Layer 1 blockchain
Conflux ticker CFX
Summary
Hybrid consensus. GPU proof-of-work miners create blocks about every half second; each block names one parent and may also reference other recent blocks, so the ledger is a tree inside a directed acyclic graph (the Tree-Graph). Nodes choose a pivot chain with the GHAST rule, split the graph into epochs that each end at a pivot block, put every block of an epoch into one order and execute its transactions five epochs later. A separate proof-of-stake chain built into the node software, run by a committee elected from locked CFX, periodically finalizes a pivot block a few minutes old. Core Space (Conflux's own address format and fee rules) and the Ethereum-compatible eSpace both draw on the same blocks. 23456789
Design
- System
- Layer 1 blockchainConflux is its own permissionless base layer: proof-of-work miners build a Tree-Graph of blocks and nodes order them with a weight-based pivot-chain rule, while a stake-elected committee finalizes older pivot blocks. Its Ethereum-compatible eSpace is a second execution space that shares the same blocks and consensus, not a rollup or sidechain, so the package classification is kept.
- Settlement family
- Its own design
- Scarce resource
- Work (proof of work)
- State model
- Accounts
- Finality
- Checkpointed
- Who makes blocks
- Any miner can propose blocks by proof of work; the docs describe GPU mining with NVIDIA cards of 8 GB or more, and the 2021 protocol specification names a modified Ethash function. Finality votes come from a committee of at most 300 seats, chosen by verifiable random functions among accounts that lock 1,000 CFX per vote, with the oldest sixth replaced every hour.
- Fork choice
- GHAST: from genesis, nodes repeatedly follow the child whose subtree carries the most weight. Normally every block weighs the same; if the graph shows an attack that stalls progress, new blocks become adaptive, most weighing nothing and a rare heavy block carrying the weight, which slows confirmation but restores progress. Blocks finalized by the stake committee are no longer subject to this rule. CIP-43 notes that more than a third of stake can stall finality (the chain then runs as plain proof of work) and more than two thirds of committee seats could sign conflicting finality.
Qualifications
- Finality · Partial. Three stages apply. Transactions execute about five epochs after inclusion (about five seconds), count as confirmed after about fifty epochs by the node's risk estimate, and become final when the stake committee finalizes a later pivot block, about 400 epochs (six to eight minutes) after inclusion. Before that, a pivot-chain shift can still revert executed transactions.
- Block interval · Partial. Blocks are produced in parallel, about one every half second, and grouped into epochs. eSpace sees one block per epoch (its docs give about 1.25 seconds), and eSpace transactions can only go into blocks whose height is a multiple of five. Per-block figures are not comparable with single-chain blockchains.
- Execution spaces · Applies. Core Space (Conflux addresses, storage collateral and fee sponsorship) and eSpace (Ethereum-compatible) share one ledger and one consensus but keep separate accounts and contracts. CFX moves from Core Space to eSpace through a built-in contract in one atomic step; moving it back takes two steps, a transfer to the account's mapped address in eSpace and then a withdrawal called from Core Space. eSpace is not a rollup, a sidechain or a separate chain.
- Ethereum defaults · Not applicable. eSpace runs Ethereum tooling, but the ledger, consensus, Core Space addresses and fee rules are Conflux's own: finality, block numbers as a clock, gas refunds and storage costs follow Conflux's rules, not the defaults that tooling assumes.
- Scarce resource · Partial. Blocks come from proof of work, but finality depends on CFX locked by committee members, so reversing finalized history requires beating the stake layer as well as the hashpower.
- Decentralization · Unknown. Mining pool concentration, the number of independent full nodes and the spread of stake across the committee's seats were not measured.
- Settlement family · Partial. Recorded as other. Conflux's own terms: a Tree-Graph of proof-of-work blocks ordered by the GHAST pivot-chain rule, a proof-of-stake finality chain built into the node software (conflux-rust), and two execution spaces sharing the same blocks: Core Space, with Conflux's own address format and fee rules, and the Ethereum-compatible eSpace.
