Layer 2 blockchain · settles to Ethereum
Taiko ticker TAIKO
Summary
Based rollup on Ethereum. A proposer posts proposals of one or more L2 blocks to an Inbox contract on Ethereum with the transaction data in blobs, so proposal order follows Ethereum's block order. In the current rollout the normal proposing path is limited to whitelisted preconfirmation operators, who build L2 blocks about every 2 seconds and share them early as preconfirmations. Each proven range needs two proofs from different systems, at least one of them a zero-knowledge proof (SP1 or RISC Zero); the other may be an Intel SGX attestation. When the proofs verify on Ethereum the range is finalized and a checkpoint is written to the Signal Service contract. Block production uses no stake or work of its own. 1234101922
Design
- System
- Layer 2 blockchainTaiko's mainnet (named Taiko Alethia in its software and by L2BEAT, chain ID 167000) is a based rollup on Ethereum: proposals and their blob data are posted to Ethereum and each proven range is checked by contracts there. Since the Unzen fork (August 2026) every proven range needs at least one zero-knowledge proof, so it is a validity-proof rollup, not an optimistic one. ETH pays gas; TAIKO is an ERC-20 on Ethereum used for governance and, by design, proposer bonds.
- Settles to
- EthereumProposal data is posted to Ethereum as blobs and a range is final once its proofs verify on Ethereum; there is no fraud-proof challenge window. Withdrawals to Ethereum can be claimed only after that, and Taiko's docs say to expect at least several hours because the proving-window target is 4 hours. Taiko's docs call deposits relatively fast: they can be claimed once the next L2 block records the Ethereum state root.
- Settlement family
- Ethereum / EVM
- Scarce resource
- Other
- State model
- Accounts
- Finality
- Other
- Who makes blocks
- Whitelisted preconfirmation operators, one elected per 32-slot Ethereum epoch; Taiko's docs name Nethermind, Chainbound and Gattaca as launch partners, while L2BEAT counted one active operator in the on-chain whitelist in September 2026. Ethereum block producers include the proposal transactions. Proving is limited to whitelisted provers (two, per L2BEAT); the docs describe open proving after a 5-day delay, the path the June 2026 attacker abused.
- Fork choice
- No open L2 fork choice: the canonical chain is derived from proposals in Ethereum's block order and a range becomes final when its proofs are accepted on Ethereum. Users can queue a forced-inclusion request on Ethereum that the next proposal must process once it is due; L2BEAT reads this as unable to force inclusion if proposers stop altogether.
Qualifications
- Scarce resource · Not applicable. Taiko block production uses no stake or work of its own: proposers are operators on an on-chain whitelist, the TAIKO liveness bond is set to zero, and security comes from Ethereum plus the proofs. Staked, permissionless preconfirmation is described as a later stage.
- Finality · Partial. Staged: a preconfirmation from the active operator (Taiko's docs say this could realistically take half a second to two seconds; blocks currently come about every 2 seconds), inclusion of the proposal in an Ethereum block, then finalization when two proofs verify on Ethereum (4-hour proving-window target). Only the last stage is an Ethereum-backed guarantee.
- Permissionless fallback · Contested. Taiko's docs say proposing becomes permissionless when forced inclusions stay unprocessed and that anyone may prove after 5 days. L2BEAT says proposing has no fallback path, that the configured open-inclusion threshold is not used so the queue stops if all whitelisted proposers stop, and that two whitelisted provers control proving. The June 2026 postmortem says an emergency proposal on 22 June switched off open proving, open proposing and forced inclusion, and that Unzen restored forced inclusion; it does not say whether open proving and proposing came back.
- Sequencer decentralization · Contested. Taiko describes itself as having no centralized sequencer because Ethereum orders proposals, but block contents come from whitelisted operators: three launch partners per the docs, one active operator per L2BEAT in September 2026.
- Upgrade authority · Partial. Per L2BEAT, a Security Council of five members appointed by the Taiko team (cut from nine on 2026-09-22) can pass emergency upgrades with 4 of 5 signatures and no delay; standard proposals need 3 of 5, a 10-day TAIKO holder veto period and a 7-day timelock. There is no exit window.
- Native usdc · Contested. Taiko's bridging guide calls the USDC contract at 0x07d83526730c7438048D55A4fc0b850e2aaB6f0b native USDC and points to Circle's transfer protocol, but Circle's own native USDC and transfer-protocol chain lists do not name Taiko.
