libertaria-stack/docs/RFC-0105_Sovereign_Time_Protocol.md

RFC-0105: Sovereign Time Protocol (STP)

Overview

The Sovereign Time Protocol (STP) defines the temporal dimension of the Libertaria network. It rejects the limitations of relative system ticks in favor of a sovereign, absolute, and ultra-high-precision time coordinate system.

1. Sovereign Timestamp

Time is represented as Attoseconds (10^-18 s) since an absolute Anchor Epoch.

• Type: u128 (128-bit unsigned integer).
• Range: ~10^21 years (exceeds Heat Death of the Universe).
• Precision: Sub-atomic timescale precision.

1.1 Anchor Epochs

To allow interoperability with legacy systems ("The Old World") and objective reality, STP supports multiple anchors:

• Unix1970: 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (Legacy compatibility).
• BitcoinGenesis: 2009-01-03 18:15:05 UTC (The Immutable Anchor).
• SystemBoot: Monotonic relative time (Local/Ephemeral).
• GPSEpoch: 1980-01-06 (Precision GNSS).

2. Temporal Epochs (Discretized Time)

To facilitate synchronization, key rotation, and periodic maintainence without central coordination, time is divided into Epochs.

2.1 Definition

An Epoch is a fixed duration slice of the timeline.

• Duration: 1 Hour (3600 seconds).
• Boundary: Aligned to the Anchor. (e.g., Top of the hour).

2.2 Usage

Epochs serve as the heartbeat of the Sovereign Node:

1. Key Rotation: Ephemeral encryption keys expire at Epoch boundaries.
2. Session Renewal: Long-lived sessions must re-handshake every N epochs.
3. Cron Scheduling: Nodes use Epoch.timeRemaining() to sleep efficiently until the next synchronization window.
4. Rate Limiting: Resource quotas are reset per Epoch.

2.3 Implementation

const time = @import("l0-transport/time.zig");
const now = time.SovereignTimestamp.now();
const epoch = time.Epoch.fromTimestamp(now);

// Check if we need to rotate keys
if (epoch.index > last_rotation_epoch) {
    rotateKeys();
}

// Sleep until next epoch
const sleep_duration = epoch.timeRemaining(now);

3. Wire Format

• SovereignTimestamp: 17 bytes (u128 + u8 Anchor).
• CompactTimestamp: 9 bytes (u64 nanoseconds + u8 Anchor) - used for Kenya devices (IoT).