Tradeoffs
- Emphasizes
- Scalability and Security
- Gives up
- Simplicity and a small, widely spread finality set. Security rests on two layers: proof of work, which the project itself judged too small against GPU hashpower that could be switched over from other networks, and a stake committee of at most 300 seats that must stay online and honest for finality. Full nodes also need 1 to 1.5 TB of disk and, by the node FAQ's estimate, about two months to sync from the beginning unless a snapshot linked from Conflux's docs is trusted.The project's docs claim the design scales without giving up decentralization; that is the project's claim and was not measured here. Pool concentration of hashpower and stake concentration across committee seats were not reviewed. The scalability emphasis rests on a 2020 lab benchmark, not on observed mainnet load.
- Full node at home
- Practical at home 12131415Conflux's node guide lists at least 16 GB RAM and 1.5 TB of free SSD space for a full node (another page says 1 TB), 32 GB and 2 TB for an archive node, and a stable connection with no bandwidth figure. A full node keeps blocks for only the most recent 100,000 epochs. The node FAQ says syncing from the beginning takes about two months; the recommended shortcut is a database snapshot that Conflux's docs link to, stored on Aliyun (Beijing) and Amazon S3 (US West and EU Central), which means trusting that download instead of replaying history.
- Throughput claims
- Lab benchmark: 3,480 tx/s 11Controlled benchmark; not observed network behavior.End-to-end experiment reported in the Conflux paper at USENIX ATC 2020, stopped once four million transactions had been processed.400 Amazon EC2 m5.2xlarge virtual machines (8 cores, 1 Gbit/s each), one full node per machine, equal mining power per node and simulated intercity latency. The paper's separate consensus-layer runs used up to 12,000 nodes; this figure does not come from those runs.A controlled 2020 experiment, not a measurement of mainnet. The workload combined randomly generated payments with transactions converted from Ethereum history; only 14 percent of processed transactions came from Ethereum history, and the same paper reports 1,392 tx/s on the Ethereum-history workload alone. Predates the stake-based finality layer (2022), eSpace and the base-fee mechanism, so today's software and parameters differ. Ignores years of state growth and spam or decoy load; the number of lab nodes says nothing about who runs nodes on mainnet. The paper's confirmation figure (under one minute) is the proof-of-work estimate; current docs put stake-based finality at about six to eight minutes.
- Theoretical peak: 3,000 tx/s 1Theoretical peak; not comparable across chains or with observed load.Stated in the docs' introduction as an upper bound, with no method, window or hardware; it may echo the 2020 lab result (an inference). Not an observed mainnet rate; ignores propagation, state growth and spam load. Core Space and eSpace have separate per-block gas limits, and the figure does not say which space or transaction mix it covers.
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 | Not yet assessed under the current definitions; no hash- and time-locked swap tooling on Conflux was reviewed, and smart contracts in either space are only building blocks for one. The built-in cross-space contract moves CFX between Conflux's own two spaces (in one atomic step from Core Space to eSpace), which is not an exchange between two parties. 18 |
| Authenticated data publication | Unknown | Not yet assessed under this row's current definition. |
| Light clients | Built into the protocolLimited scope | Light-node mode: consensus produces what a light client checks, since conflux-rust's light node runs GHAST on block headers and checks accounts, transactions and receipts fetched from peers with Merkle proofs. Limited: the docs call the mode experimental, it does not serve eSpace calls, and the node guide still lists 300 GB of disk for it. 121623 |
| 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 network anchored to Conflux was reviewed. |
| Programmable spending | Native (protocol or core-team software) Earlier definition | Both spaces run EVM-compatible smart contracts. Core Space adds protocol-level sponsorship of contract gas and storage; eSpace is Ethereum-compatible and, since v3.0, supports set-code transactions for ordinary accounts. 17192022 |
| Protocol-verified messaging | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Reversible transfers or recovery | Unknown | Not yet assessed under the current definitions; Safe multisig contracts are deployed on eSpace, and since the v3.0 hard fork eSpace accounts can attach contract code (EIP-7702), which the upgrade notes say enables social recovery, but no deployed delay or recovery module is cited. No protocol mechanism reverses a confirmed payment. 2122 |
| Rollups | Unknown | No rollup settling to Conflux was found in the reviewed sources. eSpace is part of Conflux itself, not a rollup. |
