Key Points:
Cycle Network adopts a three-layer architectural design: using Ethereum as a security anchor to achieve connection expansion across source networks and integrating transaction activities through zkEVM rollup, thereby eliminating the reliance on traditional cross-chain bridges.
This infrastructure has supported full-chain stablecoin settlement and chain-abstracted GameFi real-world applications. Projects like Golden Goose demonstrate how Cycle simplifies operational complexity while providing yield strategies.
Since the launch of the Alpha mainnet, Cycle has secured over $400 million in assets and processed over 2.7 million transactions.
The CYC token issuance aims to reward early users, promote ecological development, and maintain network security. 20% is allocated for community airdrops, and 10% is used for the staking security mechanism, with its token economics designed to achieve long-term participation and decentralization.
Introduction
Cycle Network is building a multi-chain settlement layer that simplifies the complexity of multi-chain environments without relying on cross-chain bridges. This infrastructure has secured over $400 million in assets, processed over 3 million mainnet transactions, and integrated more than 20 networks including Monad, Berachain, Sonic Labs, BSC, and Base.
Its architecture consists of three levels: the security layer ensures state integrity through Ethereum and zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP); the expansion layer connects all source and target networks through decentralized endpoints and expanded data availability (EDA); the Cycle layer aggregates cross-network activities as a zkEVM rollup. These three layers work together to maintain global state synchronization, allowing applications and users to operate as if on a single network.
This infrastructure supports real-world applications such as full-chain stablecoin settlement and simplified multi-chain interfaces, enabling bilateral reconciliation with traditional banks for real-world assets (RWA) and stablecoins, enhancing transaction verifiability and transparency.
Overview of Cycle Network
The technical architecture of Cycle Network aims to integrate multi-chain networks into a unified bridge-less settlement layer through three core components—security layer, expansion layer, and Cycle layer.
The security layer is the cornerstone of Cycle Network's integrity and security. This layer relies on Ethereum's decentralized programmable infrastructure to anchor the global state on Ethereum, inheriting its robust security guarantees. By combining Ethereum endpoints with zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology, Cycle achieves trustless on-chain verification of network activities. These ZKP proofs submitted to Ethereum allow anyone to independently verify Cycle's state updates, thus inheriting the security of Ethereum's consensus mechanism.
The expansion layer covers all source and target networks for storing transaction data, including Layer1, Layer2, and dedicated application chains. Cycle deploys endpoints (Endpoints) on each expansion layer to ensure complete message retrieval through the Expanded Data Availability (EDA) mechanism. These endpoints achieve cross-network state synchronization through decentralized indexing.
The core Cycle layer acts as an advanced rollup layer, aggregating transactions from the security and expansion layers. It employs decentralized sequencers and zkEVM provers to maintain a consistent global state across diverse networks. This architecture allows users to interact safely across multiple chains without manually cross-chain or adapting to specific interfaces.
Stablecoin Liquidity and Multi-Chain Settlement
Cycle Network enables seamless circulation of stablecoins across different networks, akin to flowing within a single system, significantly enhancing multi-chain liquidity and settlement efficiency. Its multi-chain settlement capability fundamentally alters the reconciliation, verification, and confirmation mechanisms for stablecoins across chains, allowing users to access unified liquidity without complex cross-chain operations.
For stablecoin issuers, Cycle provides verifiable proof to ensure that on-chain token activity fully matches off-chain bank reserves or real assets. By aggregating all transactions onto an auditable ledger, every token flow between networks can be transparently recorded and verified. This architecture meets compliance requirements while enhancing trust from regulators and the market through asset anchoring mechanisms.
Developers also benefit from a simplified multi-chain deployment process. In traditional models, contracts need to be deployed separately on each network, while the Cycle SDK supports one-click full-network synchronized deployment, significantly shortening development cycles and accelerating time-to-market, with convenience comparable to the virtualization revolution of cloud infrastructure in deployment environments.
Golden Goose: Chain Abstracted GameFi Use Case
Golden Goose is a GameFi platform built on Cycle Network that simplifies multi-chain strategies into a gamified experience. Users can "hatch" virtual geese by staking assets like USDT and earn VEGOOSE token rewards and CYC token airdrops by completing yield tasks. The platform's underlying technology, powered by Cycle, enables automatic cross-chain, exchange, gas payment, liquidity provision, and staking functions, allowing users to select strategies and click "stake" through a unified dashboard, achieving multi-chain asset scheduling via the Rollin/Rollout infrastructure and unified liquidity system.
Golden Goose significantly lowers the entry barrier for both crypto-native and mainstream users. Players can start earning rewards with just a social account login, without the need for wallet configuration. The application's marketing activities have attracted over 800,000 addresses to participate, including 100,000 users from TikTok. As of August 2025, the mainnet has attracted 20,000 paid addresses, with a total locked value of $15 million, performing exceptionally well in markets such as Latin America, Brazil, Japan, and Turkey.
Cycle Network Token Issuance
Cycle Network Alpha Mainnet officially launched on February 10, 2025, marking the start of the pre-TGE phase. Along with the mainnet launch, incentive measures such as testnet rewards, developer bounty programs, and early user competitions were introduced to promote network activity.
