Today, we continue to look at a recently launched project - Space and Time (SXT). Recently, I have seen many people praising it, so I spent half a day studying it. In short, it can be introduced as a decentralized database, similar to a project I mentioned before, GRT, but the focus of the two may be different. We will introduce more later. Now let's take a look at the fundamentals of SXT.
Project Background and Issues Being Addressed
Space and Time (abbreviated as SxT) was founded by Space and Time Labs (now MakeInfinite Labs) and is a Layer-1 blockchain project aimed at decentralized databases. Its core idea is to fill the trust gap between smart contracts and massive data: traditional blockchains lack efficient and reliable database functions, smart contracts cannot directly query complex historical data or external data, leading to trust and scalability issues. For example, when querying a mutable off-chain database using SQL, if the data source is tampered with, the contract results cannot be verified. Space and Time achieves verifiable SQL queries on relational table data for the first time by introducing the 'Proof of SQL' zero-knowledge coprocessor.
The platform uses a decentralized validator network to achieve Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus on imported data and store cryptographic commitments. During queries, dedicated prover nodes execute SQL logic offline and generate zero-knowledge proofs, writing the results and proofs back to the smart contract, achieving on-chain verification of the integrity of the data query results and underlying data. Space and Time has received support and integration from well-known institutions and projects such as Microsoft, Chainlink, Sui, ZKsync, and its mainnet will officially launch in May 2025, with the native functional token SXT also released at the same time. The emergence of Space and Time enables smart contracts to safely access massive historical data, providing a new data infrastructure for cross-chain DeFi, blockchain gaming, on-chain AI, and other applications.
Project Features
- Proof of SQL (SQL Zero-Knowledge Proof): The first sub-second zero-knowledge coprocessor for SQL queries that supports executing complex queries off-chain and generating on-chain verifiable proofs, ensuring the correctness of query results and data integrity.
- Decentralized Validator Network: Uses Byzantine fault tolerance consensus, where validator nodes jointly maintain the cryptographic commitments of each data table (similar to Merkle roots). Any data insertion or update must be confirmed by threshold signature, ensuring that all table data remains tamper-proof and auditable. Validators provide network security by staking SXT and may be punished for node downtime or malicious behavior.
- Hybrid Processing Architecture (HTAP): Supports mixed workloads for online transaction processing (OLTP) and offline analytics (OLAP), with high throughput data writing capabilities and large-scale data analysis capabilities, which can flexibly adapt to different business scenarios.
- Comprehensive Blockchain Indexing: Real-time indexing of on-chain data (blocks, transactions, contract events, etc.) from Ethereum, Polygon, Bitcoin, Sui, Avalanche, ZKSync, and other main chains in advance, structuring it into relational tables for developers to query via standard SQL.
- Tamper-Proof Data Tables: Supports the creation of 'verifiable tables', where the data content is protected by cryptographic commitments, and any results generated from SQL queries can be verified on-chain through zero-knowledge proofs, ensuring that the computation process and results are completely reliable.
- Advanced Access Control (Biscuit Authorization): Utilizes 'Biscuit' cryptographic tokens to implement fine-grained access control, where table owners can define permission policies, and only authorized users can write or query specific data, enhancing security (developers can self-host Biscuit services).
- AI-driven Query Interface: Built-in AI Q&A system (Houston), allowing users to describe issues in natural language, automatically generating and executing SQL queries, and instantly creating charts and dashboards, making complex data analysis easy for non-technical personnel.
- Elastic Infrastructure: The network can elastically scale to PB-level storage, supporting thousands of concurrent requests and encrypted data storage, ensuring quick responses under high TPS and high concurrency.
Technical Architecture
The core of Space and Time is a decentralized relational database chain (SXT Chain) built on Substrate, primarily comprising three roles: validators, indexers, and provers. When importing data, indexers or data providers insert structured data into the SxT chain through signed transactions. Each insertion generates a new cryptographic commitment for that table's data, which validators sign and commit to the chain through Byzantine fault tolerance consensus. This mechanism ensures the authenticity and integrity of the table data, where the on-chain commitment value can be viewed as a cryptographic fingerprint of the table content for subsequent proof verification.
When a smart contract initiates a query request, the query logic is sent to the offline prover network. Prover nodes execute SQL operations on the corresponding tables off-chain while using the stored table commitments on-chain to generate zero-knowledge proofs, demonstrating that this query is executed correctly on the unaltered original data. The generated proof and query results are submitted back to the smart contract, which verifies the proof through a quick verification circuit, thereby obtaining trustworthy data output with extremely low gas costs. Space and Time achieves the goal of enabling smart contracts to access massive data without trusting external databases through this 'query once, prove once' process.
Overall, the architecture of Space and Time integrates blockchain with database technology: the on-chain part only records data commitments and transaction information, while the off-chain builds redundant index tables and executes computations. Validators provide data security guarantees, and provers provide verifiable computing capabilities. This design makes SxT a verifiable database extension for EVM, allowing developers to securely execute complex queries across chains or off-chain data as if accessing a local database, without sacrificing decentralization and security.