| 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 | Established in the ecosystemSwappi (eSpace), WallFreeX (eSpace) | Swappi describes itself as the leading exchange on eSpace and is the AMM named in Conflux's ecosystem docs; a Conflux forum ecosystem update lists WallFreeX and Swappi among the eSpace applications that integrated the AxCNH stablecoin. Liquidity depth and volume were not measured, and no AMM on Core Space was reviewed. 252736 |
| Issuer-native stablecoins | ThinUSDT0 (eSpace), AxCNH by AnchorX (eSpace) | USDT0's deployment list includes eSpace; it is minted against USDT locked on Ethereum, so Conflux's 'issued directly by Tether' wording is the project's, and Tether's supported-protocols page does not list Conflux. Conflux forum posts say AnchorX, which received an in-principle approval from Kazakhstan's financial regulator (AFSA) in February 2025, issued AxCNH, pegged to the offshore yuan, on eSpace; the final licence, reserves and usage were not checked. Circle's USDC list omits Conflux. 28293031323336 |
| Algorithmic stablecoins | Unknown | No algorithmic stablecoin with material current usage on Conflux was verified. |
| Bridges | Established in the ecosystemUSDT0 (LayerZero token standard), Meson, Celer cBridge, KinetFlow (successor to ShuttleFlow and Zero Gravity Portal) | External bridges connect eSpace or Core Space with Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain and other networks; an ecosystem update posted by a Conflux forum moderator also lists Stargate and Orbiter. KinetFlow replaced Zero Gravity Portal on 25 November 2025 and closed routes to Heco and OK Chain. The built-in cross-space contract only moves CFX between Conflux's own two spaces. Risk: Each bridge adds its own trust: USDT0 relies on LayerZero messaging checked by three verifier networks and a multisig-owned lock contract on Ethereum; KinetFlow, Meson and cBridge rely on their operators' contracts, relayers or liquidity. Bridged tokens such as cUSDT are only as good as those parties, and Conflux's foundation-run ShuttleFlow bridge was shut in 2023 and handed to another operator. 18282934353637 |
| Block explorers | First-partyConfluxScan (Core Space), ConfluxScan for eSpace | Conflux's glossary calls ConfluxScan the official explorer; its eSpace instance offers an Etherscan-compatible API. No independent second explorer was reviewed, and explorer data is provider data, not independent validation. 2426 |
| Hardware wallets | ThinLedger (through Fluent Wallet or MetaMask), Trezor (eSpace through MetaMask or Rabby) | See the custody rows: a Conflux device app in Ledger's catalog works with Fluent Wallet for Core Space, eSpace uses Ledger's Ethereum app with MetaMask, and Trezor's Conflux page lists MetaMask and Rabby but not Trezor Suite. 383940 |
Hardware-wallet custody
| Device maker | Status | What users can and cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| Ledger | Through an intermediaryFluent Wallet for Core Space; MetaMask with Ledger's Ethereum app for eSpaceSame as native: No | Can: Install the Conflux device app from the app catalog in Ledger Wallet (formerly Ledger Live) on Nano S Plus, Nano X, Stax or Flex, per Conflux's guide Can: Import Ledger accounts into Fluent Wallet and review and sign Core Space CFX transfers on the device Can: Use eSpace through MetaMask with Ledger's Ethereum app Cannot: Sign more than simple CFX transfers with the Conflux device app: its README lists only public-key queries and simple transfers Cannot: Install the Conflux app on the original Nano S from the catalog; the app README points to sideloading insteadThe device app is hosted in Ledger's GitHub organisation, but Ledger's own Conflux coin page returned not found, so whether Ledger Wallet itself manages CFX accounts was not confirmed; Conflux's guide routes all use through Fluent Wallet or MetaMask. 3839 |
| Trezor | Through an intermediaryMetaMask or Rabby (eSpace)Same as native: No | Can: Use a Trezor on Conflux eSpace through MetaMask or Rabby, the apps Trezor's Conflux page lists Cannot: Manage Conflux in Trezor Suite; Trezor's Conflux page marks it as not supported there Cannot: Use Core Space, with its Conflux address format, through the listed apps: MetaMask and Rabby are EVM wallets, so only eSpace is covered (an inference; no Core Space path for Trezor was documented)Trezor's Conflux page, read on 27 September 2026, lists a single Conflux network with MetaMask and Rabby and shows Conflux as not supported in Trezor Suite. The earlier unknown rested on Trezor's general coin list, which does not name Conflux. 40 |
Public data
iKnow Blockchain has no public-data lookups for Conflux 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
-
Conflux v3.1.0 hard fork completed on mainnet
The v3.1 network upgrade, which nodes had to adopt before epoch 155,140,000, was reported complete on 25 August 2026. It adds Ethereum Osaka-era features to eSpace (a count-leading-zeros opcode and a secp256r1 signature precompile used by passkeys), bounds the ModExp precompile, requires canonical transaction encoding, fixes stake-dispute evidence checks and cross-space handling of set-code delegation, and includes a security fix whose details were withheld until after the upgrade.
