In the past two years, Rollup has become the main character of Ethereum's scaling. More and more applications, project parties, and even national-level institutions hope to deploy their own chains through Rollup. However, problems quickly emerged: the number of Rollups surged, but they were isolated from each other, making communication between chains difficult, and the cost of asset and data flow was extremely high.
The Metalayer proposed by Caldera (ERA) is designed to address this pain point. It is not just about creating a faster Rollup, but rather designing a set of 'Rollup Internet' architecture. Through Metalayer, Caldera connects different Rollups, allowing them to share liquidity and data as if they were running on the same network.
From a technical perspective, Metalayer mainly has three layers:
Execution Layer: Intent-based smart routing allows assets to be efficiently scheduled across different Rollups;
Settlement Layer: Integrating Hyperlane message bus reduces cross-chain latency to the second level;
Development Tool Layer: By using SDK and UI, complex cross-chain interactions are abstracted into simple APIs, lowering the development threshold.
The benefits of this architecture are obvious: users no longer need to manually switch wallets or cross-chain bridges, and developers can directly call cross-chain functions at the application layer. In other words, Caldera truly enables interoperability for Rollups.
At the ecological landing level, Caldera's effects have already emerged:
DeFi Direction: Manta Pacific's TVL has exceeded 290 million USD, occupying a core share of the Caldera ecosystem;
Game Ecology: ApeChain's daily trading volume exceeds 900,000, demonstrating high concurrent processing capabilities;
RWA Scenario: K2 Rollup focuses on 'sovereignty as a service', providing solutions for institutional and government-level applications.
Compared to other RaaS projects, Caldera's differentiation lies in that it not only lowers the barrier to building chains but also creates a network effect of cross-chain collaboration through Metalayer. As more and more projects join, this effect will amplify geometrically.
From an investment perspective, this means that the ERA token is not just a 'transaction fee token' for a single chain, but the core asset of the entire Metalayer network. It is tied to transaction fees and also plays a role in governance and security layers.
In summary, Caldera responds to the industry's fragmented problem of Rollup with Metalayer, and both technology and ecology are advancing rapidly. If the first generation of Rollups solved performance issues, then the direction represented by Caldera is to truly form an interconnected network of Rollups.