Product Composition and Function Modules
The Space and Time ecosystem includes the following main components and tools:
SxT Chain (Decentralized Database Network): The core Layer-1 blockchain that provides data storage, consensus and validation, as well as ZK query proof functionality, serving as the underlying foundation of the entire system.
Space and Time Studio: A smart contract chain data studio where developers can browse existing on-chain datasets, use AI prompts to generate SQL queries, and publish charts and dashboards with one click.
Web3 Data API Platform: A collection of RESTful interfaces that pre-index data from multiple main chains, allowing developers to access real-time on-chain data through a unified API, with options for on-chain verification (ZK proof) or rapid retrieval. This platform has been integrated with Chainlink, supporting direct return of query results to other public chain applications.
ZKPay Query Relay: A bridging tool for developers that allows smart contracts to express complex business logic through SQL. The contract sends the query request to the relay, which completes off-chain computation and returns results and proofs, allowing complex query results to be used directly in the contract.
Data Insertion Interface: Provides REST API, SDK, and EVM-compatible contracts for third parties to insert data into tables in the SxT network. Data insertion requires payment of an insertion fee, which goes to the validators to cover storage and consensus costs.
Query Interface: Supports various modes of query services, including verifiable queries (with results accompanied by ZK proofs) and rapid queries (optimistic verification returning results). Applications and wallets can obtain query results via API or SDK.
AI-driven Houston Interface: A natural language query robot that automatically generates SQL, executes queries, and returns structured results when users ask questions in plain language, simplifying the data analysis process.
Financing Situation
In September 2022, a seed round of $20 million, with investors Microsoft, Framework Ventures, Polygon, HashKey Capital, Stratos, etc.
In April 2023, a strategic round (expansion) of $10 million, with seven institutional investors (not fully disclosed), including: Samsung Next, Hash Capital, CoinDCX, Maverick Ventures, etc.
Token Mechanism
The native token of the SxT network is $SXT, with a total issuance of 5 billion tokens. The tokens are primarily used for network security and economic incentives:
Security Assurance (Staking and Validation): Validator nodes must stake SXT to participate in consensus and data processing, serving as a guarantee of honest operations. If validators experience downtime, forge data, or fail to execute queries correctly, their staked SXT may be partially or fully confiscated. The staking mechanism tightly binds the economic interests of validators to network security.
Delegated Staking: SXT holders can participate in network security without running nodes by delegating tokens to validators to receive a certain percentage of rewards, achieving decentralized expansion of security.
Data Provider Incentives: Owners of data tables (Table Owners) can earn SXT rewards by providing high-quality data. In SxT, the data insertion fee is collected by validators, while the query fee (the fee paid by users when calling SQL queries) is distributed according to the protocol: part of the reward goes to the validators (ensuring data quality), and another part rewards the table owners (compensating for the value of the data they provide). This mechanism encourages community members to publish and maintain useful datasets.
Protocol-level payments: SXT serves as the universal 'fuel' within the network, used to pay for all operations within the protocol (such as executing queries, inserting data, etc.), with a transparent fee model controlled by protocol logic. Query payments are distributed between validators and table owners, while insertion payments go entirely to the validators.
Token issuance and distribution: According to the officially published token economy, 5 billion SXT tokens are allocated to the team (22.4%), investors (25.9%), and community ecosystem (51.7%). The community ecosystem part includes 28.0% for community rewards (such as callback rewards, staking rewards, and developer grants) and 23.7% for ecosystem development funds. At the initial issuance stage, community rewards have all been unlocked, while the tokens for the team and investors are released linearly over 4 years (15% unlocked in the 12th month). This token model aims to achieve long-term incentives and network decentralization.
Comparison and analysis of technical architecture with competing projects
The Graph: The Graph is a decentralized blockchain indexing protocol that allows developers to map on-chain data to interfaces that can be queried via GraphQL by defining Subgraphs. Its network roles include: Indexers - staking GRT to run nodes for indexing and responding to queries; Curators - staking GRT to mark high-quality subgraphs; Delegators - delegating GRT to indexers to share risks and earn rewards. The Graph's query process does not involve zero-knowledge proofs, and indexers need to submit 'Proof of Indexing' to ensure their indexing process is correct.
In comparison, Space and Time combines indexing with chain consensus: index data is signed by validators and written into on-chain commitments, and during queries, validators and provers jointly generate ZK proofs. Graph focuses more on on-demand indexing and GraphQL queries, while SxT provides native on-chain ZK verifiable SQL queries, offering higher security and verifiability.
In conclusion, the current price of SXT is $0.14, corresponding to an FDV of $700 million. Although there is a gap compared to GRT's FDV of $1.2 billion, GRT is the leader in the field, and in terms of demand, I think GRT may be a bit better because the demand for data querying is broader. As for the necessity of verification for data indexing like GRT, I think it is not that significant. It's like if I choose to use Sinopec's 95 gasoline, do I still need to verify whether this gasoline is standard and usable?
Moreover, the financing token price corresponding to SXT is also around $120 million, doubling would be $250 million, corresponding to a token price of $0.05. Additionally, there will be continuous selling pressure from the launch until one year later, so secondary purchases are not recommended!