- Proposal:CIPs 166, 167, 172, 173, 174, 175 and 176 bundled in the release
- Implementation:implemented in conflux-rust v3.1.0
- Release:v3.1.0 published 2026-08-10
- Activation:mainnet upgrade reported complete on 2026-08-25
Sources: Conflux Forum (Conflux team) — Conflux v3.1.0 Network Hardfork Upgrade Completed (Aug 25, 2026) (external site) · Conflux Forum (Conflux team) — Conflux v3.1.0 Network Hardfork Upgrade Announcement (Aug 3, 2026) (external site) · Conflux developers (Conflux-Chain) — conflux-rust v3.1.0 (external site) · Conflux documentation — Hard fork v3.1 (external site)
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conflux-rust v3.0.3-fix security release
A node release fixing a possible crash (panic) under certain circumstances; the release notes strongly recommend that operators upgrade. It is not described as a hard fork.
- Implementation:Released
- Release:v3.0.3-fix published 2026-05-19
- Activation:not a consensus change
Sources: Conflux developers (Conflux-Chain) — conflux-rust v3.0.3-fix (external site) · Conflux developers (Conflux-Chain) — conflux-rust releases (external site)
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KinetFlow replaced Zero Gravity Portal as Conflux's legacy bridge and closed old routes
KinetFlow launched as the successor to Zero Gravity Portal, itself the successor to the foundation-run ShuttleFlow. The same day it announced the end of bridge routes to Heco (a network that itself stopped running in January 2025) and OK Chain, manual recovery of stranded CFX for a fee, and the planned closure of Zero Gravity Portal's route between eSpace and Ethereum, for which both notices left the date blank, pointing USDT and USDC holders to cBridge and Meson.
- Implementation:Launched
- Release:announced 2025-11-25
- Activation:project-reported; KinetFlow's own site could not be read
Sources: Conflux Forum — KinetFlow Is Now Live (external site) · Conflux Forum (KinetFlow notice) — Announcement on the Shutdown of Certain Cross-Chain Bridge Services (external site) · Conflux Forum (KinetFlow notice) — 关于部分跨链桥功能关闭的公告 (Chinese notice on the shutdown of certain cross-chain bridge functions) (external site) · Conflux Forum (Conflux Foundation notice) — Announcement: ShuttleFlow is closing its services on 2023.11.08 (external site)
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USDT0 launched on Conflux eSpace
The Conflux team announced USDT0 on eSpace, a dollar stablecoin minted against USDT locked on Ethereum and moved with LayerZero messaging, and began a gradual migration from the older bridged cUSDT. USDT0's own deployment list includes the Conflux eSpace contracts.
- Implementation:token and OFT contracts listed for eSpace in USDT0's deployment table
- Release:launch announced 2025-11-12
- Activation:listed in USDT0's deployment table at review
Sources: Conflux Forum (Conflux team) — Tether USDT0 Officially Launches on Conflux (external site) · USDT0 — USDT0 deployments (external site) · USDT0 — The USDT0 Network (external site) · Tether — Supported protocols (external site)
Topics your AI can explain
Your AI can explain these topics for Conflux through the connection, with sources.
