Layer 1 blockchain
Archway ticker ARCH
Summary
Proof-of-stake chain (archway-1) built on the Cosmos SDK with CometBFT consensus; the Archway Foundation's public node reported Archway v10.1.0 on CometBFT 0.38 on 2026-09-27, a line covered by CometBFT's critical January 2026 Tachyon advisory, and no fixed build on Archway nodes was verified. The chain started with 86 genesis validators under a cap of 100; governance cut the cap to 40 in September 2024 (proposal 51), and only 18 validators were bonded when checked, holding about 19% of ARCH supply. Unbonding takes 21 days; double-signing is slashed 5% and downtime 0.01%. A block commits once validators with more than 2/3 of voting power precommit it, assuming less than 1/3 is byzantine. Archway is secured by its own validators, not by Cosmos Hub stake. 34569313233
Design
- System
- Layer 1 blockchainArchway is a sovereign Cosmos SDK chain (chain ID archway-1, genesis 3 July 2023) with its own ARCH-staked validator set and permissionless CosmWasm contracts. The on-chain module list read on 2026-09-27 has no consumer-chain or mesh security module, so its security is not Cosmos Hub security.
- Settlement family
- Cosmos SDK
- Scarce resource
- Stake (proof of stake)
- State model
- Accounts
- Finality
- Economic finality
- Who makes blocks
- Validators take turns proposing blocks in proportion to their voting power, per the CometBFT specification. On 2026-09-27 the largest of the 18 bonded validators held about 17.7% of voting power, the three largest together about 34.8% (just over a third), and the eight largest about 67.8% (just over two thirds).
- Fork choice
- No fork choice in the Nakamoto sense: each height is decided by precommits from more than 2/3 of voting power. Two conflicting commits would need at least a third of voting power to double-sign, which is attributable and slashable. If more than a third is offline or refuses to vote, the chain halts instead of forking; with the 2026-09-27 set, the three largest validators acting together could halt it.
Qualifications
- Ibc · Applies. IBC is messaging between independently governed chains, checked by on-chain light clients of each counterparty. It is how USDC, ATOM and other outside assets reach Archway, but connected chains are not Archway layer 2s. It is recorded in the bridge row of this profile.
- Shared security · Not applicable. Archway's consensus is run only by its own ARCH-staked validators. The module list read on 2026-09-27 contains no consumer-chain or mesh security module, and no arrangement lending another chain's stake to Archway was found.
- Tps · Unknown. No sourced, classed throughput measurement for Archway was found. Two blocks 1,000 heights apart on 2026-09-27 were about 5.7 seconds apart on average, and the block gas limit is 300 million; those are design and interval facts, not capacity figures.
- Developer rewards · Applies. The protocol pays contracts a share of network value: on transactions that call contracts, half of the fee goes to contract rewards and the other half is burned; a quarter of newly minted ARCH is set aside for contract rewards, paid in proportion to each contract's gas use against the block gas limit; and contract owners may add a flat fee. Transactions that touch no contract pay their whole fee to validators and delegators.
Tradeoffs
- Emphasizes
- Security and Scalability
- Gives up
- Breadth and depth of consensus participation. Only 18 validators were producing blocks on 2026-09-27 under a cap that governance cut from 100 to 40, the three largest held just over a third of voting power, and only about a fifth of ARCH supply was bonded to active validators. Full nodes are asked to have 64 GB of memory. Archway halts rather than forks when more than a third of voting power is missing.Security here means fast, attributable finality backed by Archway's own ARCH stake; it is not Cosmos Hub security, and the stake behind it is small relative to supply. Scalability means a dedicated contract chain with blocks about 5.7 seconds apart in a 2026-09-27 sample, linked to other chains over IBC; no sourced throughput figure was found. Paying contract developers a share of fees and inflation is an incentive design choice, not a trilemma corner.
