The mechanics behind all of this are designed to keep the network decentralized and self-balancing, without requiring most holders or computation customers to think about them day to day.
Nodes group into clusters, and each cluster operates at a tier that sets how much it can compute in parallel. A node joins a cluster by staking ARX up to that tier's requirement. Anyone can form a cluster, but joining one isn't an automatic right: the cluster's authority decides which nodes are admitted, and each admitted node still has to meet the tier's stake threshold. Computation customers stay free to move their work to whichever cluster best meets their needs, which keeps operators competitive on both price and performance.
Within each cluster, the right to order and process computations rotates between nodes in proportion to their total stake, and whichever node is performing that work receives the computation fees for it. Fee income therefore tracks the volume of computation a node actually performs, and operators compete to attract delegation in order to expand the capacity they can offer. A dedicated set of Recovery Nodes stakes ARX as collateral to hold the secret shares for a given MXE, receiving a share of fees as compensation, and a portion of every fee accrues to a treasury that keeps the network resilient over time.
Governance runs on two tracks. A Technical track, voted on by node operators, governs core protocol parameters like staking thresholds and fee splits. A Community track, open to tokenholders who lock their ARX, governs everything non-technical — and rewards longer lockups with greater voting power. Both tracks go live later this year.