Sep 17, 2025 | Tech AMA with Dr. K - Mining Yield Through Subsidized Open-market Acquisition Protocol | Quai Network X-Space AMA

In this episode of the Dr. K AMA series, Matt from Developer Relations and Dr. K dive deep into the highly anticipated Project SOAP (Subsidized Open-market Acquisition Protocol). The conversation focuses on the technical mechanics of multi-chain merge mining, initial staking rewards, the project's economic impact on proof-of-work (PoW) competitiveness, and updates regarding the upcoming Wormhole integration.Key Highlights From This Episode:Alpha on Ravencoin & Triple Merge Mining: The team has successfully mined Ravencoin test blocks. Quai is now working to stack merge mining up to three levels, combining Litecoin, Dogecoin, and Quai under a single Scrypt pool.Project Soap Testnet Timeline: Implementation of the first four chains is nearly complete. The team aims to push Project Soap out to the test network by the third week of October.Massive Initial Locking APY: Soap will introduce a capital-locking contract with an estimated daily subsidy payout of $15,000 to $20,000. Due to low initial lockable supply, early participants could see exponential initial yields.Centralization Risk Clarification: The signature quorum functions like a traditional pool operator for subsidy chains. It poses zero centralization risk to the core Quai ledger consensus.ProgPow to KawPow Migration: The proposal shifts the network's algorithm to KawPow for Ravencoin compatibility. Miners only need to restart their software with new parameters, keeping hardware completely compatible.Economic Advantage of Soap: Unlike traditional merge mining which splits rewards, Soap uses generated revenue to buy back Quai on the market, shifting economic benefits directly to the Quai ledger.Anti-Griefing Security Countermeasures: The validation protocol tightly links proof-of-work timestamps. Miners attempting to bypass the subsidy payout or submit stale headers face steep financial penalties.Technical ScriptSig Architecture: The team utilizes a 32-byte header commitment inside the ScriptSig rather than an OP_RETURN. This provides ample space for variable extra nonces across modern ASICs.Mitigating Negative Miner Sell Pressure: Miners face strong economic incentives to switch to KawPow instantly. A two-week maturation window on block rewards creates a net-positive capital capacitor at launch.Liquid Soap Token Hypothecation: While the locking contract is separate from consensus validation, the economic structure allows third-party developers to easily build wrapped, yield-bearing liquid tokens.Wormhole Integration Launch Status: The core technical development is complete. Launch timing is currently dependent on Wormhole's Guardians updating their validator nodes and aligning with their global marketing schedule.Commodity Ecosystem Alignment: Dr. K stresses that the L1 foundation will only support native dApps (like decentralized exchanges) that loop value directly back into Quai, avoiding extractive secondary tokens.Tangem and Zebek Debit Cards: Zebek debit cards are now fully integrated for live spending. Additionally, the limited edition Quai-branded Tangem hardware wallets have officially begun shipping to users.For more technical updates, deep dives, and articles, check out Quai Magazine.