- Full node at home
- Demanding 11718Archway's node prerequisites page lists a multi-core x86-64 CPU, 64 GB of RAM, 1 TB of NVMe storage and a 100 Mbps connection for a full node; the validator page lists the same and warns that needs rise as the network grows. No current pruned snapshot size was verified: the snapshot provider named in the chain registry returned not found on 2026-09-27. Memory is the main barrier for typical home machines.
- Throughput claims
- No classified figure recorded
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 | Swaps inside one Archway contract call settle all-or-nothing within a transaction, but no hash-time-locked or equivalent cross-party swap mechanism in use on Archway was verified. IBC token transfers are not atomic swaps. |
| Authenticated data publication | Unknown | Not yet assessed under this row's current definition. |
| Light clients | Built into the protocolLimited scope | CometBFT consensus produces the validator-signed commits that IBC light clients check, and Archway's IBC connections rely on on-chain light clients that verify each counterparty's consensus. Limit: clients left without updates expire and need a governance recovery vote; on 2026-09-27 only 8 of the 86 clients behind open transfer channels were active. Archway recovered an XPLA client in 2025 and an Injective client in 2026, and the Injective one had expired again. 1011131534 |
| 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 anchored to Archway was reviewed. IBC channels are messaging paths, not payment channels. 34 |
| Programmable spending | Native (protocol or core-team software) Earlier definition | Archway runs CosmWasm contracts, and on-chain parameters read 2026-09-27 let anyone upload and instantiate code. Archway adds modules that let contracts schedule their own execution at a future block, control accounts on other chains over IBC, receive a share of fees and inflation, and charge a flat fee per call. 781923242526 |
| Protocol-verified messaging | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Reversible transfers or recovery | Unknown | Not yet assessed under the current definitions; the module list shows the standard vesting module and Archway's own contract modules, but no feature for cancelling, delaying or reclaiming a payment or for recovering an account was found. Contract-based recovery setups may exist but were not reviewed. 8 |
| Rollups | Unknown | The review did not verify absence, so the rule that absence needs a source makes this unknown rather than not present. Earlier finding: no rollup settling to Archway was found in reviewed sources. IBC-connected chains are separate sovereign chains, not rollups. 34 |
| 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 | UnknownAstrovault (closed 31 August 2026) | Archway's homepage still features Astrovault, but Astrovault's own site said on 2026-09-27 that it closed on 31 August 2026; what happened to its pools was not checked. The homepage also lists Bolt Liquidity, which announced a beta launch on Archway in July 2025 with USDC pools for OSMO, ATOM, TIA and ARCH; Bolt prices trades from an oracle, not a pool curve, and whether it still trades on Archway was not verified. No other live exchange contract on Archway was verified. ARCH trading on other chains is not an Archway venue. 27282930 |
| Issuer-native stablecoins | None found | Circle's USDC list includes Noble but not Archway. USDC on Archway is an IBC voucher from Noble (listed as USDC.n in the chain registry), of which about 34,000 existed on Archway on 2026-09-27, plus a contract-wrapped version of that voucher. Neither is issuer-native USDC on Archway. 21635 |
| Algorithmic stablecoins | Unknown | Algorithmic or hybrid stablecoins on Archway were not reviewed. |
| Bridges | Native to the protocolIBC (ibc-go), Axelar (over IBC; client expired) | IBC connects Archway to other IBC chains through light clients. On 2026-09-27 Archway had 99 open transfer channels, but only 8 of the 86 clients behind them were active: Cosmos Hub, Osmosis, Noble, Neutron, Dymension, Agoric, XPLA and BeeZee. Both clients to Axelar, the bridge that historically carried Ethereum-side assets, had expired. Risk: An IBC voucher is only as sound as its origin chain, its light client and the path it took. Most of Archway's IBC routes were frozen by expired clients when checked, so vouchers from those chains cannot move until governance recovers the client; a 2026 recovery for Injective lapsed again. Axelar-bridged assets also depend on Axelar's own validator set. 111213141534 |
