<div align="center"><img src="Roots_of_knowledge.gif" alt="" style="max-width: 80%; height: auto;"><p style="font-size:14px;color:#666;margin-top:6px;"><em>"Roots of Knowledge" — art by Yuhdo.eth</em></p></div> > [!info] Status > Each Bonfire is a local knowledge graph today. The Knowledge Network connects them into a shared, queryable layer — designed and rolling out. The mechanics below describe how participation works. The Knowledge Network is the shared layer where Bonfires can **optionally** expose their knowledge to external queries — and earn from it when their knowledge proves useful. ## Privacy by default, monetization by choice Every Bonfire operator — hosted or self-hosted — chooses what to expose. Participation is never mandatory, and you share only what you decide to. You earn proportionally to what you make available and how useful it turns out to be. ## Exposure levels You control how much of your knowledge the network can reach, across four levels — and you can mix them (taxonomy for some topics, full DataRooms for others): 1. **Taxonomy only** — your topic labels are discoverable, but content stays private. Outsiders can see *"a Bonfire exists that covers X"* without accessing the underlying knowledge. Lowest exposure. 2. **HyperBlog generation** — external queries trigger your Bonfire to generate a [[files/Using Your Bonfire/HyperBlogs|HyperBlog]] from the query. You share synthesized content, not raw knowledge. Monetized via **x402**. 3. **Chat interface** — outsiders converse with your agent directly, gated or paid. 4. **DataRooms** — expose specific segments of your knowledge graph via micro-subscriptions and payment-gated access. ## Retrieval economics When your Bonfire's knowledge helps answer a query on the network, that retrieval is tracked: - **What query** triggered it - **How useful** the knowledge was - **Who asked** — attribution in both directions Earnings flow via **x402 micropayments** (USDC on Base) when outsiders pay to access your synthesized content, chat, or DataRooms. Two things drive how much your Bonfire earns: - **Relevance** — how semantically close your knowledge is to what people are actually querying (the [[files/Knowledge Economy/kEngrams|kEngram]] geometry). - **Retrieval** — how often your knowledge is actually used across the network. More exposure → more potential retrievals → more earned. Useful knowledge that gets queried, earns. ## Self-hosted participation Self-hosted Bonfires participate on the same terms as hosted ones. You run your own infrastructure, pay nothing to Bonfires for hosting, and opt into sharing at whatever level suits you. The protocol is open; the incentive layer is opt-in. ## The bigger picture The network becomes a marketplace of ideas where knowledge has measurable value, contributors are attributed and compensated, and communities keep sovereignty over what they share. Every query answered and retrieval tracked is a signal in a market for understanding — a mirror of what people collectively want to know, and what they collectively know. --- **See also:** [[files/Knowledge Economy/kEngrams|kEngrams]] · [[files/Using Your Bonfire/HyperBlogs|HyperBlogs]] · [[files/Knowledge Economy/Knowledge-Backed Economy|Knowledge-Backed Economy]]