AltLayer has opened the airdrop token application.

Author: Climber, Golden Finance

On January 17th, Binance's new coin mining launched the 45th project, AltLayer (ALT), and announced the official launch of multiple ALT spot trading pairs on January 25th. During this period, AltLayer released the Season 1 airdrop rules, distributing 3% of the total supply of tokens to active users of multiple associated projects.

The previous surge of the modular network Celestia has made AltLayer, which has a similar concept, highly anticipated by the market. AltLayer's combination of the Restaking concept has attracted more attention from investors. In this issue, Golden Finance will comprehensively analyze this popular RaaS (Rollup as a service) project and sort out the high-quality ecological projects it cooperates with.

I. What is AltLayer?

AltLayer is a highly scalable application-specific execution layer system. It is characterized by providing application-specific chains, i.e., blockchains customized for individual applications. Application developers do not build on blockchains such as Ethereum, but build their own blockchains from scratch through platforms like AltLayer.

AltLayer provides a versatile rollup stack that has been integrated with numerous mainstream modular technology stacks to meet various rollup requirements. In addition, AltLayer is the only RAAS platform that natively supports WASM.

AltLayer can be seen as a standalone Optimism system, obtaining security from the underlying Layer 1 (e.g., Ethereum) or Layer 2 networks (e.g., Arbitrum and Optimism). It is designed for a modular and pluggable framework for the multi-chain and multi-VM world.

At its core, AltLayer is a system composed of multiple execution layers similar to optimistic rollups (referred to as flash layers), tailored for specific applications and can be used once, making it highly resource-optimized.

AltLayer has also collaborated with EigenLayer to launch a new service project, Actively Validated Service (AVS), called Restaked Rollup. It adopts mechanisms from any Rollup stack (such as OP Stack, Arbitrum Orbit, Polygon CDK, ZK Stack, etc.) and provides enhanced security, decentralization, interoperability, and efficiency by leveraging EigenLayer's restaking mechanism.

Restaked rollups are designed using three modular components: VITAL (AVS for decentralized verification aggregation state), MACH (AVS for fast final determination), and SQUAD (AVS for decentralized sequencing).

In simple terms, AltLayer provides a low-threshold, low-code rollup construction and operation solution, integrating various solutions of rollups on the market for users in a service aggregator manner, allowing users to assemble and combine them like building with LEGO bricks.

Due to the competition for block space between popular and less popular dApps on general chains (such as Ethereum), and the waste of resources caused by customizing application chains for dApps, a temporary execution layer protected by Layer 1 can be built to solve this issue. However, this temporary execution layer must be scalable, and AltLayer is building a transient execution layer system driven by optimistic rollups.

Transitioning from a general chain (such as Ethereum) to a specific application chain will become a common trend for mainstream dApps. Currently, dApps such as DefiKingdoms, Yuga Labs, and dYdX have begun or planned to establish their own custom application chains.

Previous application chains also disrupted the unit composability, leading to isolated dApps unable to connect with users of other dApps, thereby limiting the functionality set that dApps can provide. AltLayer allows developers to regain composability after settlement on Layer 1.

AltLayer also improves existing rollups such as Arbitrum and Optimism, making sorters (nodes executing transactions) more decentralized. In addition, it is designed for the multi-chain and multi-VM world, supporting EVM and WASM.

WASM is a new type of code that can be executed in modern browsers, created and defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Essentially, WASM (commonly referred to as Ethereum 2.0) has all the functionality of EVM and comes with additional features.

In summary, a key innovation brought by AltLayer to the solution space of general chain extension is a highly elastic execution environment.

AltLayer's approach is to use the Rollup solution as cloud computing resources, where the Rollup solution is only called when a dApp is expected to have a considerable amount of access demand and a single-layer network cannot handle it. Once the demand gradually decreases, the dApp can move back to a single-layer network.

II. Background Information and Token Economics 

AltLayer was founded in 2021 and raised $22.8 million through two rounds of private token sales, with 18.50% of the total ALT token supply sold at prices of $0.008/ALT and $0.018/ALT.

On July 1, 2022, AltLayer completed a $7.2 million seed round of financing, led by Polychain Capital, Jump Crypto, and Breyer Capital, with participation from Gavin Wood, the founder of Polkadot, former Coinbase CTO and former a16z partner Balaji Srinivasan, Circle co-founder Sean Neville, and Synthetix and Bodhi Ventures co-founders Kain Warwick and Jordan Momtazi.

