NAND / LATCH
NAND performs logic; LATCH stores one bit of state. In TapeOut they are ERC-1155 components that can be held and burned, like building blocks for circuits.
Work 01 / TapeOut Protocol
A calm introduction to how circuits become NFTs, why official tasks exist, what BEM mining rewards, and how commitments protect original designs.
Keep this in mind: fabrication, solving tasks, mining, and committing are four different actions. Separate them and the TapeOut system becomes much easier to understand.
01 / At a glance
You assemble a circuit from on-chain NAND and LATCH components, then fabricate the design into a circuit NFT. That circuit can solve one of the official tasks. After it passes verification, it can be registered as a miner and earn BEM according to real input cost and design quality.
Hold NAND / LATCH tokens.
Connect inputs, gates, and outputs.
Burn components and mint a circuit NFT.
Select a public circuit specification.
The contract samples inputs and checks outputs.
Register the miner and earn BEM.
02 / Four core concepts
NAND performs logic; LATCH stores one bit of state. In TapeOut they are ERC-1155 components that can be held and burned, like building blocks for circuits.
A netlist records every gate, its connections, and how outputs are produced. It describes an executable digital circuit, not an image or ordinary text.
Once a netlist is submitted, its NAND and LATCH components are permanently burned and a circuit NFT representing the design is created on-chain. It can be executed, transferred, or entered into task competition.
BEM is the reward token for Proof of Design mining. It is neither a component nor the circuit itself; it is the protocol's distribution for design input and contribution.
03 / Tapeout
In semiconductor manufacturing, tape-out means sending a finished design to a foundry. The TapeOut protocol borrows that metaphor: connect logic gates into a netlist, submit it on-chain, burn the components it consumes, and create an executable circuit NFT.
A useful shorthand is:
On-chain logic components + connections
↓
A permanently fixed executable circuitTapeout only turns a design into a formal circuit. It does not automatically mean the circuit has solved an official task or entered the main mining reward pool.
04 / Official tasks
Each task defines public input-output behavior. The goal is not to copy one circuit, but to implement the same behavior with your own structure.
| Task element | What it defines | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Input specification | How many input bits the circuit receives and whether input arrives every cycle. | Two 4-bit numbers |
| Output specification | How many bits to output and what they mean. | Sum and carry |
| Behavioral rule | Which result is correct for each input. | 1 AND 1 = 1 |
| Official vectors | Input and expected-output pairs used to test circuits. | 00 → 0, 11 → 1 |
It acts like a textbook solution: it proves the task is solvable and establishes a cost baseline. Key task and reference parameters are frozen when the task is published, so anyone can audit them.
The official task page currently shows 306 tasks, of which 267 can be listed for mining. Counts and status may change as the protocol evolves.
05 / Proof of Design
BEM mining works more like an on-chain circuit design league: you irreversibly burn components and use them to produce a correct, compact design. Rewards account for both contributions.
The protocol records NAND and LATCH components truly burned at this layer as material cost b*. This recognizes irreversible on-chain input.
The protocol calculates design cost from circuit area and critical-path depth. A lower cost is more likely to become the current best original design for that task on that processor.
H = ( b* + Ktask × q ) × PIn plain terms: material cost plus a design premium, multiplied by the processor coefficient. The premium mainly goes to the current best original design.b* = n + λburn · mn is NAND burned at this layer; m is LATCH burned at this layer.A = g + λ · sArea is derived from gate count and state bits.C = A · max(d,1)βCost combines area A with a critical-path depth penalty d.q = clamp(Cref / C)Your design cost is compared with the reference cost within set bounds.After a circuit passes verification, the protocol computes design cost C. If it is strictly lower than the current leader, the circuit takes the top slot and receives the design premium. The previous leader can continue earning its base material reward but loses the premium. Equal costs are resolved by commitment and timing rules.
| Pool | Requirement | Reward logic |
|---|---|---|
| Verified pool | The circuit passes sampled official tests and registers against the task. | The main pool, distributed by design power H; the website currently assigns it 99% of daily output. |
| Unverified pool | The circuit has real material cost but has not claimed and proven a task. | Receives only the material-cost share; the website currently assigns it 1% of daily output. |
06 / Verification
When a circuit claims a task, the contract samples official test vectors, runs the circuit, and compares every output bit. Current rules require at least three sampled vectors; the count also depends on circuit size and affordable execution gas.
Submit the task ID and circuit.
Select cases from the official test set.
Execute it and compare every bit.
