The Elder protocol features a modular, decentralized architecture designed for scalability, security, and interoperability. This page outlines the main components and their roles in the Elder ecosystem.

Elder Architecture Docs

Official Elder architecture documentation

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Elder’s architecture is built on Cosmos SDK and CometBFT, enabling a decentralized shared sequencer and secure, scalable rollup ecosystem.

Elder Protocol Architecture Diagram

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Architecture Components

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Users

Users send transactions directly to the Elder Network. Each transaction is tagged with a specific rollup ID, and fees are deducted within the network itself.

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Elder Network

The Elder network is a decentralized shared sequencer built using Cosmos SDK on the CometBFT consensus mechanism. It processes user transactions and creates a super-block, comprising blocks from various rollups registered with Elder.

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Data Availability Layer (DA Layer)

The DA layer is crucial for blockchain systems. It guarantees that all transaction data is accessible to network participants, ensuring transparency, security, and the ability to validate the state of the blockchain at any time.

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Rollups / Rollapps

These are stack-agnostic rollups. They pull transactions of a block from Elder and execute them on their own VM. They could be an EVM rollup or any alt-VM state machine as well.

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Settlement Layer

The Settlement Layer (usually Ethereum) finalizes transactions, recording them immutably on the ledger. It ensures agreement among participants on transaction outcomes, providing finality, security, and trust in the system’s integrity and the transfer of assets or values. The rollups will send fault/fraud proofs on the Settlement Layer.

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Watch Tower

The Watch Tower is independent and stateless (very light) and can submit disagreement transactions to the sequencer node in case of rootHash mismatch. If a mismatch is found, a disagreement transaction is sent by the watch tower and it can slash the registration stake of rollups.
Elder’s architecture brings together users, rollups, shared sequencing, data availability, and settlement for a robust, secure, and scalable blockchain ecosystem.
For more details and diagrams, see the official Elder architecture documentation.