Tradeoffs
- Emphasizes
- Security and Decentralization Contested
- Gives up
- Speed and cost headroom, and for now decentralized operation. Ethereum-equivalent execution is costly to prove, so blocks carry a separate proving-cost budget, and without preconfirmations a transaction waits for a 12-second Ethereum block. Proposing and proving are whitelisted today (L2BEAT counts one active proposer), a Security Council can upgrade the contracts instantly, and withdrawals to Ethereum wait hours for proofs.Decentralization here is the design goal of letting Ethereum order Taiko's proposals. It is not delivered today, so this reading is marked contested: L2BEAT counts one active proposer and rates Taiko Stage 0. The security emphasis relies on Ethereum data availability and two independent proofs; a June 2026 exploit of the SGX attestation path showed that guarantee depends on correct verifier setup.
- Full node at home
- Demanding 1216Taiko lists a minimum of 4 CPU cores, 16 GB RAM and a 2 TB SSD that grows over time, plus access to an Ethereum execution and beacon node; it warns third-party RPC providers will rate-limit a node and advises running your own Ethereum node, which adds its own hardware. The default execution client is the Reth-based alethia-reth, with a Geth fork as an alternative.
- 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 | A protocol-level trust-minimized swap mechanism on Taiko was not reviewed; EVM contracts could implement hash-locked swaps, but none was verified. |
| Authenticated data publication | Unknown | Not yet assessed under this row's current definition. |
| Light clients | Built into the protocolLimited scope | Taiko's rollup protocol produces what a light verifier checks: when a range is proved, the Signal Service contract on Ethereum stores a checkpoint of the finalized Taiko state, and Taiko keeps Ethereum's state-tree format, so Merkle proofs of Taiko storage can be checked against that checkpoint; the bridge relies on exactly this. Limited: only proved ranges can be checked this way, and no dedicated Taiko light client was reviewed. 814 |
| 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 Taiko was reviewed. |
| Programmable spending | Native (protocol or core-team software) Earlier definition | Taiko aims for exact Ethereum equivalence: general smart contracts, the ERC-4337 entry point for smart-contract accounts and the secp256r1 (passkey-style) signature precompile are available. Taiko's docs say it runs the Osaka EVM, while the July 2026 postmortem said Unzen upgrades it to Prague. Blob-carrying transactions are rejected and a proving-cost budget can abort heavy transactions. 5101419 |
| Protocol-verified messaging | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Reversible transfers or recovery | Unknown | Not yet assessed under the current definitions; no protocol feature to cancel or delay a sent payment or to recover an account was found. Taiko supports smart-contract accounts through the ERC-4337 entry point, which wallets could use for recovery, but no recovery product live on Taiko was reviewed. 10 |
| Rollups | Unknown | Rollups anchored to Taiko were not reviewed. Taiko itself is a rollup on Ethereum; its settlement is described in the mechanism and Ethereum dependency notes. |
| 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 | ThinTaikoSwap (swap.taiko.xyz), DTX Dex V3 (as tracked by DefiLlama) | Taiko's ecosystem page lists TaikoSwap, hosted on a taiko.xyz address, as the network's own DEX built on open-source Uniswap code, but the same page says listings are community-submitted and not endorsed by Taiko, and no Taiko documentation names its operator. Uniswap's own deployment list does not include Taiko. DefiLlama's DEX tracker recorded very little trading on Taiko in the 30 days before review (under USD 10,000 across all tracked venues), most of it on TaikoSwap, with DTX Dex V3 a distant second. Contracts and liquidity were not verified. 212728 |
| Issuer-native stablecoins | UnknownUSDC at 0x07d8...6f0b on Taiko (issuer status unverified) | Taiko's bridging guide calls this USDC contract native and says USDC bridged through Taiko's vault is a different token. Circle's native USDC address list and its transfer-protocol chain list do not name Taiko, so whether Circle issues it was not confirmed. 92526 |
| Algorithmic stablecoins | Unknown | Algorithmic or hybrid stablecoins on Taiko were not reviewed. |
| Bridges | Native to the protocolTaiko Bridge (Bridge, Signal Service and token vaults between Ethereum and Taiko) | ETH, ERC-20, NFT and message transfers between Ethereum and Taiko use protocol contracts that check Merkle proofs against synchronized state roots; relayers are optional and anyone may relay. Withdrawals wait for the proving of the containing range. Third-party bridges and the ERC-20 fast-withdrawal solvers were not reviewed. Risk: In June 2026 an attacker used forged SGX proofs to finalize a fake Taiko state on Ethereum and drained about USD 1.75 million from the Bridge and ERC-20 vault; the bridge was paused for 10 days and refilled from Taiko funds. Withdrawals also depend on a whitelisted proposer and provers (frozen if they fail, per L2BEAT) and on contracts that can be upgraded instantly. 891922 |
| Block explorers | First-partyTaikoscan | Taiko's docs name Taikoscan as the mainnet explorer; the site says it is powered by Taiko and built by the Etherscan team. The docs also list a Blockscout address that did not resolve at review time. Explorer indexes are not canonical consensus. 111323 |
