Swan 2.0: Inference Cloud

Decentralized AI Inference Marketplace — Swan Chain's Next Evolution

Overview

Swan 2.0 marks Swan Chain's evolution from a UBI-subsidized computing network into a market-driven AI inference marketplace. Built as the Inference Cloud, it connects AI model consumers with GPU providers through a decentralized coordination layer, enabling anyone to access 40+ AI models via a single API key — or earn rewards by sharing their GPU resources.

Try Swan Inference: https://inference.swanchain.io

Swan 2.0 builds on the network bootstrapped by UBI (Swan 1.0). Existing UBI mechanisms continue operating during the transition. See SIP-002 for the full transition proposal.

What Changes in Swan 2.0

Aspect	Swan 1.0 (UBI Model)	Swan 2.0 (Inference Cloud)
Provider Rewards	UBI sampling + paid jobs	Contribution-based rewards + inference revenue
Payment	SWAN tokens only	Stablecoins (USDC/USDT) + SWAN tokens
Provider Roles	Separate ECP and FCP	Unified Computing Provider (CP)
Collateral	SWAN tokens only	SWAN tokens (stablecoin option under governance review)
Work Verification	Random sampling tasks	Periodic benchmarks (math, code, latency)
Workloads	Training, ZK proofs	AI inference (LLM, image, audio, embedding, multimodal)

Architecture

Swan Inference uses a hub-and-spoke architecture where the central platform coordinates between consumers and providers:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    External Consumers                            │
│              (Meganova AI, LiteLLM, Direct API)                 │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                              │
                              ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                      SWAN INFERENCE                              │
│  ┌─────────────────┐          ┌─────────────────────────────┐   │
│  │  REST API        │          │  WebSocket Hub              │   │
│  │  (Port 8100)     │─────────▶│  (Port 8081)                │   │
│  │                  │          │  - Provider connections      │   │
│  │  /api/v1/*       │          │  - Inference dispatch        │   │
│  │  /v1/* (OpenAI)  │          │  - Load balancing            │   │
│  │                  │          │  - Health monitoring          │   │
│  └─────────────────┘          └─────────────────────────────┘   │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                    │                         │
                    ▼ WebSocket               ▼ HTTP (fallback)
┌───────────────────────────────┐  ┌─────────────────────────────┐
│      GPU Providers            │  │   External Endpoints         │
│  (H100, A100, 4090, 3090)    │  │   (vLLM, TGI, OpenAI API)   │
└───────────────────────────────┘  └─────────────────────────────┘

Request Flow:

1. Consumer sends a request to the REST API

2. The Hub checks for available WebSocket providers

3. If WebSocket providers are available: route via WebSocket (primary path)

4. If no WebSocket providers: route to External Endpoints (fallback)

5. Response includes X-Swan-Connection-Mode header indicating which route was used

Key Components

Component	Role
REST API	OpenAI-compatible consumer-facing API
WebSocket Hub	Real-time provider connections, inference dispatch, load balancing
Marketplace Service	Model catalog, search, pricing
Payment Ledger	Off-chain usage tracking, invoicing
Benchmark Sampler	Periodic quality checks and scoring
Settlement Batcher	On-chain settlement via MerkleDistributor

OpenAI-Compatible API

Swan Inference provides a drop-in replacement for OpenAI's API. Any existing OpenAI SDK or integration works with Swan Inference by changing the base URL and API key.

Supported Endpoints

Endpoint	Description
/v1/chat/completions	Chat-based text generation (streaming supported)
/v1/embeddings	Text embeddings
/v1/images/generations	Image generation
/v1/audio/transcriptions	Audio-to-text transcription
/v1/models	List available models

Example Request

curl https://inference.swanchain.io/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-swan-YOUR-KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "llama-3.2-3b",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}]
  }'

Supported Models

Swan Inference hosts 42+ AI models across five categories:

Category	Examples	Pricing Model
LLM	Llama 3, DeepSeek, Qwen, Mistral	Per input/output token
Image	FLUX, Stable Diffusion	Per request
Audio	Whisper	Per request
Embedding	BGE, E5	Per token
Multimodal	Llama Vision, Qwen-VL	Per token

Model availability is shown in real time at inference.swanchain.io/models.

