Your data.Your proof.Your terms.
Barcus turns a dataset, a land title or an ID into something you can prove you own, without handing anyone a copy. Encrypt it, register it, set a price and an expiry. The network audits the people holding it, continuously, and the access you sold ends by itself.
Read from the network’s own RPC on . The first three move. The quorum threshold is a chain parameter and only changes by governance vote.
Anyone can say a dataset is theirs. Barcus lets you prove it.
Your medical records, satellite images, research archive or training set get a public record. The data itself never appears on the chain.
A fingerprint, a size and an owner
Those three facts are written on the chain and cannot be edited after the fact.
Encrypted before it leaves you
The file is sealed on your side, stored on IPFS, and only the sealed copy exists on the network.
Validators stay blind
They see who owns what and who may open it. They never hold the file and never read a byte.
Open to auditors
Observers and block explorers can verify every transaction without seeing any content.
Public facts on the left, private contents on the right
The people who store your data are not the people who vote on it.
Most networks let one operator do everything. Barcus splits the jobs, and the chain refuses to let one address hold two of them. The party keeping your file is never the party deciding whether it was kept.
Validators seal blocks. They never hold your data.
They order transactions, agree on the ledger and earn PODO for that work. Your file is encrypted before it leaves you.
Miners hold your data. They get no vote at all.
They earn PODO by repeatedly proving they still have your file, from the collateral locked when it was registered. More capacity means more datasets, never more say.
This is not proof of stake.
No amount of PODO buys a bigger vote, and storing more data does not buy one either. Every validator carries the same weight.
Validators
- Seal blocks
- One vote each, all equal
- Never hold your file
Storage miners
- Hold the encrypted file
- Paid for each proof
- No vote in consensus
Keeping the data and ordering the ledger are different jobs
Sell access for a set time, and watch it end by itself.
A lease sets a price, a length of time and how many key holders must cooperate. The buyer pays at once.
Paid up front, in full
The buyer pays when the lease starts and the full price is yours. The chain takes no cut. Nobody chases an invoice.
No single key holder can open it
The key is split across PRE nodes. A quorum must cooperate to re-encrypt it for the buyer alone.
Expiry is automatic
The chain records when the lease ends, and PRE nodes refuse requests after that. You do nothing.
The four stages every dataset goes through
Three kinds of property, one ledger.
Barcus registers the things people already go to court over.
Your data
Encrypt it, publish it, price it. The network picks who stores it, and you do not. It audits them around the clock. When someone leases access, the full price is yours: the chain takes no cut.
Real-world assets
Tokenise a registered land parcel against its title. You cannot value your own asset: independent licensed appraisers must agree, within a set spread, before it can be listed.
Your identity
Prove a fact, such as being tax-registered in a jurisdiction, without showing the document behind it. Your ID never touches the ledger, and the same person cannot enrol twice.
Example entries
Six roles, so no one is marking their own homework.
Consensus, storage, key custody and monitoring are separate jobs. Since August 2026 the chain enforces it: one address cannot hold two of these roles.
Validators
Keep the ledger and earn for sealing blocks. Every validator’s vote counts the same.
Storage miners
Hold the encrypted files, answer audits continuously and earn for each proof. No vote.
PRE nodes
Hold key fragments. A quorum must cooperate to grant access, and none sees the whole key.
Attesters
Spot-check the miners at random. Enough matching reports and the penalty is automatic.
Observers
A full, verified copy of the ledger with no vote. What an auditor or an exchange runs.
Light clients
Follow the chain and transact without a full node. Mobile wallets live here.
Nobody is in a position to fail two checks at once, or to audit their own work
Why you do not have to trust anyone.
The protocol assumes any participant might be dishonest, and makes the dishonest move the losing one.
Bonds that can be lost
Miners, PRE nodes and attesters lock a bond to join, and forfeit it for the faults on the right.
A veto, with limits
The validator committee can eject a miner, PRE node or attester as a policy decision. An ejection never confiscates the bond. It pays out once obligations drain, and the address cannot rejoin that role.