Known gaps
What this profile's review did not establish:
- No transaction rate measured on mainnet over a stated window was found; the two figures listed are a 2020 lab result and an upper bound given without method.
- The proof-of-work function was checked only in the 2021 protocol specification (a modified Ethash); whether later upgrades changed it was not verified.
- Maximum supply and current issuance were not verified; the economics page gives a 2023 snapshot and says the parameters are set by on-chain votes.
- Mining pool concentration, full-node counts and the spread of stake across committee seats were not measured.
- The node docs disagree on full-node disk (1 TB on one page, 1.5 TB on another) and give no bandwidth figure.
- The slashing page still describes permanently locking a misbehaving validator's stake, while the v3.0 hard-fork notes changed this to a six-month lock; the newer notes were followed.
- No payment or state channel network and no rollup anchored to Conflux were found; absence was not exhaustively verified.
- Ledger's own Conflux coin page returned not found; Ledger coverage rests on Conflux's guide and the device-app repository in Ledger's GitHub organisation.
- Whether a Trezor can sign Core Space transactions was not verified; Trezor documents only MetaMask and Rabby, which cover eSpace.
- AxCNH's reserves and usage, and whether AnchorX's February 2025 in-principle approval became a full licence, were not checked with AnchorX or the regulator; AnchorX's site did not render its content without JavaScript.
- AMM liquidity and bridge volumes were not measured. Stargate and Orbiter rest only on an ecosystem update posted by a forum moderator, and the KinetFlow bridge notices were read only on the Conflux forum because KinetFlow's site sits behind a browser check.
- The security issue fixed in v3.1.0 was to be disclosed after the upgrade; that disclosure was not reviewed.
- The light node was described as experimental in docs written for an older release (v2.1.0); its current status was not re-verified.
Sources
Oldest dated source check: Source checked Sep 27, 2026 Next check due Oct 27, 2026.
- What is Conflux? (external site)
- The Tree-Graph (external site)
- GHAST (Greedy-Heaviest-Adaptive-SubTree) (external site)
- The Conflux Consensus Layer Design and Implementation (external site)
- Conflux PoS Technical Overview (external site)
- CIP-43: Introduce Finality Through Staking Vote (external site)
- Transaction Lifecycle (external site)
- Running a Mining Node (external site)
- Conflux Protocol Specification (Tethys v1.1, January 2021) (external site)
- GHAST: Breaking Confirmation Delay Barrier in Nakamoto Consensus via Adaptive Weighted Blocks (arXiv 2006.01072) (external site)
- A Decentralized Blockchain with High Throughput and Fast Confirmation (full paper) (external site)
- Node Types (external site)
- Running a Full Node (external site)
- Nodes FAQs (external site)
- Snapshot Tool (external site)
- Running a Light Node (external site)
- Spaces (external site)
- CrossSpaceCall Contract (external site)
- EVM Compatibility (eSpace) (external site)
- Sponsorship Mechanism (external site)
- Gnosis Safe Wallet (eSpace infrastructure) (external site)
- Hard fork v3.0 (external site)
- Hard fork v3.1 (external site)
- Glossary (external site)
- Conflux Network Ecosystem (external site)
- ConfluxScan API (external site)
- Swappi Docs: Intro (external site)
- USDT0 deployments (external site)
- The USDT0 Network (external site)
- Tether USDT0 Officially Launches on Conflux (external site)
- Supported protocols (external site)
- USDC contract addresses (external site)
- AnchorX Approved to Issue Offshore RMB-pegged Stablecoin in Kazakhstan Based on Conflux Technology (external site)
- KinetFlow Is Now Live (external site)
- Announcement on the Shutdown of Certain Cross-Chain Bridge Services (external site)
- Conflux Ecosystem Expansion Update 2026-03-15 (external site)
- Announcement: ShuttleFlow is closing its services on 2023.11.08; asset bridging operations will migrate to Zero Gravity (external site)
- Ledger (wallet tutorial) (external site)
- app-conflux: Ledger device app for Conflux Core Space (external site)
- Conflux wallet (external site)
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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