Layer 1 blockchain
Aleph Zero ticker AZERO
Summary
Aleph Zero mainnet, live since November 2021, runs aleph-node, a Rust node built with Substrate that authors blocks with Aura and finalizes them with AlephBFT. Validators bond at least 25,000 AZERO, and holders nominate them directly or through nomination pools. Each era of about 24 hours has 96 sessions of 900 one-second blocks. Each session a committee drawn from the validators authors blocks in Aura slots, and a finality committee runs AlephBFT, an asynchronous Byzantine fault tolerant protocol that builds a DAG of units to agree which blocks are final and is secure while fewer than one third of the committee is malicious. The docs say there is no automatic slashing: poor performers are kept out of the committee, and so from rewards, for at least 10 eras, and malicious cases go to governance. The 15.2 upgrade (April 2025) shipped the ban for low AlephBFT scores switched off. 23101315202129
Design
- System
- Layer 1 blockchainIndependent proof-of-stake layer 1 with its own validators; it does not settle to another chain, and its docs say it is not a parachain. Aleph Zero EVM was shut down in 2025; it was a separate layer 2 that settled to Ethereum and used AZERO for gas, with withdrawals due by 31 August 2025, so it is not a layer of this chain. The Foundation's November 2025 update says the chain was put in a low-cost hibernation mode after its core developer stepped away; a public node still returned new blocks on 2026-09-29.
- Settlement family
- Its own design
- Scarce resource
- Stake (proof of stake)
- State model
- Accounts
- Finality
- Other
- Who makes blocks
- Session committee members author blocks in one-second Aura slots in turn. Every validator with at least 25,000 AZERO bonded enters the era committee without KYC, and session committees are drawn from it. In November 2024 the Foundation ran 10 of 14 finalization committee seats among nearly 190 active validators; its docs say that from 17 December 2024 the committee holds one Foundation node, AZF/Turing, chosen every session, and 13 community nodes. An April 2025 Foundation post says committee selection became random per session without reserved seats.
- Fork choice
- No open, weight-based chain selection decides finality. Validators build on the highest correct block they know, and a block becomes final, and by the docs irreversible, once the session's AlephBFT committee agrees on it; blocks not yet finalized carry no such guarantee. The node README says the session authorities also produce multisignatures of finalized blocks. A single sudo key in the runtime can dispatch root-level calls.
Qualifications
- Settlement family · Partial. Recorded as other. Aleph Zero's own terms: aleph-node, a Substrate-based node that authors blocks with Aura and finalizes them with AlephBFT, organised in sessions and eras, with nominated proof of stake, nomination pools and ink! smart contracts compiled to Wasm.
- Finality · Partial. Recorded as other. Aleph Zero's own terms: AlephBFT finality. A rotating finality committee builds a DAG of units to agree which Aura-authored blocks are final; the docs call finalized blocks irreversible, and safety holds while fewer than one third of the committee is malicious. The docs say there is no automatic slashing, so finality is backed by suspensions and governance bans, not by automatic stake penalties; the ban for low AlephBFT scores shipped switched off in the 15.2 upgrade, and whether it has been enabled was not verified.
- Slashing · Contested. The consensus page says Aleph Zero has no automatic slashing and plans none, and the glossary says suspended validators' funds are not slashed. The validators page and the glossary's nominator entry say staked coins can be slashed for malicious behaviour. The reviewed runtime keeps the staking module's slash settings (deferred 13 eras, paid to the treasury); whether any offence report can trigger them was not verified.
- Sudo key · Applies. The reviewed runtime code includes a sudo module whose key can dispatch calls with root authority, and the treasury's approve and reject origins are that key. Root authority can also force the chain into safe mode and pause chosen calls through the safe-mode and transaction-pause modules. Whether the key is set on mainnet today, who holds it and whether it has been used were not verified in the reviewed sources.
- Evm layer · Not applicable. Aleph Zero EVM (chain ID 41455) was a separate layer 2 built with Arbitrum Orbit on Gelato's rollup service, using AZERO for gas and settling to Ethereum; it was never a layer of this chain. The Foundation announced its sunset in July 2025 with withdrawals due by 31 August 2025, and L2BEAT lists it as archived.
- Privacy products · Not applicable. The Shielder privacy pool, the first zkOS product, was deployed as a contract on Aleph Zero EVM (version 0.1.0, labelled beta) and offered on Arbitrum through Cardinal Cryptography's Common app; it does not run on this chain. The zkOS repository now says development moved to Cardinal's BlankSquare project.
