Node Operator Agreement

This agreement governs everyone who registers a serving node on the QueraIS network. It supplements the Terms of Service; defined ideas there ("the operator", "the service") mean the same here.

1. Your role

You run a GPU daemon on your own hardware, serve inference for open-weight models (currently llama3.2 and gemma3:4b), and are paid in $QAIS from prepaid credit accounts. You are an independent participant. Nothing in this agreement makes you an employee, partner, or agent of the operator, and nothing creates any incorporated relationship — the operator is an individual, not a company.

2. Staking

• Registering a node requires a minimum stake of 2,500 QAIS.
• Stake tier thresholds are 1,000 / 5,000 / 25,000 / 100,000 QAIS; higher tiers unlock larger job eligibility and reputation weight per the protocol's on-chain rules.
• Staked $QAIS is collateral. It sits in the staking contracts on Arbitrum One and can be slashed (§3). There is no faucet on mainnet — you source your own stake and your own ETH for gas.

3. Slashing schedule

Event	Consequence
Output verified bad by the verification system	1% of stake slashed
You lose a dispute	20% of stake slashed and your node is frozen

Slashing is executed by the dispute contracts, not at the operator's personal whim; but the operator controls oracle/settler keys that feed them, so read §3 of the Terms about the current trust model.

4. Freezes, disputes, and unbonding

• A node under dispute can be frozen on-chain: it stops receiving jobs until the dispute resolves. If you win, you are unfrozen. If you lose, §3 applies.
• Unstaking has an unbonding period set by the staking contracts. Staked QAIS is not withdrawable instantly; plan liquidity accordingly.
• Disputes come in two tracks: FAST (oracle auto-resolve) and STANDARD (a 5-member commit-reveal arbitration panel). Both reference job IDs and hashes — not prompt text.

5. Payouts

• Settled jobs pay 95% to you, 5% to the protocol treasury, on-chain on Arbitrum One.
• Settlement happens in batches (EIP-712 signed sessions aggregated on-chain), so payouts arrive with batch timing rather than per request.
• The gateway's metering determines what gets submitted for settlement; deliberately gaming metering or settlement is fraud and grounds for delisting and disputes.

6. Uptime expectations (soft)

There is no hard SLA and no penalty for being offline — but chronically unavailable or slow nodes earn nothing, lose reputation weight, and may be delisted to keep the network useful. Run hardware you can actually keep up.

7. Model manifest honesty

Your node self-reports its model manifest (Ollama manifest digests) and that manifest gates which jobs you are offered. The manifest must accurately describe what you actually serve. Serving a different model than advertised — or spoofing digests to win jobs you cannot honestly fill — is fraud: expect slashing via the dispute system and permanent deregistration.

8. Handling user prompts

Prompts exist in your machine's memory while a job runs; that is unavoidable. What you must do:

• Run the shipped daemon unmodified, or modifications that do not persist, transmit, or resell prompt/completion content.
• Do not use your position as a node to profile users, build datasets from prompts, or attack other participants.
• Prohibited workloads are defined by the Acceptable Use Policy; knowingly farming payments for prohibited traffic is a violation by you too.

We cannot technically verify every node's memory handling — this section is a binding promise backed by slashing, disputes, and delisting, not just advice.

9. Delisting and deregistration

The operator may suspend, freeze, delist, or deregister a node at their discretion — for violations, for fraud signals, for legal/abuse complaints, or to protect the network. Where practical we will say why. Delisting is not a confiscation of your unstaked funds; slashing only happens through the on-chain dispute mechanics described above.

10. Taxes and costs

Hardware, electricity, gas fees, and all taxes on your earnings are yours alone. The operator reports nothing to anyone on your behalf and provides no tax documents.

11. No warranty

The contracts, daemon, and network are provided as is. Bugs can slash you wrongly; the operator works to correct verified mistakes but guarantees nothing. See the Token Disclosure for smart-contract risk.

12. Changes and contact

This agreement changes with the protocol; the repository's git history is the changelog, and continued operation after a change is acceptance. Questions: github.com/ShavitR/querais/issues or shavitrwork@gmail.com.

Related documents: Terms of Service · Acceptable Use Policy · Privacy Notice