A Guide to the Nexus OS

A roundup of what’s live, what’s growing, and what’s next across the Nexus OS

The Nexus OS is the operating layer for a new kind of market structure where compute, markets, and identities run on proofs, not promises.

This roundup highlights five pillars now shaping the Nexus experience —leaderboard, ecosystem, nodes, rewards, and explorer — and shows how they fit together as one coherent system.

Leaderboard — Competition that fuels contribution

The new Nexus Leaderboard is live and built to recognize top contributors, spark friendly competition, and make every week a fresh race to the top. Everyone starts at zero each week. As you contribute compute, you rise through leagues and see exactly where you stand across the global network.

Your league is determined by points earned in the current week via the Nexus web app or CLI. Find the Leaderboard in the Nexus web app (desktop and mobile) under “Leaderboard.”

How to climb:

Contribute compute via the web app or CLI.
Keep contributing through the week to push your total higher.
Watch your rank rise and your league badge update as you cross thresholds.

Today the leaderboard celebrates contribution, but over time, placement may influence opportunities and rewards.

Ecosystem — From bold idea to production track

In just over a year, Nexus has grown into one of the most ambitious experiments in verifiable computation.

What began with a small group of cryptographers and engineers is now a rapidly scaling ecosystem — nearly 100 partnerships spanning zero‑knowledge tech, AI, compute, DeFi, Layer‑1s, and Web2.

These partners help extend our reach, integrate new technologies, and bring Nexus to high‑quality teams and communities worldwide.

Nodes — Your terminal, your supercomputer

For contributors who want precision, automation, and performance, the Nexus CLI is the fastest on‑ramp to contribute compute.

Why CLI?

Precision and automation — Scriptable, version‑controlled, unattended operation.
Performance — Streams jobs/logs with minimal overhead.
Visibility — Real‑time stdout for proofs, pings, and rewards—perfect for power users.

The browser app keeps entry frictionless. Both CLI and web talk to the same Orchestrator and earn identical rewards. The ability to connect you nodes in the Nexus OS means you can run CLI and web nodes, all while keeping an eye on everything.

Bottom line: whether you’re a weekend hacker or an enterprise ops team, the CLI gives you a clean path from zero to your first verified proof — in minutes.

Rewards — See your work, earn more

A new progress bar in the Nexus web app shows every step your device takes while contributing compute. It’s a small UI change powered by deeper upgrades that improve access, rewards, and how proving works.

What changed under the hood:

Broader access — Smarter task assignment reaches more contributors so more people can participate and earn.
Higher rewards per task (CLI) — Many CLI jobs now yield up to 10× more NEX Testnet Points than before.
Weekly reward limits — Caps on weekly point claims promote fair distribution; you may see brief delays between submission and claim.

What does it mean to “prove”?

Your device connects and runs its own instance of the zkVM.
The network sends a program and input data.
The zkVM executes, producing a zero‑knowledge proof that the computation was correct—without revealing private data.
You submit the proof plus performance metrics.
Your account earns rewards (points and, in time, tokens). The process repeats while connected.

Explorer — The interface to on‑chain truth

If the blockchain is the infrastructure, the explorer is the interface. It turns raw blocks and cryptographic state into human‑readable insight — so anyone can see what actually happened onchain.

What is a blockchain explorer?

It’s a search engine and analytics dashboard for a chain. You can look up transactions, addresses, blocks, contracts, and tokens — and understand fees, confirmations, and activity patterns.

How it works (under the hood):

Full nodes ingest the same data as any participant.
An indexer parses blocks and transactions into structured tables (transactions, addresses, tokens, contracts).
A clean UI and API expose that data for browsing and programmatic use.

Why explorers matters:

Everyday users verify payments and track confirmations.
Developers monitor deployments and debug interactions.
Analysts scan for trends, velocity, and anomalies.
Auditors and regulators examine provenance and patterns.

Decoding key metrics:

Transactions — Volume and status reveal activity and congestion.
Total contracts — A proxy for builder momentum and composability.
Fees (gas) — Demand and economic incentives in real time.
Total addresses — Directional signal of adoption (with caveats).
Total tokens — Economic diversity, authenticity, and distribution.

As more of life moves onchain, explorers will become essential interfaces for verification and insight. They bring readability to transparency.

The Nexus OS, in one glance

Put together, these pieces form the Nexus OS:

Leaderboard motivates contribution and spotlights the people powering the network.
Ecosystem partners and global community turn research into production.
Nodes (via web or CLI) connect your machines to the world’s verifiable supercomputer.
Rewards make progress visible and fairly distributed.
Explorer renders on‑chain reality legible for everyone.

From Testnet milestones to a production‑ready stack, the direction is clear. As we look to mainnet, the invitation is open: contribute compute, build applications, and help define markets that run on proof.

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