- Maintenance status · Partial. The Foundation's November 2025 update says everything needed to keep mainnet running was handed over, costs were cut and the chain put in as much of a hibernation mode as possible, while a DAO transition and a legal claim against Cardinal Cryptography remain open. The latest node release is 15.2.0 (March 2025), which the Foundation announced as live on mainnet on 3 April 2025. A public endpoint returned a new block on 2026-09-29.
- Tps · Contested. The only figure is a lab test of an earlier Go prototype, and the docs say the current node might reach lower numbers; it stays in the classified claims list and is not an observed rate.
Tradeoffs
- Emphasizes
- Security and Scalability Contested
- Gives up
- Breadth of finalization and independent stewardship. Each session a small committee finalizes blocks (14 nodes in the Foundation's 2024 description), and the docs say the Foundation's own node sits in every session, which an April 2025 change to reserved seats leaves unconfirmed. The runtime keeps a sudo key that can dispatch root-level calls and alone approves treasury spends. Since 2025 the Foundation describes the chain as in a low-cost hibernation mode after its core developer stepped away, so upgrades depend on maintainers it was still arranging in November 2025.The FAQ calls Aleph Zero decentralized and leaderless and says it aims to help solve the blockchain trilemma with a scalable and secure public network; reading that as all three corners at once is contested. Validator entry is permissionless at a 25,000 AZERO bond, but how many independent operators run today's validators was not verified. Finality rests on committee agreement backed by suspensions and governance bans; the docs disagree on whether stake can be slashed.
- Full node at home
- Demanding 1112232526The validator hardware page asks for a desktop x86-64 CPU with at least 8 cores, 32 GB of RAM, a 500 GB NVMe SSD for a pruned node (2 TB for an archive node, which RPC nodes need) and a 100 Mbps or faster low-latency link. The page is written for validators; apart from the archive storage figure for RPC nodes, it gives no spec for a node that does not validate. Setup uses a node-runner script and a weekly database snapshot, but the snapshot host named in the mainnet guide did not resolve in DNS on 2026-09-29, after the Foundation said it dismantled its AWS infrastructure in 2025.
- Throughput claims
- Lab benchmark: 89,600 tx/s 1Controlled benchmark; not observed network behavior.A test of an earlier Go implementation; date not stated on the page.112 AWS nodes spread across five continents; instance types not stated.The docs describe a simulated load of 89,600 transactions per second with 416 millisecond validation times, run on an earlier Go implementation, not on today's Rust node. The same page says the current Rust implementation, integrated with Substrate, might reach lower numbers than the test. No method, transaction mix, committee size or bandwidth assumptions are published on the page. No observed mainnet rate was measured in this review, and throughput figures published for the retired EVM layer are not attributed to this chain.
Scaling layers
No scaling layer recorded in this profile.
Capabilities
| Capability | How it is provided | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Account abstraction | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Atomic swaps | Unknown | No hash-time-locked or other trust-minimized swap mechanism was documented for Aleph Zero. ink! contracts could host one, but none was reviewed. |
| Authenticated data publication | Unknown | The ecosystem page lists Aleph Zero Cloud, file storage supported by IPFS, but the reviewed sources show no commitment to that data recorded on chain or a way for readers to check it. 6 |
| Light clients | Unknown | The node README says session authorities produce multisignatures of finalized blocks, a building block for light verification, but no light client for Aleph Zero was documented in the reviewed sources. 20 |
| Native staking or delegation | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| On-chain governance | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Parallel execution | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Payment or state channels | Unknown | No payment or state channel layer was found in the reviewed Aleph Zero documentation. |
| Programmable spending | Native (protocol or core-team software) Earlier definition | The runtime includes a contracts module that runs ink! smart contracts compiled to Wasm, live on mainnet per the docs, plus multisig and proxy account modules. A planned move to RISC-V contracts through pallet-revive had not shipped at review. 19212627 |
| Protocol-verified messaging | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Reversible transfers or recovery | Built into the protocolLimited scope | Time-delayed proxies in the runtime's proxy module: an account can add a proxy with a delay, the proxy must announce a call that runs only after that delay, and the account can reject the announcement meanwhile, so a delayed transfer can be cancelled. The runtime code allows up to 32 pending announcements per proxy. Scope is limited to part (a), set up in advance: Aleph Zero's docs do not describe the delay option, the runtime has no recovery module, and a completed transfer is not reversed. 102123 |
| Rollups | None found Earlier definition | No rollup anchors to the Aleph Zero chain. Its nearest feature, Aleph Zero EVM, was a layer 2 on the Ethereum network built with Arbitrum Orbit, so it did not settle to this chain, and it was sunset with withdrawals due by 31 August 2025. 12830 |
| Shielded transfers | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Signed partial offers | Unknown | Not yet assessed under this row's current definition. |
Reading these values
- How this feature is provided
- Built into the protocol, core-team software or independent software says where a feature lives and who can change it. These are implementation layers, not quality: core-team software is not closer to the protocol than independent software.