In August of last year, Binance Labs announced a strategic investment in AltLayer.

The core team of AltLayer is Chinese, with co-founder Yaoqi Jia being a former co-founder and CTO of Zilliqa, and one of Forbes Asia's 30 Under 30 elites. He obtained a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the National University of Singapore and has published several top journal papers in the fields of network security, privacy, and distributed system security.

The co-founder and CEO of AltLayer is Tan Jun Hao, who was a core developer of Synthetix, responsible for developing and maintaining the project's smart contracts and front-end. He was also a senior software engineer at Kyber Network, involved in the development and optimization of decentralized exchanges.

Token Economics:

ALT is the native utility token of AltLayer, used for the following functions:

• Economic Bonds: ALT tokens will be used with restaked assets to provide economic staking. This staking can be reduced if malicious behavior is detected.
• Governance: ALT token holders can vote to decide governance issues.
• Protocol Incentives: Operators in the AltLayer ecosystem can receive ALT tokens as rewards for their services.
• Protocol Fees: Network participants need to use ALT tokens to pay for internal service fees within the network.

ALT total supply is 10 billion, with an initial circulation of 1.1 billion. Investors are allocated 18.5% of the total supply, Binance Launchpool is allocated 5%, the team is allocated 15%, strategic advisors are allocated 5%, protocol development is allocated 20%, the treasury is allocated 21.5%, and the ecosystem and community are allocated 15%.

III. Major Project Developments

In December of last year, AltLayer introduced the concept of Restaked Rollups, aiming to address rollup-related issues by leveraging EigenLayer's restaking mechanism. The project also announced its deployment as a provider for Polygon CDK, providing convenience for users seeking to deploy ZK-driven L2 on Ethereum to access Polygon CDK.

In September, AltLayer announced the launch of the new rollup framework Turbo. This framework is an optimized rollup stack designed to help the ecosystem build scalable, low-latency, and seamless immersive interactive features.

In August, AltLayer partnered with Orbiter Finance. In the same month, AltLayer announced that Rollups Suite has expanded support for OP Stack, which is an open-source modular codebase of Optimism Collective. DApp developers will now be able to experiment and build based on the OP Stack codebase, while AltLayer is responsible for managing all node infrastructure of the project, allowing developers to focus on their core business and technical operations.

In July, AltLayer announced the adoption of Celestia's Data Availability (DA) layer to address data availability issues and verify Rollup states in a trustless manner. As part of the integration, AltLayer retrieves chain data from Rollup, compresses it, and uploads it to the Celesta network, allowing AltLayer to fully reconstruct rollup states using data from Celestia.

In May, AltLayer launched the first multi-sorter Rollup. In April, AltLayer supported the L3 blockchain Arbitrum Orbit, allowing users to launch any L3 application bound to Arbitrum within minutes using no-code tools.

In February, AltLayer announced that it would open testing permissions for its "rollup-as-a-service" dashboard to 100 developers, allowing them to participate in testing its no-code rollup solution in preparation for the upcoming full launch.

IV. Ecosystem Projects

As a modular Ethereum scaling solution and RaaS platform, AltLayer provides an open execution environment, supports on-demand scaling, and gives developers more flexible application space. It has already partnered with many protocols, including several star projects.

Currently, AltLayer's product and customer ecosystem is gradually growing, with mature infrastructure providers such as EigenLayer, Espresso, Astria, Radius, Celestia, EigenDA, Avail, OP Stack, ZKStack, Arbitrum Orbit, and Polygon CDK. Other service providers include: Blockscout, Dexguru, Parsec Finance, Connext, Celer, HyperLane, Transak, Halliday, and many other client and collaborative projects.

1. Infrastructure:

Avail

Avail is a modular blockchain focused on data availability: sorting and recording blockchain transactions without the need to download the entire block to prove block data availability. This allows it to scale in ways that a single blockchain cannot achieve. Off-chain scaling solutions can unleash their full potential by transferring data availability to Avail. Independent chains can use Avail to enhance the security of validators to ensure data availability.

Originally part of Polygon, Avail became its own independent entity on March 23, 2023. Avail launched its first testnet in 2022 and is now using the second testnet version, Kate.

EigenLayer

EigenLayer is a middleware protocol based on Ethereum that introduces the concept of restaking, allowing Ethereum nodes to restake their staked ETH or LSD tokens into other protocols or services that require security and trust, thereby gaining dual rewards and governance rights. It also extends Ethereum's consensus layer utility to various middleware, data availability layers, sidechains, and other protocols, allowing them to enjoy Ethereum-level security at a lower cost.

