Most blockchains make you wait. Silica is designed for fast feedback and high throughput. Here is how the architecture is built to deliver that.
Alluvium: Data Plane
Silica starts with Alluvium, the Narwhal-inspired data plane for transaction batching and dissemination:
- High-throughput batching: Nodes create micro-batches of transactions (50-200 per second) and broadcast them as DAG vertices.
- Data availability: Each batch is erasure-coded (Reed-Solomon) so any 2/3 of nodes can reconstruct the full data, even if some nodes are slow or offline.
- Parallel processing: Batches propagate concurrently across all validators, not sequentially.
Result: the network is always accumulating transactions, not waiting for one block to finish before the next begins.
Tephra: Ordering & Consensus
Once payloads are flowing through Alluvium, Tephra applies gossip-about-gossip consensus to produce a canonical global ordering. This is the network's ordering source of truth.
- Leaderless ordering: No single proposer dictates order; commit rules select an unambiguous sequence.
- Deterministic output: The committed sequence is the only ordering truth (no re-ordering later).
- Byzantine-resilient: Safety holds under adversarial behavior; liveness resumes once the network can make progress.
Timeline of a Transaction
- T+0ms: Tx hits a Gateway node
- T+50ms: Included in a micro-batch
- T+150ms: Batch propagated, erasure-coded
- T+400ms: Tephra produces a committed ordering
- T+500ms: Crystallite applies the result in deterministic execution lanes
- T+800ms: Lithification packages proofs and checkpoints
Total: typically under 1s from send to finalized, checkpointed state. No confirmations to babysit.
Crystallite: Execution & Apply
After Tephra orders the transaction stream, Crystallite applies that order in deterministic execution lanes. This is where pending becomes visible account state.
- Deterministic lanes: Non-conflicting work executes in parallel without changing Tephra order.
- Fast account updates: Balance and state changes become visible quickly.
- No invented ordering: Crystallite applies Tephra order rather than creating its own.
Lithification: Proofs & Checkpoints
Lithification packages finalized state into anchors, receipts, and replay-friendly checkpoints. It is the proof and checkpoint surface around the finalized chain.
- Checkpoint packaging: Anchors and certificates make finalized state portable and auditable.
- Proof surfaces: Receipts and certificates report the result without becoming new ordering authorities.
- Recovery-friendly: Checkpoints make monitoring and restart flows straightforward.
Cali: Recovery & Watchdogs
Cali watches network health, detects stalls, and helps restart progress cleanly when conditions degrade.
- Health monitoring: Tracks liveness, divergence, and node readiness.
- Automated recovery: Helps the network recover without human babysitting.
- Operational safety: Keeps the stack resilient under churn and partitions.
Performance Design Targets
High throughput
Designed for parallel execution and large batch sizes — exact benchmarks will be published with methodology
Fast finality
Architecture targets rapid settlement — measured numbers will come from real testnet and benchmark results
Low fees
Built for everyday transfers and micropayments — fee model details will be published when live
Why This Matters for You
- Instant payments: No more waiting for block confirmations
- Real-time apps: Gaming, trading, IoT—all work at internet speed
- No MEV anxiety: Deterministic ordering prevents front-running
- Predictable costs: Fee model doesn't spike during congestion
Experience the Speed
When you use Chert, transactions feel like sending a message. That's not a marketing slogan—it's the architecture.
Designed for fast feedback, high throughput, and low friction.