- Structured assessment pending
- The shared review has not assessed this feature for any chain yet (Account abstraction, Native staking or delegation, On-chain governance, Parallel execution, Protocol-verified messaging and Shielded transfers). That does not mean it is absent, and a chain’s profile may already describe it.
- Unknown
- The review has not established this for this chain under the current definition; the note beside it says why. Unknown is not absent and not a low score. A feature reads “Not present” only when a source shows it is absent.
- Earlier definition
- Payment or state channels, Programmable spending and Rollups keep the earlier definition until the next fact-check. There, “Native” does not separate the protocol from core-team software, “Ecosystem software” does not say who publishes it, and “Partial” does not say which layer.
- Reading across rows
- The list of capabilities is incomplete. Do not read these rows as a chain leading or lagging overall.
Ecosystem & custody
| Product type | Status | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Automated market makers | UnknownCommon DEX (Cardinal Cryptography) | Common's site still lists a DEX and a bridge for the Aleph Zero chain, but the DEX address it links did not resolve on 2026-09-29, and Cardinal Cryptography has stepped away from maintaining the chain. DeFiLlama lists no Aleph Zero chain entry; its only Aleph Zero entry is the retired EVM layer. No working automated market maker on this chain was confirmed. 273335 |
| Issuer-native stablecoins | None found | Neither Circle's USDC contract list nor Tether's supported-protocol list includes Aleph Zero. USDC and USDT existed on the retired EVM layer only as tokens from its canonical bridge. 143637 |
| Algorithmic stablecoins | Unknown | No algorithmic stablecoin on the Aleph Zero chain was found in the reviewed sources. |
| Bridges | UnknownMost guardian bridge (Aleph Zero chain and Ethereum) | The Most bridge links the Aleph Zero chain and Ethereum through ink! and Solidity contracts and a relayer run by guardians; its code is in the Foundation's GitHub. Its app address and the bridge page Common links did not resolve on 2026-09-29, so current operation was not confirmed. The other bridges in the docs served the retired EVM layer. Risk: Transfers depend on the guardian set that signs them and on the bridge contracts; a wrapped asset is only as sound as that set and those contracts. Who runs the guardians after Cardinal Cryptography stepped away was not verified. 143334 |
| Block explorers | First-partyazero.dev explorer view (Aleph Zero web wallet), Subscan Aleph Zero explorer | The docs name Subscan's Aleph Zero explorer and the explorer view of azero.dev, the Foundation's web wallet, as the main explorers. On 2026-09-29 Subscan's address redirected to a reduced lite instance whose pages load in the browser, so its data was not reviewed. Listing is not a quality or completeness check, and explorer data is provider-indexed. 4161732 |
| Hardware wallets | ThinLedger (through azero.dev and other wallets) | See custody rows: Ledger devices sign through azero.dev and other wallets with an Aleph Zero device app built by Zondax, and Trezor states that it does not support Aleph Zero. 183940 |
Hardware-wallet custody
| Device maker | Status | What users can and cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| Ledger | Through an intermediaryazero.dev web wallet with the Zondax-built Aleph Zero Ledger app; the FAQ also mentions other supported wallets without naming which handle LedgerSame as native: Unknown | Can: Connect a Ledger running the Aleph Zero app to the azero.dev web wallet and add AZERO accounts, per Aleph Zero's Ledger guide; the app's published list of supported calls includes transfers Can: Join nomination pools with the Ledger app through azero.dev or other supported wallets, per Aleph Zero's FAQ Cannot: Manage AZERO in Ledger Live; Aleph Zero's FAQ says it is not yet available there Cannot: Find Aleph Zero in Ledger's published currency list (@ledgerhq/cryptoassets 13.56.0)Aleph Zero's guide asks Ledger users to close Ledger Live, which can conflict with azero.dev, and to use Chrome or Brave. The device app's source is published by Zondax; Ledger's own support article on Aleph Zero did not render as readable text, so the vendor's statement was not read. 5183839 |
| Trezor | None foundSame as native: No | Cannot: Manage AZERO in Trezor Suite; Trezor's page says it does not currently support Aleph ZeroTrezor's page asks users who used this asset with Trezor before to contact support. Aleph Zero's wallet list names Ledger and Tangem as hardware options, not Trezor. 1640 |
Public data
iKnow Blockchain has no public-data lookups for Aleph Zero yet. This is a limit of the service, not a statement about the network.