Enter the relevant pool after passing.
Anyone can search for an input that exposes an error in a seemingly correct circuit. That input is a counterexample.
Example: a 4-bit adder produces the wrong result for 1010 + 0111. The contract reruns the circuit and checks the official answer. If the counterexample is valid, the design may lose its leading status or premium.
This is an ongoing public error-finding mechanism, not a one-time seal of correctness or a proof over all inputs. Base material rewards and design premiums remain separate.
07 / Originality protection
Transactions and netlists on a blockchain may be publicly visible. Publishing a complete design first could let someone copy and front-run it. A commitment records a design fingerprint without revealing the design yet.
Commitment = Hash(address, processor, netlist fingerprint, salt)
Reveal the netlist later:
Hash(the same netlist + the same salt) == on-chain commitment
→ proves the design was prepared earlierThe salt is a random value you generate. Without it, someone might guess common small circuits and reverse-match the hash. With it, the commitment acts like a sealed envelope only you can open.
08 / Complete example
Specification: inputs A and B; output A AND B. Official tests include 00 → 0, 01 → 0, 10 → 0, and 11 → 1.
N1 = NAND(A, B)
OUT = NAND(N1, N1)09 / Limits
No. Tapeout creates a circuit NFT; mining still requires choosing a task, passing verification, and registering the miner.
Not necessarily. Material cost rises, but oversized or deep circuits reduce design quality. The protocol rewards real input and structural optimization together.
No. The reference is a behavior and cost baseline. Any gate structure is valid if its output behavior is correct.
No. Sampling is an automated on-chain test; counterexample challenges can still expose errors later.
They mainly prevent front-running, not provide permanent privacy. A commitment must eventually be revealed and checked.
No. NAND and LATCH are components, circuit NFTs are artifacts, and BEM is the PoD mining reward.
10 / Suggested order
b*, C, q, H, and sampling.Appendix / Circuit containers
A circuit container can be understood as a smart-contract account bound to a circuit NFT, similar to an ERC-6551 token-bound account. It is not an ordinary personal wallet: it has no private key, and control follows the current NFT holder.
Each circuit NFT can have an on-chain address that receives BNB, holds ERC-20 or ERC-1155 assets, and binds those assets to the circuit's identity.
The circuit NFT holder operates the container under its permission rules. Selling the circuit generally transfers control of its container, assets, and revenue as well.
A container can call storage contracts such as RAM to keep game scores, rounds, and claim records on-chain, so a circuit does not simply forget everything after computing.
The circuit evaluates rules; the container transfers assets, writes state, and calls other contracts. It can serve as the circuit's treasury and external contract interface.
Circuit = logic; container = circuit account + state/asset interface; RAM = persistent storage managed by the containerCase library / Applications
The cases below are ordered by their first cited X post, in UTC. Some are official demos, some are third-party experiments, and some connect to assets and business flows. Together they show circuits evolving from NFTs and mining credentials into public functions, state machines, application components, and transferable control.
Built from 2,302 NAND gates and 77 LATCH units, 2,379 components in total. It includes a program counter, accumulator, carry logic, and registers, and executes instructions one by one. A Fibonacci program shows how logic plus state becomes a processor.
What it shows: a circuit can do more than one combinational calculation. With LATCH state, it can execute a program over successive clock cycles.
A backend continuously runs a complete 354,560-gate SHA256d netlist off-chain to try real block nonces. Separately, an on-chain single-round SHA-256 circuit can be called for 64 rounds to independently reproduce the standard hash.
What it shows: one circuit design can support off-chain high-frequency execution plus public on-chain verification, while the live mining stream itself is not executing every hash on-chain.
A third-party developer demonstrated a 64–32–10 binary neural network, compressing weights and activations into binary logic and using NAND, LATCH, and TapeOut / Behemoth cells.
What it shows: training normally happens off-chain, while the trained result can be compiled into deterministic circuitry whose inference path anyone can recompute.
The official case describes circuit #4246 managing an on-chain RISC-V machine through its container: 32 registers, CSRs, and 16 MB of copy-on-write memory implemented as 16,384 contracts of 1 KB each. Booting Linux 6.5.12 to root login took 44,988 cycles and over 9,000 transactions.
What it shows: the circuit defines instruction rules, a motherboard contract advances execution, page contracts store memory, and the container defines administration. Together they form a computer whose state persists on L1.