| Block explorers | Established in the ecosystemstaking-explorer.com, Mintscan, EZ Staking, UTSA, Silk Nodes, Exploreme, moon-runners | The chain registry lists eleven explorers and Archway's docs twelve, mostly run by validators. staking-explorer.com showed live data matching on-chain queries; the others render in the browser and could not be content-checked, and Mintscan's page loaded only as a generic shell without readable Archway data. Several listed links no longer resolve, and one docs-listed domain now serves unrelated gambling content. Listing is not a quality or availability check. 12231 |
| Hardware wallets | ThinLedger (through Keplr) | See the custody rows: Ledger Wallet has no Archway support, but Archway's Ledger guide and FAQ tell Ledger users to connect through Keplr, which signs with Ledger's Cosmos device app. Trezor says it does not support Archway. 2021363739 |
Hardware-wallet custody
| Device maker | Status | What users can and cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| Ledger | Through an intermediaryKeplr, a third-party wallet, using Ledger's Cosmos device appSame as native: No | Can: Keep an Archway account key on a Ledger device and sign in Keplr with Ledger's Cosmos app, the route Archway's Ledger guide and FAQ give Can: Use the Cosmos Hub key path (coin type 118), which Archway shares, per Keplr's Archway entry and the chain registry Cannot: Manage ARCH inside Ledger Wallet itself: Archway is not among Ledger Wallet's Cosmos chain integrations Cannot: Find a Ledger coin page for Archway; the URLs tried returned not foundArchway's own Ledger guide says to install Ledger's Cosmos app and import the device into Keplr, and Keplr's Ledger guide says it uses the Cosmos app for Cosmos-based chains; the route was not tested end to end, and no Ledger page names Archway. 12021363738 |
| Trezor | None foundSame as native: No | Cannot: Manage archway-1 accounts in Trezor Suite; Trezor's Archway page says Trezor does not support ArchwayThird-party signing paths for Archway accounts with a Trezor were not exhaustively checked. 39 |
Public data
iKnow Blockchain has no public-data lookups for Archway 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: Review overdue Reviewed Sep 27, 2026; next review was due Oct 7, 2026, 12:00 UTC.
Publication date · newest first
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Astrovault, Archway's main exchange, says it has closed
Astrovault's homepage now carries a one-line notice that it closed on 31 August 2026. Astrovault is the exchange Archway's own homepage features, and its AXV token appears in Archway's asset list. No fuller closure announcement was found by the review tools.
- Implementation:closure stated on the project's homepage
- Release:no software release involved
- Activation:closed as of 31 August 2026 per the notice; contract state not checked
Sources: Astrovault — Astrovault homepage (closure notice) (external site) · Archway — Archway homepage (external site) · Cosmos chain-registry maintainers — Archway asset list (external site)
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Governance restores Archway's IBC client to Injective, which later lapses again
Proposal 60 passed with no votes against and replaced the expired light client for injective-1 with the state of a fresh client, reopening the existing Injective channels. When checked on 2026-09-27, the same client was listed as expired again.
- Proposal:proposal 60 passed
- Implementation:client substitution executed by the proposal
- Release:no software release needed
- Activation:expired again as of 2026-09-27
Sources: Archway on-chain state via Archway Foundation REST endpoint — Archway proposal 60: Recover IBC light client for Injective (external site) · Archway on-chain state via Archway Foundation REST endpoint — Archway IBC client 07-tendermint-67 status (Injective) (external site) · Archway on-chain state via Archway Foundation REST endpoint — Archway governance proposals (latest 30) (external site)
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Archway publishes v10.1.1, a patch release for CometBFT's Tachyon flaw
The Archway team published release v10.1.1-tachyon-security-patch, whose notes say it moves Archway onto a patched CometBFT 0.38 build for a fix CometBFT would later ship in its 0.39 line. On 23 January 2026 CometBFT published the matching advisory, Tachyon, rated critical: a consensus flaw in how block time is derived, affecting CometBFT 0.38.20 and earlier, with any module or contract that relies on block time exposed. The release attaches ready-built programs, two of them named as carrying the fix, but the public source at that tag still pins CometBFT 0.38.17, so the fix cannot be checked from public code.
