Introduction

Pharos focuses on building a Layer 1 blockchain that connects traditional fintech with Web3 technologies, providing solutions for real-time payments and real-world asset applications. The project is dedicated to developing an ultra-fast, EVM-compatible internet-level blockchain to enhance payment and application security. Currently, the Pharos network is in its internal development phase, with plans to launch a testnet in Q1 2025 and a mainnet in H2 2025.

Funding Background

Funding Information

Pharos completed its seed round of financing on November 8, 2024, raising $8M. The round was led by Faction and Hack VC, with follow-on investments from SNZ Holding, Hash Global, and others.

Team Members

Team Members
RootData shows that Wishlonger is a co-founder, though this individual has no verified work history. Based on their profile picture, they may have some blockchain experience.

Key Features

Pharos Modular Stack

The Pharos Network adopts a modular and highly parallel architectural design, enabling the creation of a flexible and scalable blockchain stack. At its core is the relationship between the main network and the Special Processing Network (SPN), which enables seamless execution across different network layers, enhanced security, and efficient interoperability. This architecture is designed to support large-scale, high-throughput, trustless innovation.

Pharos Modular Stack

• Consensus Layer
  Pharos supports multiple consensus models, including PBFT, PoS, and PoA, and ensures efficient communication and validation between the SPN and the main network, thus achieving a robust and scalable blockchain consensus.

• Execution Layer
  Pharos provides a dual execution model that integrates both the WasmVM and EVM environments. This layer supports standard transaction execution while also incorporating advanced computational frameworks like ZK (Zero Knowledge), TEE (Trusted Execution Environment), and FHE (Fully Homomorphic Encryption). These features enable secure, privacy-preserving transaction processing, making it ideal for high-frequency trading (HFT), AI applications, ZK-based dApps, and privacy-centric use cases.
  The Pharos SPN is modular and lightweight, capable of acting as a dedicated execution network or a non-blockchain network for GPU computing, data storage, or AI infrastructure, such as Oracles.

• Settlement and Re-staking Layer
  Validators on the main network can participate in re-staking within the SPN, enhancing both the security and profitability of the SPN and the main network. The Pharos re-staking protocol allows for the rapid deployment of the SPN, ensuring shared security, resource pooling, and incentivized validators. Re-staking builds enhanced liquidity and security across the ecosystem, laying the foundation for seamless communication between the SPN and the main network.

• Data Availability Layer
  The Pharos main network ensures data integrity and rapid finality, allowing ecosystem projects to benefit from lower costs and higher reliability. For the SPN, combining cross-SPN protocols with native re-staking provides second-level finality, a feature that far exceeds the efficiency and speed of traditional subnets and ZK Rollups.

Scalable Network and Consensus

Scalable Network and Consensus

Pharos adopts a high-throughput, low-latency consensus protocol specifically designed for large-scale nodes in wide-area networks. This enhances the system’s robustness and the security of its consensus mechanism.

Pharos’ consensus design has two primary objectives: responsiveness and efficient network bandwidth utilization. Responsiveness refers to the blockchain system’s processing speed being limited only by the network latency without introducing any timeouts or waiting intervals. As for resource utilization, consensus nodes should operate with a symmetric communication pattern to function simultaneously.

To achieve these goals, Pharos consensus introduces two innovative features. First, it does not rely on fixed time assumptions, allowing block generation to respond to network delays rather than be constrained by predefined timeouts. Second, Pharos consensus enables all consensus nodes to propose blocks simultaneously, eliminating the reliance on a single proposer. These two features significantly enhance scalability and dramatically increase the system throughput of Pharos.

Furthermore, Pharos consensus introduces a flexible advancement paradigm. In this new paradigm, nodes can propose and submit blocks more flexibly, adapting to various workloads and network conditions.

Parallel Execution Framework

Parallel Model
Pharos Execution is the engine driving the Pharos network, designed to achieve exceptional performance, scalability, and efficiency. The architecture consists of two key components: the scheduler and the executor. The scheduler is the core component for parallel scheduling and executing transactions, utilizing optimized algorithms to achieve maximum parallelism and minimal conflict. The executor features a dual virtual machine (EVM and WASM) engine, enabling fast and flexible execution of smart contracts. The EVM engine ensures compatibility with Solidity contracts, while the WASM engine provides high-performance execution for a broader range of smart contract languages.

Full Lifecycle Asynchronous Pipeline

Asynchronous Pipeline
Pharos breaks down all blockchain processes into six fundamental stages to optimize network utilization, disk I/O, CPU, and other system resources. This approach delivers three major advantages: high TPS, low latency, and enhanced security and reliability:

• High TPS: Pharos minimizes disk I/O during the execution and merklization stages, fully leveraging multi-core processors to achieve high throughput.
• Low Latency: Resources are prioritized for the transaction finality of the latest blocks, ensuring that most Web3 users experience low latency during operations.
• Security and Reliability:
  • Data Integrity: Ensures that no data is lost at any finality stage, even if all validators fail simultaneously.
  • Fast Resynchronization: Validators can quickly recover after a crash and update to the latest state.
  • Consistent Data Management: Strict read-write management prevents data inconsistencies during parallel processing.

Use Cases

1. Fully On-Chain CLOB DEX
   A central limit order book (CLOB) Spot/Perp DEX that delivers a user experience comparable to centralized exchanges (CEX), supporting advanced order types such as TP/SL (Take Profit/Stop Loss) and TWAP (Time-Weighted Average Price). With finality within 1 second and low fees, it aims to provide seamless trading experiences.

2. Real-Time Payments
   Enabling the future of seamless and hybrid payments with 1-second finality, minimal costs, strong consistency, and global access. Through strategic partnerships, integrations and assimilations can transcend Web3 boundaries.

3. Institutional-Grade Risk-Weighted Assets
   Facilitating new categories of real-world assets through zkDID proofs and on-chain/off-chain credit systems to meet the risk management standards of financial institutions.

4. Scalable DePIN
   DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) is revolutionized through ultra-fast transactions, simplified resource sharing, and new opportunities for scalable, interoperable, and multi-language solutions.

5. Unified Liquidity Across Multiple Virtual Machines
   Providing DApp developers with multiple VMs, allowing DApps running on different VMs to interoperate while maintaining compatibility with a unified user account system.

Conclusion

Although Pharos is still in the testnet phase, it envisions an ecosystem composed of “Web3 super apps” driven by “ultra-parallelism between consensus, execution, storage, and heterogeneous hardware.” This will ultimately enable Pharos to reach a scalability target of 50,000 transactions per second (TPS), surpassing the theoretical maximum TPS of currently popular blockchains such as Solana and Ethereum Layer 2 networks like Arbitrum. Pharos aims to become a leader in the next ecosystem cycle.