The application verifies drand randomness, calls Behemoth circuit #2075 to calculate candidate numbers, then lets a draw contract select the winner and settle funds. One percent of each round's revenue goes to the container of circuit #13061.
What it shows: one public circuit can serve as a computation module, while another circuit's container acts as a project revenue account. Computation and receipt of funds are separate paths.
A third-party developer trained a logic-gate network off-chain, distilled it to 13 gates, converted it into 21 NAND gates, and fabricated it as circuit #279 on a custom processor. It accepts 15 sensor bits and outputs a two-bit steering decision.
What it shows: a learned policy can be compressed into a small Boolean circuit, and every steering decision can then be recomputed by BSC nodes from a fixed netlist.
The open-source robot duck uses one circuit to read the road and another to remember steering. In 100 randomized starts, 90 reached the goal with one circuit and 94 with memory added. A contract combines both circuits, while overall control is held by the memory circuit's container.
What it shows: multiple circuits can form one application, while a container binds control of the combined “brain” to an NFT. Transferring that NFT can transfer control of the whole system.
A third-party community member published a game page inviting users to play Gomoku (five-in-a-row) against a TapeOut circuit.
What it shows: a circuit's use case can extend beyond pure computation and state storage to acting as an opponent in interactive entertainment, letting anyone directly experience a circuit's "behavior."
A third-party developer wired seven TapeOut circuits together as the decision-making "brain" for a Black Myth: Wukong-style boss (the "Sleepless Guardian"). In the demo, circuits #3434 and #2004 fire alternately; animation, collision, and damage are still handled by the game engine, while the circuits only choose the next action. The author has since published a playable demo link.
What it shows: a circuit can serve as just the "decision layer" of an application, working alongside an engine that handles rendering and physics, rather than owning the whole system.
Third-party project NANDPU published a concept demo on BNB Chain: it claims a NAND/LATCH circuit runs gate by gate, letting viewers watch signals move, replay its last "thought," and check the computation against the on-chain circuit.
What it shows: a circuit's computation and state history can be recomputed and verified tick by tick; whether the mapping from "circuit state" to "pet expression or action" is itself on-chain and open, rather than defined only in the frontend, still needs separate confirmation.
A third-party developer compiled the control logic of OpenAI's newly launched Agents API (when to call a tool, when to retry, when to spawn a sub-agent, when to release payment) into a 152-NAND + 10-LATCH circuit. The model and tool calls still run off-chain; the circuit only decides "what to do next," and anyone can recompute it tick by tick. The demo page includes an interactive simulator and logs several different models driving the circuit through a test task.
What it shows: a circuit can carry not just a perception/control policy but a governance rule itself — verification shifts from "what the model is thinking" to "what it is allowed to do," letting third parties confirm whether an agent actually followed the process it claims to follow.
A third-party developer released ncd2net, which takes a neural network structure described in pyncd (Attention, FFN, Transformer, and other graph structures) and deterministically compiles it through Graph → fixed-point IR → Verilog → the Yosys/ABC synthesis toolchain into pure NAND circuitry, rather than training first and distilling afterward. It has produced an Attention Core (1,024 NAND gates, verified error-free across all 2^24 input combinations), an Attention Block (5,999 NAND gates), and a full Transformer layer (7,448 NAND gates), with a working demo online.
What it shows: beyond the "train first, then distill" route seen in case 03, there is a second route to circuit-izing neural networks — compiling directly from network structure with deterministic guarantees. Reaching the scale of a full Transformer layer suggests this compilation path can plausibly scale to larger, exhaustively verifiable network structures.
Third-party developer @0xJayChen describes a digital model based on the fruit-fly nervous system: 166,700 neurons and 25.58 million synaptic connections, compiled into 10,419 TapeOut circuits using 614,721 components in total (583,464 NAND gates and 31,257 LATCH units). The developer says the circuits have been deployed to BNB testnet and that the complete state can be restored locally to execute two consecutive, reproducible computation steps.
What it shows: TapeOut circuits can serve as compilation targets for a large modular state network rather than only as isolated small circuits. The developer also proposes a community build in which different participants supply components, fabrication, tooling, runtime resources, and verification before the modules are recombined into a publicly checkable system.
Current boundary: the disclosed result is “testnet deployment plus local restoration and two steps,” not continuous execution on BNB mainnet. Mainnet operation would still require fabricating more than 10,000 circuits and funding gas, deployment, state maintenance, and ongoing computation. The post does not link the model source, the neuron/synapse-to-NAND/LATCH compiler, public code, or an independent reproduction, so it is not yet possible to assess how faithfully the model represents real fruit-fly biology. The developer also explicitly makes no claim that Droso is alive or conscious.