- Implementation:fix described in release notes and in the names of attached programs; not visible in the tagged source
- Release:published on GitHub 2026-01-20
- Activation:the Foundation node ran v10.1.0 and one sampled validator node ran v10.1.1 on 2026-09-27; presence of the fix on any node not verified
Sources: archway-network — v10.1.1-tachyon-security-patch (external site) · CometBFT (GitHub security advisory) — CSA-2026-001: Tachyon (external site) · archway-network/archway repository — Assets attached to release v10.1.1-tachyon-security-patch (external site) · archway-network/archway repository — go.mod at tag v10.1.1-tachyon-security-patch (external site) · Archway on-chain state via Archway Foundation REST endpoint — Archway node info (application and CometBFT versions) (external site) · Archway on-chain node metadata via MZONDER validator REST endpoint — MZONDER Archway node info (application and CometBFT versions) (external site)
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Governance restores Archway's IBC client to XPLA
Proposal 59 passed with no votes against and replaced the expired light client to the XPLA chain with a fresh client's state, restoring transfers over the existing channels. The client was active when checked on 2026-09-27.
- Proposal:proposal 59 passed
- Implementation:client substitution executed by the proposal
- Release:no software release needed
- Activation:active as of 2026-09-27
Sources: Archway on-chain state via Archway Foundation REST endpoint — Archway proposal 59: Recover Expired IBC Client to XPLA Chain (external site) · Archway on-chain state via Archway Foundation REST endpoint — Archway IBC client 07-tendermint-29 status (XPLA) (external site) · Archway on-chain state via Archway Foundation REST endpoint — Archway IBC client states (external site)
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Archway v10.0.0: node release, governance vote and mainnet upgrade
The Archway team published node release v10.0.0 on 19 February 2025. Its notes list two changes: a fix to how Archway's IBC hooks connect to the contract (CosmWasm) module, and a CometBFT version bump. The forum draft of the upgrade, posted on 2 February 2025, described it as fixing IBC methods used by cross-chain contracts, including the IBC VerifyMembership query, and a later forum post named CometBFT 0.38.17. On-chain proposal 58 closed its vote on 28 February 2025, and the chain's upgrade record shows the plan applied at height 8,919,000. It is the most recent software upgrade put through Archway governance; the later v10.1.0 and v10.1.1 releases had no upgrade vote.
- Proposal:forum draft 2 February 2025; on-chain proposal 58 vote ended 28 February 2025 and its plan was applied
- Implementation:IBC hooks fix and CometBFT bump (0.38.17 per the forum) in the tagged v10.0.0 code
- Release:v10.0.0 published on GitHub 19 February 2025 after release candidates
- Activation:applied on mainnet at height 8,919,000 per the on-chain upgrade record; block date not checked here
Sources: archway-network — v10.0.0 (external site) · Archway governance forum — Network Upgrade Proposal: Archway v10.0.0 (external site) · Archway on-chain state via Archway Foundation REST endpoint — Archway proposal 58: v10.0.0 (external site) · Archway on-chain state via Archway Foundation REST endpoint — Archway applied upgrade plan v10.0.0 (external site) · Archway on-chain state via Archway Foundation REST endpoint — Archway node info (application and CometBFT versions) (external site)
Topics your AI can explain
Your AI can explain these topics for Archway through the connection, with sources.
Known gaps
What this profile's review did not establish:
- Validator cap, bonded count, voting-power shares, bonded share of supply, unbonding, slashing and upload permissions are on-chain values read on 2026-09-27 from the Archway Foundation's public endpoint; governance can change them. Bonded stake, supply, unbonding time and block interval matched staking-explorer.com the same day; the genesis validator count, proposal results and IBC client statuses were not re-checked against a second source.