| Lookup | Status | What it covers and its limits |
|---|---|---|
| Address or account | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Tokens and assets | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| NFTs | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Transactions | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
Sourced developments
Developments: Reviewed Sep 29, 2026 Next review due Oct 9, 2026, 12:00 UTC.
Publication date · newest first
-
Foundation reported a handover and a low-cost hibernation mode for Aleph Zero mainnet
The Aleph Zero Foundation said everything needed to keep mainnet running, including the main websites and the aleph-node repository, had been handed over; websites had moved from Digital Ocean to dedicated servers, its AWS infrastructure had been dismantled, and nearly all cost-saving steps were done to keep the chain in as much of a hibernation mode as possible. It said the move to a DAO was far from complete, and that after a board member resigned and negotiations with Cardinal Cryptography failed, it had filed a claim against Cardinal, of which Cardinal had recently been notified, and on which it would not comment until a Swiss court or a settlement resolves it.
- Implementation:handover and cost cutting reported as done
- Release:announced in a Foundation blog post
- Activation:mainnet still produced blocks on 2026-09-29 (one public RPC read)
Sources: Aleph Zero Foundation (via Internet Archive) — Q4 Update (external site) · Aleph Zero Foundation (via Internet Archive) — The New Aleph Zero Roadmap (external site) · Aleph Zero Foundation (via Internet Archive) — Aleph Zero Blog index (Internet Archive snapshot of 2026-07-22) (external site) · Aleph Zero Foundation — Aleph Zero mainnet public RPC: chain_getHeader read (external site)
-
Foundation proposed updating aleph-node to the latest Polkadot SDK and adding RISC-V contracts
The Foundation said several firms and individuals had been identified to update the aleph-node repository to the latest Polkadot SDK and then add the pallet-revive module so the chain can run RISC-V contracts written in ink! 6. It called the first cost and time estimates reasonable, roughly a month of work not counting testnet deployment and stabilisation, and said it was waiting to proceed. The July 2025 roadmap first set out the RISC-V plan after the EVM layer sunset.
- Proposal:proposed by the Foundation; developers identified, awaiting cost and time decisions
- Implementation:not started as of the November 2025 update
- Release:no release
- Activation:not activated; newest node release 15.2.0 (2025-03-21)
Sources: Aleph Zero Foundation (via Internet Archive) — Q4 Update (external site) · Aleph Zero Foundation (via Internet Archive) — The New Aleph Zero Roadmap (external site) · Cardinal Cryptography (GitHub) — aleph-node releases (external site)
Topics your AI can explain
Your AI can explain these topics for Aleph Zero through the connection, with sources.
Known gaps
What this profile's review did not establish:
- The live Aleph Zero website and blog (alephzero.org) answer automated readers with a browser challenge, so blog posts were read from Internet Archive snapshots; posts after the 2026-07-22 snapshot were not checked.
- Who holds the mainnet sudo key, and whether it is still used, was not verified.
- The current number of validators, the size of today's session and finality committees, and stake concentration were not read from chain state; the figures come from the Foundation's 2024 docs and blog.
- The docs disagree on slashing: the consensus page and glossary say there is no automatic slashing, while the validators page says stake can be slashed. Whether any offence path triggers the runtime's slash settings was not verified.
- The mainnet runtime version was not read from chain; runtime facts come from the aleph-node main branch.
- Finality latency and whether blocks were still being finalized on 2026-09-29 were not measured; only two header reads were made, and the second, 29 minutes after the first, showed about one new block per second.
- The mainnet database snapshot host named in the docs did not resolve in DNS on 2026-09-29, the testnet endpoint in the docs did not resolve either, and whether other node-operator services still work after the Foundation's cost cutting was not verified.
