Celer Network: Bring Internet Scale to Every Blockchain

TL;DR

Celer Network introduces a scalable, trust-free off-chain platform that enhances blockchain performance and privacy, enabling the rapid development of decentralized applications through innovative layered architecture and cryptoeconomics.

Contribution

It presents a comprehensive off-chain scaling solution with a layered architecture, novel routing, and cryptoeconomic incentives to support scalable, privacy-preserving dApps on existing blockchains.

Findings

Achieves an order of magnitude higher throughput than existing solutions

Supports fast, generic off-chain state transitions

Provides a flexible, layered off-chain ecosystem

Abstract

Off-chain scaling techniques allow mutually distrustful parties to execute a contract locally among themselves instead of on the global blockchain. Parties involved in the transaction maintain a multi-signature fraud-proof off-chain replicated state machine, and only resort to on-chain consensus when absolutely necessary (e.g., when two parties disagree on a state). Off-chain scaling is the only way to support fully scale-out decentralized applications ("dApps") with better privacy and no compromise on the trust and decentralization guarantees. It is the inflection point for blockchain mass adoption, and will be the engine behind all scalable dApps. Celer Network is an Internet-scale, trust-free, and privacy-preserving platform where everyone can quickly build, operate, and use highly scalable dApps. It is not a standalone blockchain but a networked system running on top of existing and future blockchains. It provides unprecedented performance and flexibility through innovation in off-chain scaling techniques and incentive-aligned cryptoeconomics. Celer Network embraces a layered architecture with clean abstractions that enable rapid evolution of each individual component, including a generalized state channel and sidechain suite that supports fast and generic off-chain state transitions; a provably optimal value transfer routing mechanism that achieves an order of magnitude higher throughput compared to state-of-the-art solutions; a powerful development framework and runtime for off-chain applications; and a new cryptoeconomic model that provides network effect, stable liquidity, and high availability for the off-chain ecosystem.