Nervos Network takes a noticeably different approach to blockchain design.
Instead of trying to make one base layer execute everything as quickly as possible, Nervos centers its architecture around the Common Knowledge Base, or CKB: a Proof-of-Work Layer 1 designed to preserve assets, state and verification rules while allowing higher-level systems to handle more specialized activity.
That philosophy has produced several unusual ideas.
CKB uses a generalized UTXO architecture known as the Cell Model. Its native CKByte has a direct relationship with blockchain storage capacity. Smart contracts run through a RISC-V virtual machine rather than the EVM. Its monetary policy combines Bitcoin-style halving-based issuance with permanent secondary issuance designed around state rent.
More recently, Nervos has also become increasingly connected with Bitcoin through RGB++ and Fiber Network, creating an ecosystem focused on programmable assets, payments and interoperability around UTXO-based systems.
So what exactly is Nervos Network, how does CKB work, and why is its architecture so different from most modern Layer 1 blockchains?
What Is Nervos Network?#
Nervos Network is an open-source blockchain ecosystem built around the Common Knowledge Base, commonly called CKB.
CKB launched its mainnet in November 2019 and operates as a permissionless Proof-of-Work blockchain.
Rather than treating the Layer 1 blockchain as a global computer responsible for performing every application calculation, Nervos describes CKB more like a verification and settlement layer.
The distinction matters.
On many smart-contract blockchains, applications execute calculations and continuously update a shared global state. Every full node ultimately needs to reproduce and maintain that environment.
CKB takes a different approach.
Applications construct state transitions outside the blockchain, while CKB verifies whether those transitions satisfy the rules encoded in on-chain Scripts.
This architecture is closely connected to CKB’s Cell Model, which extends Bitcoin’s UTXO concept into something capable of storing programmable state.
The result is a blockchain that attempts to preserve some of Bitcoin’s architectural qualities while adding significantly more programmability.
What Does CKB Mean?#
CKB stands for Common Knowledge Base.
The idea behind the name is that information stored on the base layer represents state that the network collectively agrees upon and preserves.
This includes more than balances.
CKB Cells can contain assets, application state, ownership conditions, arbitrary data and the programs used to verify how those Cells may be spent or transformed.
The native asset is called the CKByte, using the ticker CKB.
And unlike most blockchain tokens, the CKByte is directly connected to the blockchain’s storage model.
1 CKB = 1 Byte#
One of Nervos Network’s most distinctive economic ideas can be summarized in a simple relationship:
1 CKB = 1 byte of on-chain state capacity.
Holding CKB gives users the right to occupy space in the blockchain’s live state.
For example, storing data and the associated Cell structure requires enough CKBytes to cover the number of bytes occupied by that Cell.
Those CKB are not necessarily spent.
Instead, they remain locked inside the Cell for as long as that state exists.
If the Cell is later consumed and the data no longer needs to occupy blockchain state, the corresponding capacity can become available again.
This makes blockchain storage an explicitly scarce economic resource.
Most blockchains charge users when data is initially written, but that information may then remain part of the network’s state indefinitely.
Nervos instead attempts to give permanent state an ongoing economic cost.
That design connects directly with CKB’s secondary issuance and Nervos DAO, which we will explore later.
Understanding the Cell Model#
CKB’s Cell Model is an evolution of Bitcoin’s UTXO architecture.
Bitcoin tracks unspent transaction outputs. Each UTXO represents Bitcoin that can be spent according to a particular locking condition.
CKB generalizes this concept.
Instead of representing only monetary outputs, a Cell can contain value, arbitrary data and programmable rules.
A Cell typically contains several important components:
Capacity determines how much CKB the Cell holds and how much state it can occupy.
A Lock Script determines who or what is authorized to consume the Cell.
An optional Type Script defines additional rules governing how the Cell behaves.
The Data field can contain application-specific information.
Like Bitcoin UTXOs, Cells are immutable once created.
An application does not modify an existing Cell in place.
Instead, the transaction consumes one or more existing Live Cells and creates new Cells containing the updated state.
