Core Concepts
Basic concepts of the ADAMANT blockchain you need to know if you're interacting with the blockchain or just running a node.
Native Token
ADM is the native token of the ADAMANT blockchain. It's used to pay transaction fees and can be transferred between accounts. For consistency and precision, ADM amounts and fees are stored as strings in transactions and measured in 1/108 ADM (1 ADM = 100,000,000).
Transaction Fees
Every transaction in ADAMANT requires a fee, paid in ADM. Fees help prevent spam and support the network. Fees are intentionally very low, making ADAMANT affordable for active messaging.
Most transaction types have a fixed fee, but Message and Key-Value Store (KVS) transaction fees scale with content length.
You can get blockchain fees using the /api/blocks/getFees API endpoint.
Timestamps
A timestamp in ADAMANT shows how many seconds have passed since the creation of the blockchain — the blockchain epoch, set at September 2, 2017, 17:00:00 GMT+0.
For example, to convert time to ADAMANT's timestamp using TypeScript:
const EPOCH = Date.UTC(2017, 8, 2, 17, 0, 0, 0);
/**
* Converts provided timestamp into ADAMANT's epoch timestamp
* @param time - timestamp in ms
*/
const getEpochTime = (time: number = Date.now()) =>
Math.floor((time - EPOCH) / 1000);Some upgraded transaction responses also include timestampMs. This value uses the same ADAMANT epoch, but in milliseconds. It is not a Unix timestamp.
/**
* Converts provided timestamp into ADAMANT's epoch timestamp in ms
* @param time - timestamp in Unix ms
*/
const getEpochTimeMs = (time: number = Date.now()) => time - EPOCH;
const timestampMs = getEpochTimeMs();
const timestamp = Math.floor(timestampMs / 1000);Clients should derive timestamp from timestampMs with Math.floor(timestampMs / 1000). Do not use Math.round() or Math.ceil(), because this can make timestampMs belong to the previous ADAMANT second while timestamp points to the next one.
After the spaceship consensus activation, nodes can store and return timestampMs for transactions that include it. Historical transactions and transactions from older clients may still have timestampMs: null, so clients should prefer timestampMs for ordering when it exists and fall back to timestamp * 1000 otherwise.
You can get the blockchain epoch time using the /blocks/getEpochTime endpoint. Additionally, consider using /blocks/getStatus or /node/status endpoints to get more blockchain and network information in a single request.
Blocks and Rounds
The ADAMANT blockchain is organized into blocks. Each block is produced by a delegate and contains a set of confirmed transactions.
A round consists of exactly 101 blocks — one block slot per active delegate. At the end of each round, the set of active delegates may change based on updated vote weights. Forging order within a round is deterministic and shuffled from the active delegate list.
Each block slot has a fixed duration of 5 seconds. If a delegate misses their slot (e.g., due to downtime), that slot is skipped and the next delegate's slot begins on schedule.
Delegates and Voting
ADAMANT uses Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS). There are exactly 101 active delegates at any given time. They are selected by token-holder votes and take turns forging blocks in each round.
Any ADAMANT account can register as a delegate and receive votes. Token holders can vote for up to 33 delegates at once. Each vote is weighted by the voter's ADM balance.
After the fairSystem consensus upgrade, vote weight is also adjusted by each delegate's productivity (the fraction of block slots they successfully forged). This discourages inactive delegates from maintaining their position purely through accumulated votes.
Delegates earn ADM rewards for each block they forge. You can query delegate information using the Delegates API.
Milestones
Milestones define block rewards for delegates and are triggered at specific block heights.
You can use the REST API to: