Celer Network is a platform designed to support the development and use of scalable decentralized applications. It focuses on providing high performance and flexibility through innovations in off-chain scaling techniques and incentive-aligned crypto-economics. The architecture of Celer Network is coherent and loosely coupled, allowing for rapid evolution of its components. Key features include:

• A state channel payment routing protocol that significantly increases throughput.
• A hybrid rollup sidechain offering tunable tradeoffs in trust and performance.
• New crypto-economic models ensuring security, availability, liquidity, and network effects for the off-chain ecosystem.

Layer-2 blockchain scaling

Celer Network utilizes layer-2 scaling mechanisms that operate on top of existing and future blockchains. These technologies aim to expand global information sharing and value transfer. The Celer team envisions a future where decentralized ecosystems allow secure, private, and trust-free interactions at a large scale among people and devices.

Layer-1 blockchains, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, process operations slowly because they require consensus from most nodes. While new consensus improvements are being developed, they do not overcome the inherent limitations of on-chain consensus.