- Storage needs of a non-validating node, and current archive size, were not verified.
- Whether the Common DEX and the Most bridge still operate was not confirmed; their app addresses did not resolve on 2026-09-29, and who runs the Most guardians today was not verified.
- No light client, atomic swap mechanism or recovery path set up in advance was documented for the chain; the search was limited to the docs, the node repository and the runtime.
- Delayed proxies were assessed from the aleph-node runtime code: the main branch and the release 15.2.0 tag configure the same proxy announcements, but the mainnet runtime's metadata was not read, and Aleph Zero's proxy guide does not describe delays.
- The docs still describe Aleph Zero EVM and its endpoints as live; those pages predate the 2025 sunset.
- Ledger's own support article on Aleph Zero did not render as readable text, so Ledger support rests on Aleph Zero's docs, the Zondax app repository and Ledger's currency list.
- The outcome of the Foundation's legal claim against Cardinal Cryptography and the planned move to a Swiss Association were not known at review.
- Whether the planned upgrade to the latest Polkadot SDK and RISC-V contracts has started was not verified after November 2025.
- The current year's issuance and per-era reward were not verified; the docs give first-year figures for the schedule that began on 14 October 2024, and whether the Foundation nomination program and automatic payouts still run was not checked.
- Whether the automatic ban for low AlephBFT scores was ever enabled after the 15.2 upgrade, and whether the Foundation's node still holds a seat in every session after reserved seats were removed, was not verified.
Sources
Oldest dated source check: Source checked Sep 29, 2026 Next check due Oct 29, 2026.
- About Aleph Zero (external site)
- AlephBFT Consensus (external site)
- Decentralized Governance on Aleph Zero (external site)
- Glossary (external site)
- FAQ (external site)
- Ecosystem (external site)
- Validators (external site)
- Commission and Foundation Nodes (external site)
- Foundation Nomination Program (external site)
- Aleph Zero Mainnet 15.2 is live: more decentralization and validator accountability (Aleph Zero Blog, 3 Apr 2025; Internet Archive snapshot) (external site)
- Hardware requirements (external site)
- Running an Aleph Node on Mainnet (external site)
- Elections and Rewards Math (external site)
- Development on EVM-layer (external site)
- Aleph Zero’s Mainnet Launches Nov 10! (Aleph Zero Blog, 8 Nov 2021; Internet Archive snapshot) (external site)
- Wallets (external site)
- Explorer (external site)
- Ledger (external site)
- Aleph Zero smart contracts basics (external site)
- aleph-node repository and README (external site)
- aleph-node bin/runtime/src/lib.rs (main branch, spec version 15000000) (external site)
- aleph-node primitives/src/lib.rs (main branch) (external site)
- aleph-node releases (external site)
- AlephBFT repository and README (external site)
- Running an Aleph Node on Mainnet: Building and running from source [advanced] (external site)
- Q4 Update (Aleph Zero Blog, 25 Nov 2025; Internet Archive snapshot of 2026-07-22) (external site)
- The New Aleph Zero Roadmap (Aleph Zero Blog, 1 Jul 2025; Internet Archive snapshot) (external site)
- Sunset of the Aleph Zero EVM (Aleph Zero Blog, 8 Jul 2025; Internet Archive snapshot) (external site)
- Relayers. More rewards for AZERO validators and nominators inbound (Aleph Zero Blog, 27 Nov 2024; Internet Archive snapshot) (external site)
- Aleph Zero EVM (external site)
- Aleph Zero mainnet public RPC: chain_getHeader read on 2026-09-29 (external site)
- Aleph Zero explorer (redirects to alephzero-lite.subscan.io) (external site)
- Common: The Private DeFi suite (external site)
- Aleph Zero Most (Guardian) Bridge repository (external site)
- DeFiLlama chains API (Aleph Zero entries) (external site)
- USDC contract addresses (external site)
- Supported protocols (external site)
- @ledgerhq/cryptoassets 13.56.0 currency list (external site)
- ledger-alephzero: Aleph Zero app for Ledger devices (external site)
- Aleph Zero wallet (external site)
Report an error
Found something wrong or out of date? Reporting is free, and every chain goes through the same process. Published corrections appear in the public log.
Funding disclosure
Funding disclosures appear here when an upkeep arrangement exists, in the form “Upkeep funded by [name]; verdicts unaffected.” The funder ledger has not been published yet. Neutrality & funding