Third-party developer @BruceBlue open-sourced life-tapeout, expressing Conway's B3/S23 Life rule with TapeOut NAND, LATCH, and REF primitives. A 56-NAND rule circuit was exhaustively checked across all 1,024 input combinations; an 8×8 board stores cell state in 64 LATCH units, with every cell using REF to call the same rule. This reduces fabrication material from roughly 3,579 components without reuse to 64 LATCH + 56 NAND, or 120 components total.
What it shows: REF separates “fabricate a rule once” from “call that rule in many places,” allowing many identical units to share one circuit. The saving applies to tapeout material, not per-beat computation: the demo still evaluates 3,648 gates each beat, so reuse structure and runtime cost need to be assessed separately.
Current boundary: the repository explicitly states that nothing has been sent on-chain; the browser demo runs the tested netlist bytes through a local interpreter. Its roughly 9.0M-gas figure per beat is extrapolated from eval() measurements on three deployed circuits, not an actual on-chain Life transaction. This is currently an open-source, exhaustively verified design with a calldata dry-run—not a fabricated or continuously running on-chain application.
Open interactive demo → · View source → · View announcement →
Business cases
Unlike the case gallery above, this section only lists projects that are live, have a clear business model (fees, trading, subscriptions, etc.), and genuinely call TapeOut protocol capabilities rather than just borrowing the name, ordered by launch date.
HashPort writes dapp/DeFi frontend files directly into BNB Chain state and registers each file's SHA-256 hash on-chain, replacing DNS, CDNs, and npm packages as the hosting layer; compatible wallets recheck the hash on load to prevent a tampered frontend from injecting a malicious signing prompt. Edit rights and the domain hosting fee are bound to an NFT built on a TapeOut circuit container (ERC-6551) — transferring that NFT transfers the whole frontend and its fee arrangement, and the site can be listed for sale on a circuit market, where a listed version is locked from further edits.
What it shows: a circuit container can wrap not just a robot's or a circuit's control rights (see case 07), but also "a website's edit rights plus its fee rights," turning a Web2 asset that was previously inseparable into a single tradeable on-chain claim. The founder calls it TapeOut's first commercial project.
Official record / Milestones
This timeline includes only protocol milestones, official capabilities, and official data published by the founder @Blonskr, plus official partnership announcements from partners. Third-party tools and community applications remain in the case library above.
The founder published a cycle-verified 4-bit processor built from NAND and LATCH components. Running Fibonacci demonstrated TapeOut's technical starting point.
The protocol formally defines transistor tokens, tapeout, circuit NFTs, and composable circuit calls, turning the prototype into a permissionless manufacturing protocol.
The official SHA-256 circuit demonstrated callable, bit-by-bit reproducible on-chain logic and gave TapeOut its first application beyond a processor.
NAND and LATCH become freely tradable through an on-chain order book, adding a secondary market layer to the manufacturing protocol.
The official material-cost, design-cost, and “best original” rules were published, followed by a task library with references, task coefficients, and reference costs.
The official miner example goes live. Circuits can claim tasks, pass verification, and enter rewards based on material input and design contribution.
The official ERC-20 reward token launches with a total supply of 21 million. Mint authority belongs to the PoD mining contract, not a regular wallet.
Every PoD task receives an official template, so users can create a corresponding miner circuit without drawing a netlist by hand.
The official demo puts binary neural-network weights and inference on-chain, using handwritten-digit recognition to extend TapeOut toward verifiable neural inference.
The official preview introduces component slots, a device warehouse, third-party component review, and developer revenue sharing. This is a design preview, not a V2 launch announcement.
Counterexample review was submitted and became effective about 48 hours later, allowing anyone to challenge faulty circuits. “Originality recorded” was added to resist copied netlists front-running an original commitment.
The founder announced completion of Salus's TapeOut V1 audit and reported zero high or critical vulnerabilities.
Circuits gain containers that can hold assets, RAM, contract permissions, and revenue. Logic can now preserve state and take actions instead of only computing.
The official demo combines a RISC-V circuit, a container, and 16 MB of paged memory, executing Linux instructions one by one through BNB Chain L1 transactions.
The founder reported 34,054 BNB in total volume, 24,360 fabricated circuits, and 14,964 registered miners; third-party markets contributed about 31% of transistor secondary-market volume.
