique chaotic pattern for every NFT.

The seed-based pipeline ensures long-term reproducibility. Unlike NFT projects whose images rely on centralized servers, every Cosmic Signature NFT’s seed is stored on Arbitrum. Anyone can independently regenerate the NFT image and video at any time using the open-source Rust pipeline — pixel-for-pixel identical to the original.

Yes. Because the time added per gesture grows exponentially over time, the pace of NFT imprinting slows. Total Cosmic Signature NFTs become a limited resource in the long run.

The growing gesture-time increment and slowing imprint pace preserve scarcity. Each new Cosmic Signature NFT represents a progressively rarer slice of the cumulative protocol history.

Random Walk NFT holders can attach an unused token to one ETH gesture for a 50% Gesture-Cost reduction. Random Walk NFT anchor-holders also receive entries into the Anchored-NFT Stellar Selection each cycle.

Cosmic Signature NFTs and CST are standard ERC-721 and ERC-20 assets. They are compatible with any Arbitrum marketplace or exchange that supports those standards, including OpenSea and Uniswap.

Yes. You can acquire CST on a supported exchange and use it to express Coordination Weight on the Cosmic Council. Making gestures remains the primary way to imprint new CST.

Projects can attach their tokens (ERC-721 or ERC-20) to a gesture using the "Advanced Options" pane. Provide the contract address and token ID or amount and submit the gesture. Attached tokens forward into the Cycle Reserve and flow to the Signature Allocation recipient after finalization.

Arbitrum is an Ethereum Layer 2 rollup that speeds up transactions and reduces fees. Cosmic Signature deploys on Arbitrum to offer sub-cent gas costs and faster finality while preserving Ethereum’s security guarantees.

Most on-chain activity is migrating to Layer 2s. Arbitrum offers dramatically lower gas costs while maintaining the same security model as Ethereum Layer 1 — making it the right home for a gesture-heavy protocol like Cosmic Signature.

Arbitrum is a rollup, not a sidechain. Every batch of transactions is posted back to Ethereum mainnet. This anchors Arbitrum’s security in Ethereum itself: the data and dispute resolution live on Layer 1.

Bridge ETH from Ethereum mainnet using the official Arbitrum bridge or other supported bridges. Your ETH is locked on Ethereum and an equivalent amount becomes available on Arbitrum. Bridging requires an Ethereum Layer 1 gas payment.

Yes. The same private keys sign transactions on both networks. You just need to add the Arbitrum network to your wallet’s network list.

View them directly on the Cosmic Signature website, or add the contract addresses to your wallet manually. Contract addresses are published on the Contracts page and in the community Discord.

Yes. Cosmic Signature NFTs and CST are ERC-721 and ERC-20 assets on Arbitrum. They can be traded on any Arbitrum marketplace or exchange that supports those standards. Always confirm the contract address before trading.

Successful gestures are confirmed on Arbitrum and visible on the Arbitrum block explorer (Arbiscan). Your transaction hash can be pasted into the explorer to verify the gesture.

Cosmic Signature contracts are formally verified with Certora, reviewed by Slither, and built on OpenZeppelin foundations. Every contract is CC0-licensed so the community can audit and reproduce behavior independently.

Beyond the Gesture Cost itself, you pay Arbitrum network gas fees for each transaction. Gas fees fluctuate with network conditions and are not controlled by Cosmic Signature.

Initially, the team has the ability to adjust certain parameters of the protocol, such as gesture-time increments or allocation-track percentages. This control is scoped to the inter-cycle window and implemented through the smart contract's "Ownable" pattern. Once a cycle begins (at the first gesture), nobody — including the owner — can change protocol conditions until the cycle finalizes.

No. Once the protocol is stable, ownership transfers to the Cosmic Council. Parameter changes thereafter occur only through Protocol Coordination proposals that clear the Coordination Quorum.

Renouncing ownership is an Ownable-contract function that permanently transfers control away from the deployer address. Once called, no privileged role can modify the contract’s parameters.

The goal is a fair and decentralized protocol. Renouncing ownership ensures that the protocol’s rules cannot be changed arbitrarily once live — strengthening trust and predictability for participants.

No team wallet receives ETH from participant gestures. All ETH flows into the Cycle Reserve and is distributed per the allocation tracks. The team’s alignment with the protocol is held indirectly through Random Walk NFTs; success of the protocol may increase the cultural value of those NFTs. Primary motivations are curiosity, creativity, and contributing to open-source public goods.

Cosmic Signature was born from a fascination with chaos theory and the unsolvable nature of the three-body problem. The idea of unique, deterministic art generated from on-chain seeds was both intriguing and fitting for a public-goods-aligned protocol.

The protocol is designed to be self-sustaining. Seeds are stored on-chain; anyone can regenerate NFT images and videos using the open-source Rust pipeline. This ensures the continued availability of every Cosmic Signature NFT regardless of the team’s status.

Absolutely. Every contract, shader, renderer, and page is CC0 1.0 — no rights reserved. Fork, remix, and build whatever you like.

Yes. The smart contract accepts ETH contributions independent of a gesture. You may also attach a note to the contribution, which may surface on the cycle’s contribution list. Reach out via Discord for details.

The community and support team are available via Discord, X / Twitter, and the support email listed on the Contacts page.

Follow the official social media channels and join the Discord community for the latest announcements, protocol coordination proposals, and cycle recaps.