- The chain registry still recommends v9.0.0 and Archway's networks page still shows v4.0.3, while the Foundation's node reported v10.1.0. The January 2026 release v10.1.1 is named for CometBFT's critical Tachyon advisory, which lists CometBFT 0.38.20 and earlier as affected, but at its tag the dependency file still pins CometBFT 0.38.17 and only two attached programs are named as carrying the fix. One validator operator's public node reported v10.1.1 with the same CometBFT fingerprint as v10.1.0 nodes. Whether any Archway node runs a fixed CometBFT was not verified.
- Archway's rewards docs say the non-rebated half of contract transaction fees is burned, while the module specification says it goes to validators and the About page frames the split as developers versus validators; the deployed v10.1.0 code burns it. Archway's own descriptions disagree with each other.
- No current pruned or archive node size was verified; the snapshot provider named in the chain registry returned not found, and that provider's validator was jailed and unbonding.
- Astrovault's closure is known only from a one-line notice on its homepage; what happened to its pools was not checked. Bolt Liquidity, also on Archway's homepage, announced an oracle-priced beta on Archway in July 2025 and its docs still list Archway mainnet contracts, but whether it still trades there, or whether any other exchange contract is live on Archway, was not verified.
- Archway's FAQ still names Cosmostation and Leap among wallets for ARCH; press reports say Leap shut down on 28 May 2026 and Cosmostation began winding down its wallet on 1 September 2026.
- Only 8 of 86 IBC clients behind open transfer channels were active on 2026-09-27; which channels carry meaningful balances, and whether expired routes will be recovered, were not reviewed.
- No trust-minimized cross-party swap mechanism, channel layer, reversible or delayed transfer or recovery feature, or algorithmic stablecoin on Archway was reviewed.
- No sourced, classed throughput measurement was found; the block interval comes from two sampled blocks.
- Explorer pages mostly render in the browser and could not be read; Mintscan's page loaded only as a generic shell. Several docs-listed explorer links no longer resolve, and one listed domain now hosts unrelated gambling content.
- The Keplr signing route for Ledger follows Archway's FAQ and Keplr's guide but was not tested end to end. Third-party Trezor signing paths were not checked.
- Archway's official blog could not be read (access refused); its Medium feed shows no post after April 2024, so official announcements after that may be missed.
Sources
Oldest dated source check: Source checked Sep 27, 2026 Next check due Oct 27, 2026.
- Archway chain registry record (external site)
- Archway asset list (external site)
- archway-1 genesis file (external site)
- Archway node info (application and CometBFT versions) (external site)
- Archway slashing parameters (external site)
- Archway bonded validators (external site)
- Archway CosmWasm code upload parameters (external site)
- Archway module versions (external site)
- Archway proposal 51: Reduce Archway Validator Set (external site)
- Archway proposal 59: Recover Expired IBC Client to XPLA Chain (external site)
- Archway proposal 60: Recover IBC light client for Injective (external site)
- Archway IBC channels (external site)
- Archway IBC client states (external site)
- Archway IBC client 07-tendermint-16 status (Axelar) (external site)
- Archway IBC client 07-tendermint-67 status (Injective) (external site)
- Supply of Noble USDC voucher on Archway (external site)
- Running a node: prerequisites (external site)
- Becoming a validator: requirements (external site)
- Rewards overview (external site)
- FAQ (external site)
- Set up using Ledger (external site)
- Block explorers (external site)
- x/rewards module specification (external site)
- x/rewards fee deduction code at release v10.1.0 (external site)
- x/callback module specification (external site)
- x/cwica module specification (external site)
- Archway homepage (external site)
- Astrovault homepage (closure notice) (external site)
- Bolt Liquidity Launches Outpost on Archway (external site)
- What is Bolt Liquidity? (external site)
- Archway explorer (external site)
- Byzantine Consensus Algorithm (external site)
- CSA-2026-001: Tachyon (external site)
- IBC overview (external site)
- USDC contract addresses (external site)
- Ledger Wallet Cosmos chain integrations (source directory) (external site)
- Connect your Ledger with Keplr Extension (external site)
- Keplr chain registry entry for Archway (external site)
- Archway wallet (external site)
Report an error
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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