Once a Cell has been consumed, it becomes a Dead Cell and cannot be spent again.
This means CKB applications operate through explicit state transitions rather than continuously modifying entries inside a global account database.
Why Does the Cell Model Matter?#
The Cell Model gives developers a different programming environment from account-based blockchains such as Ethereum.
Assets can exist as independent objects controlled by their owners rather than simply as balances recorded inside a token contract.
Multiple Cells can also participate in one transaction, allowing several operations to be composed together.
Perhaps more importantly, computation and verification can be separated.
Applications can perform calculations off-chain, construct the resulting transaction, and then ask CKB nodes to verify that the proposed state transition follows the appropriate Scripts.
This is why Nervos often describes CKB as a general verification network rather than simply a general computation network.
The blockchain does not necessarily need to perform every step of an application’s computation.
It needs to verify that the final transition is valid.
CKB-VM and RISC-V#
Smart-contract logic on CKB executes through the CKB Virtual Machine, or CKB-VM.
CKB-VM is based on RISC-V, an open instruction-set architecture used in conventional computing.
That choice gives Nervos a very different execution environment from blockchains that build their functionality around a specialized blockchain virtual machine.
CKB Scripts are executable programs.
Because the virtual machine operates close to a general-purpose instruction set, developers can implement cryptographic algorithms and verification logic without relying only on cryptographic primitives built directly into the blockchain protocol.
This flexibility is particularly important for interoperability.
A blockchain may need to verify signatures, proofs or cryptographic systems that did not exist when its original protocol was created.
Instead of requiring the base-layer consensus rules to include every possible cryptographic primitive, much of that functionality can be implemented through CKB Scripts.
The current Nervos development stack supports languages and tools including Rust, C and JavaScript-based development, while CKB-VM provides the underlying RISC-V execution environment.
Proof-of-Work and NC-Max#
CKB is secured by Proof-of-Work.
Its consensus protocol is called NC-Max, an evolution of Bitcoin’s Nakamoto Consensus.
Bitcoin’s consensus model offers strong decentralization and permissionless participation, but block propagation creates practical limits on how quickly blocks can safely be produced.
If blocks arrive too quickly relative to the time required for them to propagate through the network, different miners may frequently build on different blocks.
That increases orphaned blocks and weakens consensus efficiency.
NC-Max was designed to improve the performance boundaries of Nakamoto-style consensus while retaining Proof-of-Work.
Among its design concepts are a two-step transaction confirmation process and difficulty adjustment mechanisms that take additional valid block information into account.
The goal is not to transform CKB into an extremely high-throughput execution chain.
Instead, NC-Max attempts to use available network bandwidth more efficiently while preserving the security properties expected from an open Proof-of-Work network.
Eaglesong Mining#
CKB mining uses the Eaglesong Proof-of-Work algorithm.
Mining performs the familiar role of selecting blocks, securing chain history and distributing new CKB issuance.
As with Bitcoin, miners compete by performing computational work, and no validator permission or token stake is required to participate in consensus.
However, CKB’s economic model differs significantly from Bitcoin because miner revenue is designed to continue through more than transaction fees after base issuance declines.
That is where secondary issuance becomes important.
CKB Tokenomics#
CKB does not have a fixed maximum supply.
Understanding why requires separating several components of the monetary system.
CKB launched with an initial genesis supply of 33.6 billion CKBytes, with 8.4 billion of those genesis tokens burned.
Separately, CKB has 33.6 billion CKBytes of base issuance distributed to miners over time.
Base issuance follows a Bitcoin-like schedule in which issuance halves approximately every four years until eventually approaching zero.
But that is not the end of CKB issuance.
The protocol also creates 1.344 billion CKB through secondary issuance every year.
Secondary issuance does not have a fixed ending date.
This means CKB’s total supply does not have a hard maximum.
Why Does CKB Have Permanent Secondary Issuance?#
Permanent issuance might initially seem unusual for a blockchain influenced by Bitcoin.