An important milestone in the pre-TGE phase is the launch of the Cycle Liquidity Hub in mid-June 2025. As the core infrastructure before token generation, this hub essentially serves as the multi-chain stablecoin and asset clearing center for Cycle. User deposits will form a cross-network liquidity reserve pool, available for the Rollin/Rollout processes. Participants will not only earn transaction fee revenue but also qualify for token rewards. The launch of the liquidity hub simultaneously initiates a series of airdrop plans aimed at rewarding network supporters during this phase.
Airdrop Mechanism and Participation Methods
Cycle Network has reserved 20% of the total token supply as a community airdrop reward pool specifically aimed at incentivizing early supporters (such as liquidity providers and active users). This airdrop plan adopts an inclusive design principle, setting a maximum participation cap of approximately $1,000 contribution value per single address, effectively preventing whale monopolization of allocation quotas through a contribution cap mechanism. Excessive top-ups or multiple wallet strategies cannot significantly increase airdrop points, ensuring fairness in the leaderboard.
To enhance participant earnings, the platform launches the Mellow CYC staking gain program, where users staking CYC can earn up to 200% annualized returns. This mechanism continuously incentivizes community members to participate in ecological construction during the airdrop reward waiting period.
Token Economic Model
Cycle Network's token economic model employs a fixed supply of CYC tokens as utility and governance tokens, with a total supply of 1 billion and no further issuance. CYC allocation covers multiple categories aimed at simultaneously promoting project development and community incentives:
Team and Advisors (20%): Token distribution has a 12-month lock-up period (no release in the first year after TGE), followed by linear unlocking over the next 48 months.
Business and Ecological Incentives (20%): This portion of tokens serves as a special fund for ecological development, initially allocated based on quantifiable contributions (such as rewarding projects that bring traffic to Cycle or funding network infrastructure development teams). Once on-chain governance is initiated, the community will vote to determine the specific allocation plan.
Community Incentives (15%): Specifically used for community plans (including airdrops and user incentive measures implemented in the pre-TGE phase, as well as ongoing reward mechanisms post-TGE), disbursed every six months, fully released within three years.
Investor Shares (15%): Aimed at early investors and strategic partners (including incubation funds), with a 1-year lock-up period, and subsequently gradually unlocked over 24 to 36 months according to agreement terms.
Treasury Reserves (10%): Locked for 6 months post-TGE, then gradually released over the next 48 months.
Market Expansion and Platform Staking (10%): This portion of tokens is used for market expansion, ecological growth, and staking incentives. Part of it may be activated at TGE (such as initial liquidity or exchange listings), while the rest will be allocated based on developmental needs for growth plans and liquidity enhancement.
Staking and Shared Security Rewards (10%): Specifically used to incentivize participants who maintain network security through staking (including Symbiotic re-staking and Cycle native validator node staking). Tokens will be distributed as rewards to stakers who provide security for the Cycle Network and its multi-chain transactions, with a release period set for long-term linear unlocking (60 months or 5 years). This gradual release mechanism ensures continuous incentives for security maintainers and aligns with Symbiotic's re-staking model—stakers provide security for multiple networks (including Cycle) by locking assets long-term and earning rewards.
CYC Token Functions and Incentive Mechanisms
The CYC token has multiple functions within the Cycle Network ecosystem, with demand directly tied to network usage rates. Core functions and incentive roles include:
SDK Usage Fees: Developers building applications on Cycle need to pay CYC as a service fee when using multi-chain APIs (such as calling Rollin/Rollout functions).
Network Gas Fees: CYC is the native fuel token for all transactions and smart contract executions within the Cycle Network.
Security Staking (Symbiotic Re-staking): As a member of the Symbiotic shared security protocol, CYC holders can participate in staking to maintain network verification security (such as aggregating sequencer nodes). Stakers earn rewards from the 10% staking reward pool. New networks accessing the Cycle liquidity layer are also required to stake CYC (for example, Layer1 access requires locking a certain amount of tokens), and stakers simultaneously gain future governance rights.
Liquidity Mining Incentives: To kickstart multi-chain liquidity pools, Cycle uses CYC to reward liquidity providers. Users depositing mainstream assets like ETH into the liquidity hub or full-chain liquidity pools will earn CYC rewards. The innovation here is that, unlike traditional single-chain AMMs, liquidity providers support a multi-chain liquidity system that empowers the entire ecosystem, with CYC rewards compensating for impermanent loss and opportunity costs to attract more capital inflow.
In addition to the core functions mentioned above, CYC will also serve as the governance token for Cycle Network. Although governance functions will be launched soon, token holders will ultimately have voting rights on proposals regarding protocol upgrades, parameter adjustments, and allocations for specific token pools (such as ecological incentives or treasury reserves). This empowers CYC holders with decision-making rights for network development and aligns with the project's decentralization philosophy.
Conclusion
Cycle Network has built a unified liquidity multi-chain settlement infrastructure that supports real-world applications like stablecoin settlement. This architecture currently secures over $400 million in assets and processes millions of transactions. Platforms like Golden Goose validate that its infrastructure can support user-friendly multi-chain applications while shielding developers and users from technical complexities.
Post-TGE, Cycle is transitioning from infrastructure development to ecosystem expansion. Pre-TGE initiatives such as the liquidity hub and airdrop plans aim to achieve distributed ownership allocation and initiate network participation. The CYC token will serve as a universally functional asset across the network, used for paying transaction fees, earning liquidity rewards, participating in security staking, and governance. Cycle lays the foundation for long-term project development through a structured token economic model and clear allocation incentive strategies, aiming to become the foundational layer in the multi-chain settlement and unified liquidity space.
