Concepts

Plain-language definitions for the parts of SpaceRouter Proxy you'll see across these docs.

The four roles

Proxy Consumer Anyone who sends traffic through SpaceRouter Proxy — a developer running an SDK, a script using curl, or an app calling the gateway. Consumers pay for the bandwidth they use.

Proxy Provider Anyone running the SpaceRouter Proxy app on a computer at home (or a server) to share their internet connection. Providers stake SPACE to qualify, serve traffic, and earn SPACE in return.

Gateway The single entry point for all consumer traffic. The gateway authenticates the consumer, picks a Provider that matches the request's region and IP type, and relays the traffic. You can think of it as the network's switchboard.

Coordination API The brain that registers Providers, runs health checks, calculates rewards, and pays Providers on-chain. Consumers don't interact with it directly.

Status states for a Provider

The app on a Provider's machine and the staking dashboard show one of four status states. They tell you whether you are earning right now, and what to do if you are not.

State	What it means	What to do
earning	Your node is online, your stake is approved, and you are earning SPACE on every request routed through you.	Nothing — keep the node online.
qualifying	Your node is online and staked, but the network is still verifying your reliability for the current period. New nodes spend their first review window here.	Wait. Reviews run every 4 hours at fixed UTC times; full approval typically lands within one or two review cycles.
unstaked	Your node is online, but your stake is below the minimum required to earn.	Open the staking dApp and stake more SPACE.
inactive	Your node is offline, your wallet is draining, or no staking address is set.	Restart the app and check your network mode in Troubleshooting.

Periods and review windows

SpaceRouter Proxy scores Provider reliability in fixed windows called periods. At the end of each period, the Coordination API decides which Providers earned during the window and approves new ones. Periods are measured in minutes, not blocks — they have nothing to do with Substrate eras.

Tokens you'll see

Symbol	What it is	Where it's used
SPACE	The Spacecoin token. ERC-20 on Creditcoin mainnet.	Stake to qualify as a Provider; deposit to escrow to pay for proxy traffic; receive as Provider rewards.
CTC	Creditcoin's native gas token.	Pays the gas fee on every on-chain transaction (deposit, claim, withdraw). You only need a small amount.
SPC	The testnet-only equivalent of SPACE.	Used on the Creditcoin CC3 testnet for development. Never used in production.

How you pay for traffic

You hold SPACE in your wallet, deposit some into the on-chain escrow contract, and your SDK signs a tiny receipt for every request. The gateway settles those receipts on-chain in batches. No subscription, no card, no per-month commitment. See the Pay with SPACE guide.

The two-leg payment model

Behind the scenes, every paid proxy request produces two receipts:

• Leg 1 — Consumer → Gateway. The consumer's SDK signs this receipt with their wallet. It pays the network.

• Leg 2 — Gateway → Provider. The gateway pays the Provider for serving the traffic. The Provider claims these receipts on-chain when they're ready.

Consumers only ever sign Leg 1. Providers only ever claim Leg 2. The gateway keeps a small margin between the two — that funds operations.

Wallets a Provider needs

A Provider has up to three Ethereum-style addresses. Most users keep them all the same; they only diverge if you deliberately separate custody.

Wallet	What it does	Funds it needs
Staking	Holds your staked SPACE. You picked this when you staked.	SPACE (your stake)
Collection	Where your SPACE earnings land when you claim. Defaults to your Staking wallet.	None — it just receives
Identity	Created automatically by the app on first launch. Signs API requests and broadcasts your on-chain claim transactions.	A small amount of CTC for gas. Without CTC here, claims fail.

Most common provider mistake

Forgetting that the Identity wallet needs CTC. You stake from your Staking wallet, but the app claims earnings from the Identity wallet. Top up the Identity wallet with ~1 CTC before your first claim.

Glossary

Receipt — A small signed message that says "this many bytes were served at this price for this request." Used as on-chain proof of bandwidth.

Escrow — The on-chain contract that holds Consumer SPACE deposits and pays Providers when receipts are claimed.

Claim — A Provider's on-chain transaction that submits a batch of signed receipts and transfers earned SPACE into the Collection wallet.

Identity key — The private key the app generates on first launch. Stored at ~/.spacerouter/certs/node-identity.key. Back this up.

Region / IP type — Routing preferences a Consumer can attach to a request: a 2-letter country code (e.g. US, KR) and one of residential, mobile, business, or hosting.

Period — A fixed-length review window (currently 240 minutes / 4 hours) used to aggregate Provider health-probe results. The Coordination API runs a review every 4 hours (at 00:00, 04:00, 08:00, 12:00, 16:00, 20:00 UTC) to approve or disapprove Providers based on their pass rate over the window.