| Hardware wallets | ThinTrezor Safe 3, 5 and 7 (Taiko network through MetaMask or Rabby) | See custody rows: Trezor's Ethereum page lists the Taiko network, which Trezor Suite does not include, so Trezor use goes through third-party wallet apps; Trezor's Taiko page covers the TAIKO token on Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain. Ledger support could not be confirmed. 293031 |
Hardware-wallet custody
| Device maker | Status | What users can and cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| Ledger | UnknownSame as native: Unknown | Ledger's Taiko coin page returned 404 and the first page of its supported crypto assets list did not name Taiko or TAIKO; support was not verified either way. 30 |
| Trezor | Through an intermediaryMetaMask or Rabby (third-party wallet apps named on Trezor's Ethereum page)Same as native: Unknown | Can: Use a Trezor Safe 3, 5 or 7 on the Taiko network through MetaMask or Rabby, confirming transactions on the device; Trezor's Ethereum page lists Taiko among its supported Ethereum networks Can: Hold the TAIKO token on Ethereum or BNB Smart Chain, the networks Trezor's Taiko page lists Cannot: Add a Taiko account in Trezor Suite: Suite's network configuration does not include Taiko, although Trezor's Taiko page presents Suite as the app for TAIKOTrezor's Taiko page covers the TAIKO token on Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain; that token copy does not count as custody on Taiko under the shared custody rule. Third-party wallet use rests on Trezor's Ethereum page listing the Taiko network. Older Trezor models and contract-interaction coverage were not reviewed. 293132 |
Public data
iKnow Blockchain has no public-data lookups for Taiko 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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Taiko released version 2.18.0 of its bridge web interface with fixes from an audit
Release 2.18.0 of the bridge interface in Taiko's main repository ships fixes that the underlying pull request says came from an in-depth audit of the app. Examples it lists: releasing funds from a failed bridge message could error indefinitely in the interface whenever the source chain was ahead of the destination's synced height; the server-side NFT lookup could return another user's NFTs; a temporary polling error could drop pending transactions from local history; and ERC-20 amounts could show with the wrong decimals. The release also corrects rounding in manual relayer fee estimates, fixes how relayer claims are matched to on-chain records, and gives a clearer message when a claim or retry is blocked by a bridge quota.
- Implementation:fixes merged in taiko-mono pull requests between 2026-07-03 and 2026-09-03
- Release:bridge-ui v2.18.0 published on GitHub 2026-09-04
- Activation:deployment to bridge.taiko.xyz not confirmed; the latest mainnet-labelled bridge interface tag found (v3.0.6) is dated 2026-08-21, before this release
Sources: Taiko contributors (GitHub) — bridge-ui: v2.18.0 (external site) · Taiko contributors (GitHub) — fix(bridge-ui): perform a total refactor of the bridge app with many fixes (external site) · Taiko contributors (GitHub) — feat(bridge-ui): check if retry failed is wrapped quota error (external site) · Taiko contributors (GitHub) — bridge-ui-mainnet-v3.0.6 (external site) · Taiko contributors (GitHub) — taikoxyz/taiko-mono releases (Atom feed) (external site)
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Taiko published a postmortem of the June 2026 proof exploit
Taiko Labs described how an attacker used rogue debug-mode SGX provers and forged timestamps to trigger the open-proving fallback, finalize a fake Taiko state on Ethereum and withdraw about USD 1.75 million through the bridge on 21 and 22 June 2026. The bridge was paused for 10 days, refilled one for one from Taiko's own funds and reopened on 2 July.
- Implementation:debug-mode check added and fake checkpoints invalidated on 2026-06-29
- Release:postmortem published
- Activation:bridge reopened 2026-07-02
Source: Taiko Labs — Taiko Security Incident: A Postmortem and Next Steps (external site)
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Taiko scheduled the Unzen fork, making a zero-knowledge proof mandatory
The taiko-alethia-client v2.6.0 release set Unzen's mainnet activation for 2026-08-06 13:00 UTC. Under Unzen every proof pair that finalizes a range must include an SP1 or RISC Zero proof, a proving-cost budget (zk gas) limits each block, and forced-inclusion support is restored.
- Proposal:postmortem says it was proposed 2026-07-07 and approved by the Security Council 2026-07-14
- Implementation:client support released in taiko-alethia-client v2.6.0
- Release:Released
- Activation:Taiko's docs describe Unzen as the current mainnet fork at review time
Sources: Taiko contributors (GitHub) — taiko-alethia-client v2.6.0 (external site) · Taiko Documentation — Unzen Fork (external site) · Taiko Labs — Taiko Security Incident: A Postmortem and Next Steps (external site) · L2BEAT — Taiko Alethia (external site)
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Taiko released the Shasta redesign of its protocol contracts
Protocol release v3.0.0 introduced the Shasta fork, replacing Pacaya with a separate Inbox, proposal-based derivation, and finalization that advances in order and writes a checkpoint to the Signal Service. Taiko had said the redesign would cut proposing gas on Ethereum from up to about 1 million to about 45,000 per proposal, and a May 2026 Taiko post described Shasta as running.
