I am ashamed to admit I didn't really understand how this all worked until recently. I have played prospectors for a while on the WAX Blockchain and knew there was a CPU, NET & RAM components but never understood them.
Well I have done some digging and wanted to explain it to you all in case you don't fully understand it either.
So when you process a transaction on the WAX blockchain it is pretty quick and free. Right? Well, sort of.
The WAX blockchain has 3 resources that help govern the blockchain and keep it in check and I got to say guys it's pretty ingenious. So the entire WAX blockchain fits into 128GB of "hard drive space" (RAM). But because of the way the blockchain is setup the blockchain is run from a servers/computers RAM (Random Access Memory). It's insanely quicker than a Hard Drive for multiple reasons that are not important to this article. So since the size of the blockchain is limited, it's a resource that needs to be "bought". The CPU and NET are a little different but still need to be "bought" if you use a lot of it.
Lets break down each one.
RAM
Like I mentioned above 128GB is the limit. Now WAX transactions are stupid small like in the bits, so the blockchain can hold millions of transactions. What users need to do is purchase RAM so that they can perform more operations on the blockchain. 1 WAX equals 8,490 Bytes at time of writing.
CPU
Your transactions require a processor to process the transaction. So based on how big and difficult of a transaction you have it will take time to process. Usually transactions are 0.2 to 1 millisecond. The difference CPU has to RAM though is that every 3 days you replenish your used up CPU. So in theory if you don't play a lot of WAX games and don't perform a lot of transactions you may never need to "buy" CPU. But if you perform a ton of transactions you may need to so it doesn't interfere with your gameplay.
NET
Think of NET in the same way as CPU. Transactions require network traffic to be sent to the nodes. You get a little bit that replenishes every 3 days but you can buy more bandwidth if you need.
When I say "buy" I don't really mean you have to purchase it. What is super cool about WAX is that all you have to do is STAKE your WAX tokens to either RAM, CPU or NET to get more of them. I personally use wax.bloks.io to Stake my WAX. The good thing about Staking instead of buying is that you can always unstake so you aren't loosing anything but just ensuring the longevity of the blockchain.
Go here https://wax.bloks.io/wallet/resources/stake and login. On the left hand column you will see "Stake CPU/NET". Click on that bad boy.
The 3 red boxes are what you need to pay attention to if you are looking to get more resources.
Receiver of Stake: 99% of the time this is your WAX address. Unless you are staking for someone else.
Amount of CPU to Stake: How many WAX tokens you want to stake for CPU
Amount of NET to Stake: How many WAX tokens you want to stake for NET
As you can see from my session I have 2.6 WAX staked to RAM and 4 WAX staked to CPU
I was getting a ton of CPU notifications when trying to play Alien Worlds so I wanted to up my CPU. Realistically I am playing a crap ton of WAX games in the last 3 days so I don't see myself ever needing to stake more than 4 WAX to CPU. What will probably happen is me staking more to RAM and that is the resource that doesn't auto replenish.
The same process for staking applies to RAM. Click "Buy/Sell RAM" on the left hand column. Make sure your name is in the RAM Receiver field. Then you can select to buy based on WAX or Bytes. I have done WAX and just did 1 WAX at a time until I am at a comfortable level.
If any of you are playing WAX games but don't have any WAX, you can buy some at Newdex.io. However what I have done is played Prospectors.io and earned Gold in that game. You can exchange it for PGL in the game. Once you have PGL go to https://newdex.io/trade/prospectorsw-pgl-wax and exchange your PGL for WAX. It's a super simple and free way to get some WAX