But CKB’s secondary issuance serves a specific purpose.
It creates an economic cost for permanently occupying blockchain state while continuing to compensate miners for protecting that state.
Remember that owning CKB represents the ability to occupy blockchain capacity.
If a large amount of CKB is permanently locked into Cells containing application state, full nodes must continue storing and verifying that state.
Secondary issuance allows part of the network’s security cost to be associated with those users occupying state rather than relying exclusively on future transaction fees.
Nervos describes this mechanism as state rent.
What Is the Nervos DAO?#
The Nervos DAO is closely connected to secondary issuance.
CKB holders who are not actively using their tokens to occupy blockchain state can deposit qualifying CKB into the Nervos DAO.
DAO depositors receive compensation tied to secondary issuance.
This allows holders who are not consuming state capacity to mitigate the dilution caused by permanent secondary issuance.
It is important not to confuse the Nervos DAO with Proof-of-Stake.
Depositing CKB into the DAO does not make users validators and does not secure consensus.
CKB remains a Proof-of-Work blockchain secured by miners.
The DAO is primarily an economic mechanism within CKB’s state-rent model.
The broader idea is to distinguish between people holding CKB and people actively consuming the blockchain’s scarce storage resources.
Why Nervos Has Become Increasingly Connected With Bitcoin#
CKB’s UTXO-style architecture and flexible verification environment make it particularly compatible with Bitcoin-oriented development.
This has become increasingly important to the Nervos ecosystem.
Rather than attempting to replace Bitcoin, several Nervos-related projects focus on extending what can be done with Bitcoin assets and UTXOs.
Two of the most important examples are RGB++ and Fiber Network.
What Is RGB++?#
RGB++ is a protocol designed around the structural similarities between Bitcoin UTXOs and CKB Cells.
Its core concept is known as isomorphic binding.
A Bitcoin UTXO can be associated with a corresponding Cell on CKB.
Bitcoin continues to provide the ownership anchor, while CKB can provide programmable state and public verification logic.
This lets developers create systems in which Bitcoin-side ownership and CKB-side state remain connected.
The approach is particularly interesting because Bitcoin itself has intentionally limited programmability compared with general-purpose smart-contract platforms.
Instead of forcing Bitcoin to execute complex applications directly, CKB can perform additional verification and state-management functions.
Nervos documentation describes RGB++ as enabling Bitcoin-linked assets and cross-chain interactions through this UTXO-to-Cell relationship.
RGB++ should not be confused with the separate RGB protocol.
Although RGB++ was inspired by ideas from RGB, the two are different systems developed by different teams with different architectures.
Why the Cell Model Fits Bitcoin#
The connection between CKB and Bitcoin is not purely a branding decision.
Both systems organize value through UTXO-like objects.
Bitcoin uses UTXOs.
CKB uses Cells.
Because Cells are a generalized form of the same broad model, ownership transitions can be represented in ways that map more naturally between the two networks than they might between Bitcoin and a conventional account-based blockchain.
CKB’s programmable verification environment can then add functionality that Bitcoin’s base layer intentionally does not provide.
This is one of the reasons Bitcoin interoperability has become such a prominent direction for the Nervos ecosystem.
What Is Fiber Network?#
Fiber Network is an off-chain payment and asset-transfer network built around CKB.
Conceptually, it occupies a similar design space to Bitcoin’s Lightning Network.
Rather than recording every payment directly on the base blockchain, participants can create payment channels and exchange value off-chain.
Only the necessary settlement information ultimately needs to reach the Layer 1 blockchain.
This makes high-frequency, low-value payments much more practical than placing every individual transaction directly on CKB.
Fiber is designed to support CKB as well as user-defined assets and increasingly focuses on interoperability with Bitcoin’s payment ecosystem.
Fiber in 2026#
Fiber has progressed considerably during 2026.
Early in the year, developers described the protocol as functionally complete and focused increasingly on network testing, wallet integration, routing, liquidity and operational reliability.
Fiber v0.8 introduced additional wallet and Cross-Chain Hub functionality.