- Implementation:protocol contracts released
- Release:taiko-alethia-protocol v3.0.0
- Activation:live by 2026-05-13 per Taiko; activation date not found
Sources: Taiko contributors (GitHub) — taiko-alethia-protocol v3.0.0 (external site) · Taiko Documentation — Shasta Fork (external site) · Taiko Labs — Taiko's first third of 2026 (external site) · Taiko Labs — Closing in on Stage 1: The Shasta Upgrade Is Almost Here! (external site)
Topics your AI can explain
Your AI can explain these topics for Taiko through the connection, with sources.
Known gaps
What this profile's review did not establish:
- The Shasta fork's mainnet activation date was not found; the protocol release is dated 2026-04-02 and a Taiko blog post of 2026-05-13 says Shasta is live.
- Unzen's activation date differs by source: the client release gives 2026-08-06 13:00 UTC, while L2BEAT dates its validity-rollup milestone 2026-08-03. Not reconciled.
- Whether open proposing and open proving are enabled today is contested: Taiko's docs describe both fallbacks, L2BEAT says proposing has none, and the June 2026 postmortem says both were switched off after the exploit.
- How many preconfirmation operators are active is unclear: the docs name three launch partners, L2BEAT counts one. Whether operators currently post slashable collateral was not verified; the TAIKO liveness bond is zero.
- The cut of the Security Council from nine to five members on 2026-09-22, and its membership, is sourced to L2BEAT only; no Taiko announcement was found.
- No typical time from proposal to proof-verified finality was found beyond the 4-hour proving-window target, and no maximum reorg depth for preconfirmed blocks was documented.
- Whether Circle issues the USDC contract Taiko's docs call native was not confirmed; Circle's lists do not name Taiko.
- The Blockscout explorer address in Taiko's developer tools page did not resolve at review time.
- Ledger support for Taiko or TAIKO was not confirmed (coin page 404, not named on the first page of the supported-assets list). Trezor use of the Taiko network rests on the network list on Trezor's Ethereum page; no Taiko-specific Trezor page describes the network.
- TaikoSwap's operator and contracts were not verified; Taiko's ecosystem page calls it the network's own exchange but disclaims endorsement of listings. DEX activity is from DefiLlama's tracker only, and venues it does not track were not reviewed.
- Third-party bridges, the ERC-20 fast-withdrawal solvers and bridge quotas or pause powers were not reviewed.
- Current chain size and bandwidth needs for a full node were not captured beyond the published minimums.
- Atomic-swap, reversible-transfer, account-recovery, channel, algorithmic-stablecoin and L3 surfaces on Taiko were not reviewed.
- The postmortem says law-enforcement recovery of stolen funds is ongoing; the outcome was not tracked.
- The EVM version differs by source: Taiko's docs say Unzen runs the Osaka EVM, while the July 2026 postmortem says Unzen upgrades Taiko to Prague.
Sources
Oldest dated source check: Source checked Sep 27, 2026 Next check due Oct 27, 2026.
- Protocol Overview (external site)
- Based Rollups (external site)
- Preconfirmations (external site)
- Proving System (external site)
- Unzen Fork (external site)
- Shasta Fork (external site)
- Economics (external site)
- Bridging (external site)
- Bridge Tokens (external site)
- Differences from Ethereum (external site)
- Connect to Taiko (external site)
- Run a Node (external site)
- Developer Tools (external site)
- FAQ (external site)
- Contract Addresses (external site)
- taikoxyz/simple-taiko-node (external site)
- taiko-alethia-client v2.6.0 (external site)
- taiko-alethia-protocol v3.0.0 (external site)
- Taiko Security Incident: A Postmortem and Next Steps (external site)
- Taiko's first third of 2026 (external site)
- Ecosystem (external site)
- Taiko Alethia (external site)
- Taiko Alethia (ETH) Blockchain Explorer (external site)
- Taiko Token (TAIKO) (external site)
- USDC Contract Addresses (external site)
- CCTP Supported Blockchains (external site)
- DEX volume overview: Taiko (API) (external site)
- Uniswap v3 Deployments (machine-readable docs) (external site)
- Safe & secure Taiko wallet (external site)
- Supported crypto assets (external site)
- Ethereum wallet (external site)
- Trezor Suite Ethereum network configuration (networkConfig.ts, develop branch) (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