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GHOST Token

GHOST is the native gas and staking token of the Specter network. It is used for transaction fees, validator staking, governance, and as the primary asset for Ghost Protocol privacy operations.

Key parameters

ParameterValue
NameGHOST
Base unitaghost
Decimals18
Max supply1,000,000,000 GHOST
Inflation0% (hard cap, no inflation module)
UsesGas fees, staking, governance, privacy operations

Token lifecycle in Ghost Protocol

GHOST has a unique lifecycle within the Ghost Protocol commit-reveal system:

  1. Commit (burn) — User sends GHOST to the CommitRevealVault, which calls the Ghostmint precompile to burn the tokens via BankKeeper.BurnCoins(). The tokens are destroyed.
  2. Commitment stored — A Poseidon hash commitment is inserted into the Merkle tree. No tokens exist anywhere — they were destroyed.
  3. Reveal (mint) — User provides a Groth16 ZK proof. The vault calls the Ghostmint precompile to mint fresh GHOST via BankKeeper.MintCoins().

This burn-and-mint model means there is no escrow pool or liquidity contract. The supply temporarily decreases during commits and increases during reveals.

Supply cap enforcement

The Ghostmint precompile enforces a hard cap: cumulative mints minus cumulative burns cannot exceed 1 billion GHOST. A PreCommit hook in the chain's ABCI lifecycle verifies this invariant on every block.

Next steps