Today we’re launching Slot on Mainnet, our real-time, provable execution layer designed to enable high-performance blockchain applications. Slot is a significant step in bridging the gap between fast, interactive user experiences and the security of onchain verification. We're demonstrating this capability with a game called NUMS, built on our first mainnet gamechain.
What is Slot?
Slot is a provable execution layer built to address the latency challenges of traditional blockchains. Instead of relying solely on monolithic chains, Slot aims to dynamically provision execution shards that run close to users. These shards process transactions instantly and generate succinct, zero-knowledge proofs to verify their correctness on a target settlement chain. Slot integrates with any existing blockchain that supports zk proof verification, providing seamless onboarding and secure onboarding, and enabling scalable real-time applications on top of them.
This design allows for:
- Low-latency execution: Achieving near-instant processing, ideal for interactive applications.
- Provable correctness: Using zero-knowledge proofs to ensure trustless, verifiable computation.
- Scalability: Deploying dedicated, on-demand execution environments for individual apps.
- Seamless user experience: Slot is natively integrated with Controller, providing seamless user onboarding and interaction.
NUMS
NUMS is our inaugural application built on a dedicated mainnet gamechain on Slot. It demonstrates an incremental step towards our ultimate vision of dynamic horizontally scalable execution sharding, operating as an ephemeral Layer 3 rollup on top of Starknet. It provides:
- Instant Gameplay: Players experience immediate responses without traditional blockchain delays.
- Gas-Free Experience: Game actions are executed without requiring users to handle gas fees directly.
- Secure and Verifiable: All state changes are later proved and settled on a secure layer, ensuring the integrity of gameplay.
NUMS isn’t just a game—it’s a working prototype that demonstrates Slot’s ability to deliver the performance needed for modern, interactive blockchain applications.
Key Components
Slot’s architecture is built around three core components:
- Katana: A high-performance sequencer that orders and executes transactions within each execution shard, ensuring real-time responsiveness.
- Saya: The execution settlement orchestrator that aggregates transactions, generates zero-knowledge proofs, and submits these proofs to the underlying chain for verification.
- Slot Infrastructure: The orchestration layer that makes it easy for developers to spin up and manage these shards, offering a fully open-source stack for both on-demand and persistent deployments.
Together, these components allow developers to create and run applications that require real-time processing while retaining the trustlessness of blockchain.
For Developers and Users
For developers, Slot means a simpler path to building scalable, high-performance apps. You can deploy dedicated execution shards on demand, avoid the congestion of global blockchains, and integrate seamlessly with existing L1/L2 infrastructures.
For users, the benefits are clear:
- Instant Interaction: No waiting on long block times.
- Seamless Experience: The game runs as if it were hosted on a centralized server, yet maintains full blockchain security.
- Cost Efficiency: Reduced or eliminated transaction fees during play.
Moving Forward
NUMS is our first step toward our horizontally scaling execution sharding model which will achieve massive throughput without sacrificing security. We invite developers and players to experience NUMS and explore how Slot can transform blockchain performance.
For more details or to join our private beta, please get in touch.