Development then moved through an extended v0.9 release-candidate process emphasizing security and recovery behavior.
Stable Fiber v0.9.0 arrived in August 2026.
The release cycle included database migration improvements, storage backup and restore functionality, payment recovery work, channel-settlement hardening and improvements designed for browser, mobile and wallet integrations.
Development after v0.9 has continued around hosted liquidity-service-provider designs, mobile wallets, multi-tenant infrastructure and payment usability.
This matters because Fiber is moving beyond being simply a protocol concept.
The project is increasingly being developed as infrastructure that wallets and applications can actually integrate.
Fiber and Bitcoin Lightning#
One of Fiber’s most interesting directions is interoperability with Bitcoin’s Lightning Network.
Development around Fiber’s Cross-Chain Hub has demonstrated workflows where assets on Fiber can participate in payment flows involving Bitcoin Lightning invoices.
This could eventually allow users and applications operating in different UTXO-based payment environments to interact more seamlessly.
The technology remains an evolving part of the ecosystem, so it is important to distinguish production-ready functionality from designs and integrations still undergoing development.
But the broader direction is clear.
Nervos is increasingly positioning CKB not just as an independent Layer 1, but as programmable infrastructure that can interact with Bitcoin-oriented assets and payment networks.
Other Assets on CKB#
CKB’s Cell Model supports several forms of digital assets.
xUDT provides a framework for user-defined fungible tokens.
Spore Protocol uses Cells to represent digital objects and collectible assets.
RGB++ can connect Bitcoin-side ownership with CKB-side programmable state.
Because assets are represented through Cells rather than balances controlled exclusively inside conventional token contracts, developers can construct asset behavior differently from the typical ERC-20 or ERC-721 model.
This architecture gives Nervos an unusual design space.
The challenge is turning that flexibility into applications that ordinary users actually want to use.
CKB as a Verification Layer#
One useful way to understand CKB is to compare two blockchain philosophies.
A general computation blockchain tries to execute a large portion of application activity directly inside the consensus network.
A general verification blockchain focuses more heavily on determining whether proposed state transitions are valid.
CKB leans toward the second model.
Applications can calculate results outside the base layer.
The blockchain verifies the Scripts and state transitions associated with the resulting transaction.
This model can reduce the pressure to make every full node reproduce increasingly complex global application computation.
It also helps explain why Nervos places so much emphasis on off-chain systems, payment channels and interoperability protocols.
What Makes Nervos Network Different?#
Nervos combines several ideas that are individually unusual and even more distinctive when used together.
It retains permissionless Proof-of-Work rather than switching CKB to Proof-of-Stake.
It extends Bitcoin’s UTXO model into programmable Cells.
Its native asset doubles as blockchain state capacity.
Permanent secondary issuance creates an economic mechanism for state rent.
The Nervos DAO allows holders who are not consuming state to mitigate secondary-issuance dilution.
CKB-VM uses RISC-V rather than building the network around one tightly constrained blockchain-specific virtual machine.
RGB++ connects Bitcoin UTXOs with CKB Cells.
Fiber introduces off-chain payment channels and interoperability-oriented payment infrastructure.
Together, these components make Nervos difficult to describe simply as another smart-contract Layer 1.
Its architecture is closer to a programmable verification and settlement system built around Proof-of-Work and UTXO principles.
Nervos Network Development in 2026#
CKB remains under active development.
Version 0.210.0 of the CKB node software was released in September 2026 following several releases throughout the year.
Recent core development has focused heavily on network reliability, security, transaction-pool behavior, light-client infrastructure, developer tooling and node hardening.
CKB-VM and networking components continue to receive development work as well.
Fiber has simultaneously moved through major releases and a long period of production-focused testing.
This ongoing engineering activity is notable for a network whose mainnet has been operating since 2019.
It also highlights an important distinction between Nervos and newer projects whose ecosystems may still largely consist of roadmap promises.
Risks and Questions to Watch#
Nervos’ architecture is technically interesting, but complexity brings challenges.