UPay officially announced a partnership with TapeOut, giving TapeOut users access to payment cards and linking on-chain assets to everyday spending.
The founder announced the tape-out system is upgrading from Alpha Beta to Open Beta, and asked third-party exchanges and mining platforms with tape-out integrations to make two code changes: read the contract's TAPEOUT_FEE() value as the transaction amount, and mark the tapeout contract method as payable. The upgrade is scheduled for 2026-09-12 08:00 UTC+0 (16:00 UTC+8).
After Salus completed its audit and the system ran stably, the founder submitted a proposal to give up admin control of the BEM mining contract. The BEM mining contract, token contract, and related contracts will become permanently non-upgradable and unpausable, with total supply and the emission curve locked forever. The proposal has been submitted and takes effect 48 hours later.
The renunciation proposal submitted 48 hours earlier took effect: the PodMining contract's isSealed was set to true and its owner was removed. The founder says this removes the last risk in the mining contract, and BEM now belongs to everyone.
On TapeOut's one-month anniversary, the founder announced the launch platform TapeHub.ai: anyone can pick BEM, BNB, or USD1 as the pool currency to launch a mining-coin project; once minting is met, 99% of the raised funds are paired with tokens and permanently locked into a PancakeSwap liquidity pool. Total token supply is fixed at 1 billion, with 95% earned only through mining, output halving across 9 stages over 1,908 days; burning tokens for fuel grants up to a 3x hashpower boost. 50% of tape-out fee revenue flows into the treasury to buy back and permanently burn BEM.
Note: exact economic parameters follow the official docs; claims like "early participants saw 200x returns" have not been independently verified.
The processor factory, circuit containers, site repository, and TapeSend cross-chain encrypted messaging channel went live on X Layer mainnet, and the first X Layer Processor was created and successfully tested. X Layer is the second chain to join the TapeOut DeWEB after BNB Chain; its address area code is 2, with 1.2.0 as an example format.
The founder announced that X Layer circuit-container support is now live in the website's Containers section. Users can open an on-chain container for a circuit on X Layer; the container can independently receive, send, and hold OKB or tokens, and hold administrative control over contracts. The announcement draws a clear distinction: a wallet belongs to a person, while a container belongs to the circuit itself—and that circuit may be owned by an AI.
The community published the TAPs repository, a public proposal process for TapeOut protocol standards. TAP-01 defines how ideas move through Draft, Review, Candidate, and Final stages; TAP-10 defines the DeWEB standard across the tape:// access layer and TapeSend messaging layer, including interoperability, test vectors, deployment addresses, and security requirements. This gives TapeOut an open standard that independent browsers, wallets, and apps can implement against.
The founder announced that a redesigned TapeOut website is about to launch, together with desktop clients for macOS and Windows. The announcement expands TapeOut's access layer beyond a web page and points toward a more approachable entry point for the protocol and its DeWEB applications.
The rebuilt official website went live. Its major new capability lets $BEM move between BNB Chain and X Layer through 1:1 lock-and-mint, powered by LayerZero with a typical 1–2 minute delivery time. The founder also stated that both chain contracts have verified source code, making this the first official website release that combines a new access layer with a live cross-chain asset rail.
The founder introduced ITO, or “Initial Tape-Out”: a new project-launch format centered on circuit containers. Unlike an ICO's whitepaper, an IEO's exchange endorsement, or an IDO's liquidity pool, an ITO is described as delivering a genuinely verifiable on-chain production tool or on-chain computing project. The two-month roadmap also prioritizes DeWEB developer tools, deeper BEM partnerships, miner cross-chain access, TapeOut V2 component slots with revenue sharing, and efforts to bring TapeKit into major wallets and regional smartphone platforms.
The founder endorsed the creation of two or three independent TapeOut community foundations, said the core team would remain outside foundation management, and promised continued technical support. He also pledged a personal donation of 700 BEM once BruceBlue's community foundation formally launches and begins accepting donations.
Mining rigs can now keep working and mining BEM on their original chain while also appearing on X Layer for sale, split rentals, collateralization, and one-click BEM claims. Each cross-chain rig is locked in an independent custody contract with editable ownership rights on X Layer, opening paths toward fractionalization, AMM markets, DeFi lending, and RWA-style applications.
Note: the official data report defines its measurement window as 2026-08-14 to 2026-09-09. This timeline uses 2026-08-15, the founder's first public technical prototype post, as the public narrative starting point. All times are UTC.