Website catalogue: 151 chains. Current AI connection: 14 chains; approved accounts only.

Layer 1 blockchain

Aleph Zero ticker AZERO

  • No public-data lookups yet
  • 2 reviewed developments
  • 40 cited sources

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

Tradeoffs

This view follows one way of thinking about design priorities, often called the blockchain trilemma. The design-priorities lesson sets out the counter-view. Read the design-priorities lesson.

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.
Headline figures are not comparable across chains. A theoretical peak is never a like-for-like number.

Scaling layers

No scaling layer recorded in this profile.

Capabilities

Capabilities of Aleph Zero: how each one is provided, or its research status
CapabilityHow it is providedNotes and sources
Account abstractionStructured assessment pendingNot yet assessed for any chain.
Atomic swapsUnknownNo 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 publicationUnknownThe 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 clientsUnknownThe 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 delegationStructured assessment pendingNot yet assessed for any chain.
On-chain governanceStructured assessment pendingNot yet assessed for any chain.
Parallel executionStructured assessment pendingNot yet assessed for any chain.
Payment or state channelsUnknownNo payment or state channel layer was found in the reviewed Aleph Zero documentation.
Programmable spendingNative (protocol or core-team software) Earlier definitionThe 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 messagingStructured assessment pendingNot yet assessed for any chain.
Reversible transfers or recoveryBuilt into the protocolLimited scopeTime-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
RollupsNone found Earlier definitionNo 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 transfersStructured assessment pendingNot yet assessed for any chain.
Signed partial offersUnknownNot 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.

Definitions, schema version and review history

Ecosystem & custody

Ecosystem products for Aleph Zero
Product typeStatusNotes and sources
Automated market makersUnknownCommon 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 As of Sep 29, 2026.
Issuer-native stablecoinsNone foundNeither 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 As of Sep 29, 2026.
Algorithmic stablecoinsUnknownNo algorithmic stablecoin on the Aleph Zero chain was found in the reviewed sources. As of Sep 29, 2026.
BridgesUnknownMost 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 As of Sep 29, 2026.
Block explorersFirst-partyazero.dev explorer view (Aleph Zero web wallet), Subscan Aleph Zero explorerThe 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 As of Sep 29, 2026.
Hardware walletsThinLedger (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 As of Sep 29, 2026.

Hardware-wallet custody

Hardware-wallet custody for Aleph Zero
Device makerStatusWhat users can and cannot do
LedgerThrough 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: UnknownCan: 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 As of Sep 29, 2026.
TrezorNone foundSame as native: NoCannot: 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 As of Sep 29, 2026.

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.

Public-data lookups for Aleph Zero
LookupStatusWhat it covers and its limits
Address or accountNot available yetPublic-data lookups for this chain are not built yet.
Tokens and assetsNot available yetPublic-data lookups for this chain are not built yet.
NFTsNot available yetPublic-data lookups for this chain are not built yet.
TransactionsNot available yetPublic-data lookups for this chain are not built yet.

A lookup covers one address or transaction from one provider. It is never a complete wallet, and an error or private value is reported as unknown, not zero. About public data · Connect your AI

Sourced developments

Developments: Reviewed Sep 29, 2026 Next review due Oct 9, 2026, 12:00 UTC.

Publication date · newest first

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:

Sources

Oldest dated source check: Source checked Sep 29, 2026 Next check due Oct 29, 2026.

All 40 sources were checked in the last 30 days.

