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What is Taiko?

The thought process for Taiko is as follows:

  • Ethereum is too expensive.
  • We believe in Ethereum’s core properties (e.g., censorship-resistant, permissionless, secure).
  • Rollups should extend (not augment) these properties.
  • Thus, we are building a based rollup which makes Ethereum cheaper while maintaining its properties.
  • Based contestable rollup: A configurable rollup to reduce transaction fees on Ethereum.
  • Based booster rollup: An innovative approach to native L1 scaling.

Taiko is a fully open source, permissionless, Ethereum-equivalent ZK-Rollup. Using Taiko feels the exact same as using Ethereum. There are no centralized actors that operate the network; all operations are permissionlessly run by the community.

The Taiko protocol

  • Taiko Protocol: A set of smart contracts deployed on Ethereum which describe the Taiko protocol, a fully open source scaling solution for Ethereum. In the most fundamental sense, this is what Taiko is. Even Taiko’s governance itself is written into the protocol contracts.

Organizations

  • Taiko Labs: A research & development group that works on the Taiko protocol.
  • Taiko Treasury: A treasury which is funded by the income generated by the Taiko protocol (L2 EIP-1559 congestion MEV).
  • Taiko DAO: A group of Taiko Token (TKO) holders which have the voting rights to govern various parts of the Taiko Protocol including smart contract upgrades, TKO parameters, and more. The Taiko DAO effectively controls everything.
  • Taiko Foundation: An entity that stewards the growth and development of the Taiko protocol and wider ecosystem. The foundation works solely for, and on behalf of, the Taiko DAO and token holders. Its responsibilities include, but are not limited to, financing of technical developments, ecosystem growth and maintenance, partnerships with service providers, events managements, and much more — either through grants or other means. The foundation will do so with full transparency to the Taiko community and DAO.
  • Taiko Security Council: An N-member council of individuals and entities elected by the Taiko DAO to undertake emergency actions on the Taiko protocol, as and when needed. The Security Council’s core responsibility is to ensure the safety and soundness of the Taiko protocol, and as such it has the powers to implement upgrades or changes in pursuit of that objective. The Security Council also controls the Guardian Provers within the Taiko protocol.
  • Taiko Community: Various social groups and accounts run permissionlessly by anyone who desires it. Some examples include the Taiko Discord, Taiko Twitter, etc.

Products operated by Taiko Labs

Frontends

Non-critical backend infrastructure

Critical backend infrastructure

Open source software