Dual Token Payment Model

Swan 2.0 introduces stablecoin payments alongside SWAN tokens:

For Consumers

• Pay for inference in USDC (default marketplace currency)

• Transparent per-token or per-request pricing

• API key authentication (sk-swan-* keys)

For Providers

Providers earn through two revenue streams:

1. Inference Revenue — Stablecoin (USDC) earnings from serving inference requests

2. SWAN Token Rewards — Contribution-based rewards from the daily reward pool (replacing UBI)

When paid inference generates protocol revenue, the split is:

Recipient	Share
Provider	70% (paid in request currency)
Protocol Treasury	20%
SWAN Buyback & Burn	10%

The platform charges a 5% platform fee on each transaction.

Quality Assurance

Benchmarks

The benchmark worker runs periodically (default: every 24 hours) to verify provider quality:

Test	Pass Threshold
Math Accuracy	≥ 50%
Code Generation	≥ 50%
Response Latency	≤ 5000ms

Providers that fail benchmarks may be suspended from receiving requests. With slashing enabled, providers that fail consecutively can have a portion of their collateral slashed (configurable, default 10% per consecutive failure).

Health Monitoring

• Automatic health checks with configurable thresholds for WebSocket and external endpoints

• Circuit breaker to prevent cascading failures

• Load balancing with health-aware routing (round-robin, least-connections, or health-aware strategies)

• Model warmup to pre-load models and reduce cold-start latency

Provider Leaderboard

Providers are ranked by a performance-based leaderboard using availability metrics, success rates, and latency.

Provider Onboarding

Requirements

• GPU with ≥ 24 GB VRAM (≥ 48 GB recommended for priority routing)

• Swan's computing-provider agent installed

• No public IP, domain, or SSL setup required — providers connect via WebSocket behind NAT/firewall

Registration Flow

1. Sign up at the Swan Inference dashboard and get a provider API key (sk-prov-*)

2. Install the computing-provider agent on your GPU machine

3. Deposit collateral (stablecoin or SWAN tokens)

4. Pass the initial benchmark verification

5. Begin receiving inference requests and earning rewards

Collateral

Providers must deposit collateral to become active on the network. See Computing Provider Collateral for details on collateral types, amounts, and the 7-day refund waiting period.

On-Chain Settlement

Swan Inference uses a MerkleDistributor smart contract for gas-efficient batch settlement:

1. The platform aggregates provider earnings into daily settlement batches

2. A Merkle tree is computed from all provider balances

3. The Merkle root is submitted on-chain

4. Providers claim their earnings by submitting a Merkle proof

This approach minimizes gas costs by settling many provider payments in a single on-chain transaction.

Smart Contracts

Contract	Address (Swan Chain Mainnet)
ProviderCollateral	0x557f306f917009cf83c32b8b32a79202e79948e5
SWAN Token	0xAF90ac6428775E1Be06BAFA932c2d80119a7bd02

Swan Chain Mainnet operates on Chain ID 254 with RPC at https://mainnet-rpc01.swanchain.io. See Network Info for full details.

Transition from UBI (Swan 1.0)

The transition from UBI to contribution-based rewards follows a 3-phase plan per SIP-002:

Phase	Duration	Description
Phase 1: Hybrid	Month 1	75% UBI + 25% contribution-weighted rewards
Phase 2: Contribution-Weighted	Month 2	50% UBI + 50% contribution-weighted rewards
Phase 3: Pure Contribution	Month 3+	100% contribution-based (governance vote required)

During the transition, existing ECP and FCP roles merge into a unified Computing Provider (CP) classification. All providers are evaluated equally based on contribution metrics. See Computing Provider Income for the full contribution score formula.

Learn More

• Inference Marketplace — How the marketplace works: pricing, routing, and settlement

• Computing Provider Income — Contribution score formula and reward distribution

• Computing Provider Collateral — Collateral requirements and slashing

• SIP-001: FCP Subsidy Program — Stage 1 funding for computing providers

• SIP-002: Unified CP & Contribution Rewards — Full transition proposal