What Is The Espresso Network?

The Espresso Network is a base layer purpose-built to provide rollups and app-specific chains with fast finality and secure crosschain composability. It operates as a decentralized consensus protocol (Layer 1) able to confirm rollup blocks in a few seconds, providing order consistency and data availability, but without executing transactions itself.

The infrastructure is designed to address the fragmentation across blockchain platforms by providing real-time communication between chains, enabling unified liquidity and seamless interoperability for payments and other crosschain activities.

Espresso’s tech is based on an original R&D effort to create the fastest possible decentralized protocol for transaction confirmations, including development of a new open source consensus protocol, HotShot (a proof-of-stake variant of HotStuff), and a technique called verifiable information dispersal (VID) for scalable data availability. Espresso currently supports 5+ MB/s throughput with transaction finality in seconds (with upgrades planned targeting 25 MB/s throughput and subsecond finality in 2026).

Espresso’s Core Functionality

When a rollup or chain integrates with Espresso, its sequencer begins publishing blocks to Espresso as soon as they’re created. Espresso’s validators run a custom BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerant) consensus protocol called HotShot to maintain a consistent view of all published blocks. Espresso validators confirm blocks and their transaction ordering in a matter of seconds.

A protocol-level restriction ensures only blocks matching a rollup’s Espresso-confirmed blocks will settle on any other L1 (e.g., Ethereum) to which the rollup maintains a bridge. By reading a rollup’s state from Espresso, other rollups, chains, applications, interop protocols, and even CEXs can act on this real-time information without needing to wait for slow settlement or relying on centralized sequencers.

Key Characteristics of the Espresso Network

• Delivers transaction confirmations in seconds (versus 12+ minutes for Ethereum L1 finality) using HotShot consensus
• Provides scalable data availability by utilizing a technique called Verifiable Information Dispersal that encodes block data into erasure-coded chunks that are disseminated among nodes in a way that recoverability is ensured
• Stack and VM agnostic, currently supporting rollups built with Arbitrum Nitro, OP Stack, and Cartesi’s Linux-based system
• Compatible with Ethereum L1 settlement while providing faster finality
• Secured by the $ESP token and a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism

Who is the Team Behind Espresso?

The Espresso Network was originally developed by the team at Espresso Systems, which comprises a diverse group of contributors from around the world, including developers, designers, and researchers. We have raised roughly $60 million from leading investors in technology and crypto, including a16z, Greylock Partners, Electric Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Polychain Capital.