  1. About Aleph Zero (external site)Aleph Zero Documentation · retrieved
  2. AlephBFT Consensus (external site)Aleph Zero Documentation · retrieved
  3. Decentralized Governance on Aleph Zero (external site)Aleph Zero Documentation · retrieved
  4. Glossary (external site)Aleph Zero Documentation · retrieved
  5. FAQ (external site)Aleph Zero Documentation · retrieved
  6. Ecosystem (external site)Aleph Zero Documentation · retrieved
  7. Validators (external site)Aleph Zero Documentation · retrieved
  8. Commission and Foundation Nodes (external site)Aleph Zero Documentation · retrieved
  9. Foundation Nomination Program (external site)Aleph Zero Documentation · retrieved
  10. Aleph Zero Mainnet 15.2 is live: more decentralization and validator accountability (Aleph Zero Blog, 3 Apr 2025; Internet Archive snapshot) (external site)Aleph Zero Foundation · retrieved
  11. Hardware requirements (external site)Aleph Zero Documentation · retrieved
  12. Running an Aleph Node on Mainnet (external site)Aleph Zero Documentation · retrieved
  13. Elections and Rewards Math (external site)Aleph Zero Documentation · retrieved
  14. Development on EVM-layer (external site)Aleph Zero Documentation · retrieved
  15. Aleph Zero’s Mainnet Launches Nov 10! (Aleph Zero Blog, 8 Nov 2021; Internet Archive snapshot) (external site)Aleph Zero Foundation · retrieved
  16. Wallets (external site)Aleph Zero Documentation · retrieved
  17. Explorer (external site)Aleph Zero Documentation · retrieved
  18. Ledger (external site)Aleph Zero Documentation · retrieved
  19. Aleph Zero smart contracts basics (external site)Aleph Zero Documentation · retrieved
  20. aleph-node repository and README (external site)Cardinal Cryptography (GitHub) · retrieved
  21. aleph-node bin/runtime/src/lib.rs (main branch, spec version 15000000) (external site)Cardinal Cryptography (GitHub) · retrieved
  22. aleph-node primitives/src/lib.rs (main branch) (external site)Cardinal Cryptography (GitHub) · retrieved
  23. aleph-node releases (external site)Cardinal Cryptography (GitHub) · retrieved
  24. AlephBFT repository and README (external site)Cardinal Cryptography (GitHub) · retrieved
  25. Running an Aleph Node on Mainnet: Building and running from source [advanced] (external site)Aleph Zero Documentation · retrieved
  26. Q4 Update (Aleph Zero Blog, 25 Nov 2025; Internet Archive snapshot of 2026-07-22) (external site)Aleph Zero Foundation · retrieved
  27. The New Aleph Zero Roadmap (Aleph Zero Blog, 1 Jul 2025; Internet Archive snapshot) (external site)Aleph Zero Foundation · retrieved
  28. Sunset of the Aleph Zero EVM (Aleph Zero Blog, 8 Jul 2025; Internet Archive snapshot) (external site)Aleph Zero Foundation · retrieved
  29. Relayers. More rewards for AZERO validators and nominators inbound (Aleph Zero Blog, 27 Nov 2024; Internet Archive snapshot) (external site)Aleph Zero Foundation · retrieved
  30. Aleph Zero EVM (external site)L2BEAT · retrieved
  31. Aleph Zero mainnet public RPC: chain_getHeader read on 2026-09-29 (external site)Aleph Zero Foundation · retrieved
  32. Aleph Zero explorer (redirects to alephzero-lite.subscan.io) (external site)Subscan · retrieved
  33. Common: The Private DeFi suite (external site)Common (Cardinal Cryptography) · retrieved
  34. Aleph Zero Most (Guardian) Bridge repository (external site)Aleph Zero Foundation (GitHub) · retrieved
  35. DeFiLlama chains API (Aleph Zero entries) (external site)DeFiLlama · retrieved
  36. USDC contract addresses (external site)Circle · retrieved
  37. Supported protocols (external site)Tether · retrieved
  38. @ledgerhq/cryptoassets 13.56.0 currency list (external site)Ledger (npm package via jsDelivr) · retrieved
  39. ledger-alephzero: Aleph Zero app for Ledger devices (external site)Zondax (GitHub) · retrieved
  40. Aleph Zero wallet (external site)Trezor · retrieved

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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