The Espresso Network is a base layer purpose-built to provide rollups and app-specific chains with fast finality and secure crosschain composability. It operates as a decentralized consensus protocol (Layer 1) able to confirm rollup blocks in a few seconds, providing order consistency and data availability, but without executing transactions itself.
The infrastructure is designed to address the fragmentation across blockchain platforms by providing real-time communication between chains, enabling unified liquidity and seamless interoperability for payments and other crosschain activities.
Espresso’s tech is based on an original R&D effort to create the fastest possible decentralized protocol for transaction confirmations, including development of a new open source consensus protocol, HotShot (a proof-of-stake variant of HotStuff), and a technique called verifiable information dispersal (VID) for scalable data availability. Espresso currently supports 5+ MB/s throughput with transaction finality in seconds (with upgrades planned targeting 25 MB/s throughput and subsecond finality in 2026).