The first is adoption.
A flexible base layer is only valuable if developers and users build meaningful applications around it.
Nervos competes for developers and liquidity against much larger smart-contract ecosystems with deeply established tooling and network effects.
The second challenge is usability.
Concepts such as Cells, state capacity, secondary issuance, DAO deposits, RGB++, payment channels and cross-chain UTXO relationships are considerably harder for new users to understand than a simple account-and-token model.
Wallets and applications therefore need to hide much of this complexity.
The third question is token economics.
CKB’s permanent secondary issuance is intentional, but users must understand that the token has no fixed maximum supply.
Its long-term economic model depends partly on demand for blockchain state and the effectiveness of state rent as an incentive mechanism.
The fourth question concerns Bitcoin interoperability.
RGB++ and Fiber create interesting possibilities, but their long-term value will depend on actual users, liquidity, wallet support and integrations rather than technical compatibility alone.
And finally, parts of Fiber and the wider Bitcoin interoperability stack continue to evolve.
New capabilities should be evaluated based on deployed software and real network usage rather than future plans.
Does CKB Have a Maximum Supply?#
No.
CKB does not have a fixed maximum supply.
The network combines finite base issuance with permanent secondary issuance.
Base issuance totals 33.6 billion CKB and follows a halving schedule.
Secondary issuance creates 1.344 billion CKB each year indefinitely.
That makes descriptions such as “33.6 billion maximum supply” incorrect.
The purpose of secondary issuance is closely tied to CKB’s state-rent system and long-term miner compensation.
Is Nervos Network Proof-of-Work?#
Yes.
CKB is a permissionless Proof-of-Work blockchain.
It uses NC-Max consensus and the Eaglesong mining algorithm.
The Nervos DAO does not make CKB Proof-of-Stake.
DAO deposits participate in the network’s economic model, while miners remain responsible for producing blocks and securing consensus.
Is Nervos Network a Bitcoin Layer 2?#
CKB itself is an independent Layer 1 blockchain and should not simply be described as a Bitcoin Layer 2.
However, the Nervos ecosystem increasingly provides infrastructure designed to interact closely with Bitcoin.
RGB++ uses isomorphic binding between Bitcoin UTXOs and CKB Cells.
Fiber Network is developing payment-channel and interoperability functionality that can interact with Bitcoin-oriented payment infrastructure.
Calling Nervos “Bitcoin infrastructure” or describing its growing Bitcoin interoperability is therefore more precise than treating the entire CKB blockchain as a conventional Bitcoin Layer 2.
Final Thoughts#
Nervos Network is one of the more unconventional long-running Layer 1 projects in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Its design starts with a different question from many competing blockchains.
Instead of asking how much computation a base layer can execute, Nervos asks what information truly needs global consensus and how the cost of preserving that information should be allocated.
The answer produced CKB.
The Cell Model turns Bitcoin-style UTXOs into programmable state containers.
CKB-VM brings RISC-V-based verification and broad cryptographic flexibility.
The CKByte connects token ownership directly with state capacity.
Secondary issuance and Nervos DAO create a long-term economic model around state occupation.
And Proof-of-Work keeps consensus open to miners rather than token validators.
RGB++ and Fiber have added another dimension by connecting this architecture more closely with Bitcoin’s UTXO and payment ecosystems.
That combination makes Nervos particularly interesting for researchers following the convergence between Bitcoin, programmable UTXO systems, Proof-of-Work and off-chain payment infrastructure.
Whether those technical advantages translate into broader adoption remains an open question.
But more than six years after CKB mainnet launched, the network remains actively developed, and its architecture is still evolving rather than simply maintaining an old design.
For a project built around long-term state preservation, that continued development may be one of the more important things to watch.
Explore the full Nervos Network (CKB) project profile on Chainquiry:
https://chainquiry.com/projects/nervos-network/
This article is for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Cryptocurrency networks and digital assets involve technical, market and regulatory risks. Always verify information independently and conduct your own research.