Espresso Systems

Espresso Systems is an EVM-compatible blockchain that provides scaling and privacy systems for Web 3 applications. By combining the PoS consensus protocol with zk Rollup mechanism, Espresso Systems packages multiple transactions in a more resource-efficient manner.

In March 2022, Espresso Systems completed a $32 million seed round of financing.

Radius

Radius is a shared sorting layer designed to eliminate harmful MEV and censorship while creating economic value for aggregation. It uses encrypted memory pools with PVDE (Practical Verifiable Delay Encryption), which is an advanced cryptographic and ZK-based solution. PVDE ensures that the transaction sorting process is trustless, preventing centralized sorters from engaging in frontrunning, sandwiching, and censoring transactions.

In June 2023, Radius completed a $1.7 million pre-seed round of financing.

Blockscout

Blockscout is a tool for inspecting and analyzing EVM-based blockchain, serving as a block explorer for the Ethereum network.

Dexguru

Dexguru is a decentralized exchange (DEX) analytics platform that helps users better understand cryptocurrency trading markets on various decentralized exchanges.

In April 2021, DexGuru completed a $1 million seed round of financing, and in February 2022, completed a $5 million financing.

Hyperlane

Hyperlane is an interoperability platform that allows developers to build cross-chain applications. In September 2022, it completed an $18.5 million financing, aiming to provide developers with message APIs and SDKs to easily build applications accessible from any blockchain.

Connext

Connext is a trust-minimized cross-chain communication protocol that enables blockchain composability. Developers can use Connext to build cross-chain applications. Connext is a leading protocol for fast, fully non-custodial transfer and contract calls between EVM-compatible chains. Anyone can use Connext to send value transactions or call data across chains. In June 2023, Connext completed a $7.5 million strategic financing, with a valuation of $250 million; in July 2021, it completed a $12 million Series A financing; in March 2021, it completed a $2.2 million seed round of financing.

Celer

Celer is a blockchain interoperability protocol that enables a seamless user experience for accessing tokens, DeFi, GameFi, NFTs, governance, and more across multiple chains. Developers can use the Celer inter-chain messaging SDK to build native cross-chain dApps for efficient liquidity utilization, coherent application logic, and shared state.

Omni

Omni is an interoperability layer for Ethereum, providing core infrastructure support for all modular applications on Ethereum. When building applications, developers will no longer be confined to building within the scope of a single Rollup or execution environment—they will be able to seamlessly build applications that exist throughout the Ethereum ecosystem, while accessing all users and all capital. Omni, formerly known as the DeFi protocol Rift Finance, raised $18 million in funding in February 2022. In June 2023, Omni Network went live on the testnet.

Superbridge

Superbridge is an Ethereum rollups solution. With Superbridge, users can bridge Ether and other tokens in and out of any rollups supported by OP Stack or Arbitrum Nitro. Superbridge aims to support deposit and withdrawal functions for every rollups ecosystem.

Orbiter Finance

Orbiter Finance is a decentralized cross-rollup bridge for transferring native assets on Ethereum. In Orbiter Finance, there are two roles: Sender and Maker. When the Sender initiates a transfer, the Maker provides liquidity. Smart contracts ensure the security of this process. In November 2022, Orbiter Finance completed a $3.2 million seed round of financing, with a valuation of $40 million.

2. Payments:

Singularity

Singularity is an instant checkout solution for web3 games. Through Singularity, developers can easily create blockchain wallets for any user joining their game, record all transactions on-chain, and provide users with a smooth shopping cart and checkout experience, allowing them to make payments in any fiat or cryptocurrency on any chain.

transak

Transak supports the conversion of fiat and cryptocurrencies for a global user base. It achieves this by providing API-driven fiat and crypto on/off-ramp payment methods for over 130 crypto assets, solving the complexity of user KYC, risk monitoring and compliance, payment methods, and customer support. Transak's widget can be integrated into applications with just a few lines of code.

Ramp

Ramp is a non-custodial full-stack payment infrastructure that allows users to purchase cryptocurrencies without leaving dApps or wallets. In August 2023, Ramp raised $300 million in funding; in November 2022, it completed a $70 million Series B financing; in December 2021, it completed a $52.7 million Series A financing; in June 2021, it completed a $10 million seed round of financing.

