In the past two years, the Rollup-as-a-Service (RaaS) track has gradually become a popular path in the modular blockchain narrative. With the explosive increase in the number of rollups, the challenges faced by developers and projects are becoming more pronounced: How to deploy quickly? How to ensure interoperability? How to manage community governance? Caldera has risen in such a context.
Caldera's core positioning is: on one hand, lowering the threshold for developers to deploy dedicated rollups; on the other hand, solving the issues of cross-chain liquidity dispersion and interoperability through Metalayer. In the market, its slogan is 'One-click chain launch', but the deeper value lies in transforming rollups from 'single-point existence' to 'interconnected networks'.
From a product perspective, Caldera already supports various mainstream tech stacks, including Arbitrum Orbit, OP Stack, Polygon CDK, and ZK Stack. Developers can choose execution environments, data availability, and settlement layers based on their needs, offering high flexibility. In terms of performance indicators, Caldera promises <10ms transaction finality and a 99.99% SLA uptime rate. Behind these numbers is its technical accumulation in Rollup Engine and EigenDA V2 integration, which allows throughput to reach 100MB/s.
Notably, Caldera's Metalayer is a cross-chain interoperability protocol that is divided into three layers: the execution layer is responsible for intent routing, the settlement layer uses Hyperlane messaging bus to shorten cross-chain latency to seconds, and the development layer provides SDK and UI abstractions to reduce integration costs for developers. If rollups are isolated islands, then Metalayer is the bridge connecting them.
Caldera's governance experiment, ERA Force One, is also unique. It abandons the traditional DAO 'one token, one vote' model and instead designs a military rank system similar to an air force, with 10 levels from pilot to general. Ranks are tied to token staking and are non-transferable. This avoids easy manipulation of votes by whales while giving long-term holders a sense of identity. On the first day of launch, community interaction data surged, proving the appeal of gamified status.
From an ecological perspective, Caldera has attracted several star projects:
Manta Pacific: DeFi modular L2, TVL $290M, accounting for 69% of total share
ApeChain: Gaming chain, daily transaction volume exceeds 900,000
RARI Chain: NFT/copyright chain, transaction fees as low as $0.01
K2 Rollup: National-level infrastructure, TVL $16.7M
According to Routescan data, Caldera holds a 21.4% market share among deployed rollups, ranking second. Its competitors include AltLayer, Conduit, Alchemy, QuickNode, and others. Compared to these projects, Caldera's advantages lie in governance innovation, cross-chain collaboration, and ecological breadth.
However, risks also exist. First is token valuation: Current price $0.86, market cap $127.7M, but circulation rate is only 14.85%, meaning that unlocking pressure cannot be ignored. Second is track risk: As an emerging model, RaaS needs more successful cases to prove its long-term value. Additionally, the layered structure of the governance model may lead to a tendency towards centralization.
In summary, Caldera is a project that combines technological innovation and governance experimentation, backed by capital (Sequoia, Dragonfly, Founders Fund), ecological scale, and community activity. The focus for the next 6-12 months will be on: the actual implementation of Metalayer, whether new chain collaborations continue to expand, and whether ERA Force One can form sustainable governance incentives. If these can be fulfilled, Caldera has the opportunity to establish a leading position in the RaaS track.
