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Architecture

Altius L1 separates execution from consensus behind a standard Engine-API boundary, the same architecture used by modern Ethereum clients. This keeps the chain fully EVM-compatible while letting each layer be optimized independently.

EVM JSON-RPC clients · wallets · tooling ALTIUS NODE Consensus commonware BFT Execution Reth EVM · Prague Control plane fees · governance RBAC · audit SSMT state-root engine State trie Merkle-Patricia

Layers

  • Execution layer — a Reth-based EVM execution client (Prague), with the EVM provided through the Alloy libraries. It validates and executes transactions, applies state transitions, and exposes standard Ethereum JSON-RPC.
  • Consensus layer — a fast, fixed-interval BFT consensus (built on commonware) that orders blocks and finalizes them deterministically. See Consensus.
  • Control plane — the institutional feature set layered onto the node: configurable fee tokens and fee precompiles, on-chain governance, validator lifecycle management, role-based access control, and audit logging, surfaced through a dedicated administration API. See Institutional Control Plane.

Block lifecycle

  1. Ingest — transactions arrive over EVM JSON-RPC and enter the pool.
  2. Execute — the execution layer runs transactions against current state and produces a candidate block.
  3. Order & finalize — the BFT consensus orders the block and finalizes it deterministically; execution and consensus communicate over the Engine API (newPayload / forkchoiceUpdated).
  4. State root — state-root computation can be offloaded to the SSMT engine, which returns the root for the block header.
  5. Serve — finalized state and receipts are available over standard JSON-RPC.

Relationship to the rest of the platform

Altius HPEC treats Altius L1 as its settlement L1, connecting over JSON-RPC and committing batched results on-chain. The SSMT engine accelerates state-root computation for the execution layer.