3. DeFi

Injective

Injective is an interoperable Layer 1 blockchain that powers the next generation of DeFi applications. Injective uniquely offers plug-and-play financial infrastructure primitives, such as high-performance on-chain decentralized trading infrastructure, decentralized bridges, oracles, and a composable smart contract layer with CosmWasm.

Catalyst

Catalyst is an open-source protocol that provides liquidity between modular blockchains. With Catalyst, any new modular chain can automatically connect liquidity and transact with any chain, including Ethereum and Cosmos liquidity hubs. In April 2023, Catalyst completed a $4.2 million seed round of financing.

Deri Protocol

Deri Protocol is a DeFi approach to trading derivatives: hedging, speculation, arbitrage, all on-chain. Using the Deri protocol, trades are executed under the AMM paradigm, and positions are tokenized as NFTs, highly composable with other DeFi projects. Deri Protocol provides an on-chain mechanism to trade risk exposure accurately and efficiently, forging one of the most important blocks in DeFi infrastructure.

ALLO

Allo is a Layer1 platform focused on lending and trading real-world assets, offering tokenization services for high-value assets such as real estate or art, supporting fractional ownership to enable a wider range of investors to participate in investments.

4. NFTs and Social

Avive

Avive is building social infrastructure to provide an interoperable layer for on-chain and off-chain sovereign footprints, including off-chain geographic data and on-chain relationships. This infrastructure aims to enable individuals to connect, interact, and share information in a decentralized, fair, and free social world. It features various social elements such as LBS (Location-Based Services), SBT (Soul-Bound Identity), and DeSoc.

AsMatch

AsMatch is a Web3 social matching mobile app based on astrology. It combines AI-generated content (AIGC) supported by Manta Network, zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) and zkSBT, and a token-incentivized matching earning model on the BNB chain. The app connects users for dating, social networking, and professional contacts through a matchmaking engine centered around astrology.

Lemonade

Lemonade is a no-code d-commerce platform where brands and creators can seamlessly utilize web3, including creating immersive events, NFT ticketing and utilities, and community rewards.

5. GameFi:

Double Jump

Website: https://www.doublejump.tokyo/

Double Jump is a Japanese blockchain game developer focused on developing blockchain games. Its main product is the blockchain game My Crypto Heroes, a role-playing game where users can trade items and characters as non-fungible tokens to earn cryptocurrency. In April 2022, Double Jump raised 3 billion yen in Series C financing, with lead investors Jump Crypto, Jafco Ventures, and Amber Group, and co-investors Wemade, Distributed Capital, and Dentsu Ventures.

Cometh

Website: https://www.cometh.io/

Cometh is a blockchain game development studio that offers users income-generating NFTs, integrating DeFi and NFT features into games. It also owns the blockchain game Cometh Battle. In May 2022, Cometh raised $10 million in seed funding.

Cellula

Website: www.cellula.life

Cellula is a fully on-chain autonomous life simulation strategy game. Players nurture and evolve unique life forms, using various strategies to survive and compete.

Polychain Monsters (PMON)

Website: https://polychainmonsters.com/

Polychain Monsters is essentially a trading game created using blockchain technology, drawing inspiration from the popular trading card mechanism of the 90s Pokémon.

Polychain Monsters was founded in early March 2021 and raised $740,000 in funding led by Moonrock Capital and Morningstar Ventures. The IDO (Initial DEX Offering) event held on Polkastarted in the same month helped the founders raise approximately $100,000.

BladeDAO

Website: www.bladedao.games

BladeDAO is a decentralized on-chain gaming ecosystem based on zkSync Era, built by a group of crypto-native degen players. Its first self-developed medieval-themed dungeon-crawling game, Legends of Valoria (LOV), featuring PvE and PvP gameplay, is set to be released at the end of June or early July this year.

Galaxia Studios

Website: https://www.galaxiastudios.com/

Galaxia Studios is a Web3 product studio focused on blockchain game development, specializing in fully on-chain games, dynamic NFTs (dNFTs), and EVM infrastructure.

Summary

General-purpose blockchains like Ethereum have a growing need for scalability, especially as dApps continue to expand with the growth of the crypto economy. This requires highly scalable Rollup solutions. The first-mover advantage of AltLayer, a RaaS (Rollup as a Service) infrastructure, positions it to potentially capture market share in the future.

However, the RaaS track, especially in rapidly iterating blockchain technology, may quickly surpass AltLayer if it cannot maintain a technological advantage. Additionally, AltLayer's RaaS protocol involves multiple technical and business scenarios, which may present some technical challenges and security risks. Therefore, AltLayer still needs to undergo market and time validation.

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