Proofs either pass or they do not
A Merkle proof cannot be faked, and a lease expiry is a fact on the chain.
- A storage miner quietly deletes your file
- Its proofs must contain bytes read back out of storage. No file, nothing to send. Three misses cost the bond.
- A miner overstates how much it can hold
- The bond is priced per declared terabyte, so a fictional petabyte costs a fictional fortune.
- An issuer values its own land parcel
- Refused. Independent licensed appraisers must attest, and agree.
- A buyer keeps using an expired lease
- The expiry is written into the chain. A key node has nothing left to honour.
- Someone enrols the same national ID twice
- The uniqueness commitment collides and the second identity is refused.
- A validator signs two batches for one round
- The pair is evidence, and it is slashed.
If someone tries this, here is what happens on the left, consequence on the right
Fast agreement, and signatures built for the quantum era.
Validators certify batches of transactions in parallel rounds. Each round has a leader, and two linked leaders in a row commit everything beneath them.
DAG-based BFT consensus
Certified batches, a 75% quorum, and committees pinned ahead of time at epoch boundaries.
Post-quantum from the first block
ML-DSA-65 signs every transaction and ML-KEM-768 handles encryption. Both are checked against the official NIST test vectors.
A signature belongs to one network
Transactions, votes and acknowledgements are bound to the chain’s genesis. Copying one to another network gets you nothing.
Equal weight, no stake to buy
Every validator carries the same weight. No amount of PODO buys a bigger vote.
Six validators over five rounds, simplified. Each batch cites the round before it.
A working network, honestly labelled.
Barcus runs today as a development network: consensus, a live storage market with real audits and slashing, land tokenisation behind independent appraisal, portable identity, a block explorer and three authority portals.
Devnet
Six validators, storage miners with real audits, PRE nodes, an attester, an explorer and the authority portals, all on the released binary.
Testnet
A wider committee run by outside operators, with the faucet and a governance council switched on.
Mainnet
Final economics, an independent security audit and a genesis for real value.
Barcus blockchain: common questions
What is the Barcus blockchain?
Barcus is a blockchain that lets you prove you own a dataset, a land title or an ID without handing anyone a copy. You encrypt it, register it, set a price and an expiry. The network audits the people holding it, continuously, and the access you sold ends by itself.
What is Proof of Data Ownership (PoDO)?
Keeping your data and ordering the ledger are separate jobs on Barcus. Validators seal blocks and never hold your data. Storage miners hold the encrypted files and are paid for each proof that they still have them, but they have no vote. The chain refuses to let one address hold both roles.
Is Barcus proof of stake?
No. Every validator carries the same weight. No amount of PODO buys a bigger vote, and storing more data does not buy one either.
Can validators or storage miners read my data?
No. Your file is encrypted before it leaves you. Validators see who owns what and who may open it, never the contents. Miners hold only the encrypted file. The access key is split across PRE nodes, and a quorum of them must cooperate to grant access.
What happens when a data lease ends?
The expiry is written into the chain. After the end date, PRE nodes refuse further requests, so there is nothing left for anyone to honour and you do not need to revoke anything.
Does Barcus use post-quantum cryptography?
Yes. Transactions are signed with ML-DSA-65 (NIST FIPS 204) and encryption uses ML-KEM-768 (NIST FIPS 203). Both implementations are checked against the official NIST test vectors.
Is there a Barcus mainnet or a token I can buy?
No. Barcus runs today as a development network and PODO has no monetary value. There is no mainnet and no listed token. No independent security audit has been done on this implementation, and economic parameters are not final. A testnet sign-up list is open.
How can I take part?
Join the PoDO testnet list, watch the network in the block explorer, or run a node: the released binary, its checksums and a setup guide for every role are public at github.com/biokeyper/barcus-releases. Observers need no permission and no bond.
Own your data. Rent it, don’t give it away.
Watch the network run, read how it works, or join the testnet list. Running a node? The binary, its checksums and a setup guide for every role are public at github.com/biokeyper/barcus-releases.
More at biokeyper.com/barcus-blockchain