April 22, 2021

The SKALE "Denali" Mainnet upgrade launches bringing decentralized high performance and low costs to Ethereum

Marcos Sanchez

Head of Communications

SKALE Network now the only live in-production Ethereum native, multichain network

SAN FRANCISCO — April 22, 2021 — SKALE Network, the Ethereum native multichain network built to help Ethereum Dapps scale to more users with lower costs and better performance, today announced the completion of the “Denali” mainnet upgrade for SKALE Network. With 46 validator orgs and 153 nodes completing the upgrade, this is the first major upgrade following the October 1st Kilimanjaro Mainnet Launch. This makes SKALE Network the only live, in production multichain network that works in a natively integrated manner with Ethereum.

As gas fees rise and congestion continues to take its toll on the growth of the Ethereum network, consumers and developers alike are looking for fast, scalable, secure decentralized solutions. In order to satisfy that demand, developers need access to a highly decentralized, execution layer that will specifically tie into the Ethereum mainnet and leverage the large ecosystem of tools and tech they’re already familiar with. Developers are looking to provision their own dapp specific blockchain, so they can get the flexibility they need to react to their user demands and growth projections.

SKALE’s Ethereum native multichain architecture offers a fast, free to users/gasless, Ethereum orchestrated blockchain solution that can be deployed quickly and efficiently without having to learn any new tooling. Denali is SKALE’s latest network upgrade, and includes several key components. The most important are the ability to deploy Dapps with gasless transactions at sub ½ second block times at incredibly high throughput, newly audited smart contracts and advanced chain functionality. It additionally includes the next phase of SKALE Network’s modular framework, which will allow for greater configuration and upgradability for decentralized applications. Lastly, developers gain NFT support, where dApps can create NFTs on SKALE Chains at no cost and with billions of dollars of stake supporting their security.

"The SKALE Denali upgrade will be a critical ingredient to catalyzing the growth of blockchains and decentralized systems. Poor user experience has been a hurdle to mass adoption thus far. SKALE removes that friction by significantly lowering costs and creating a high performance experience for decentralized applications." said Sterling Witzke, senior advisor to Winklevoss Capital, a SKALE early supporter.

The goal of the SKALE Network is to bring Ethereum to billions of users globally. SKALE’s new modular architecture is a key upgrade and means that developers will be able to make an even greater impact on the Ethereum ecosystem. They will be able to utilize services like Oracles, Bridges, and Analytics offerings from a variety of best of breed providers. With 130 developers currently in the SKALE innovator program, many will begin deployment after the Denali upgrade. Key recent Dapps supporting SKALE include Minds, Collab.land, Bondly, Human Protocol and CryptoCrusades, which represent a range of different use cases for SKALE. Here is what they had to say about the upgrade:

"We’re very excited for the Denali upgrade and what it offers us as we build our free and open source social network. It’s clear that creating a sustainable network that scales to billions of users is no small task and we believe by using SKALE alongside Ethereum we can achieve the throughput, security and UX necessary. In the end, it’s about allowing our users to earn tokens for their contributions to the network in a cost effective and efficient way, and this upgrade is a big step in that direction." Bill Ottman, CEO & Founder, Minds.com

“Anytime you deal with community management it’s critical to offer users fast, secure experiences that are low or no cost to them. SKALE’s Denali upgrade is particularly exciting because you maintain the ease of deployment, while gaining sub half-second blocktimes in a gasless environment with really high throughput. This is crucial to Collab.Land's vision of a multi blockchain ecosystem, where you can scale up and down based on need.” - James Young, CEO Abridged.io, creators of Collab.Land

“We’re looking forward to the SKALE Denali upgrade, especially the ultra fast blocktimes, fast finality and gasless transactions. With our own Bondly specific SKALE chain, we can facilitate the trading of NFTs and digital assets in the non-crypto world in exactly the way consumers expect.” - Brandon Smith, CEO Bondly

“SKALE is a complete game-changer. We get our own dapp-specific blockchain with high TPS, and free gas which has allowed us to use complex algorithms entirely on-chain, like our A* pathfinding, binary search trees, and combat system. CryptoCrusades is revolutionizing blockchain games with this in-depth on-chain gameplay, powered by Ethereum and SKALE.” Sherman Meredith, Blockchain Lead, CryptoCrusades.

The SKALE Network is a community owned and run network, and validators play a critical role in running and maintaining the network. Key validators had this to say about today’s Denali network upgrade:

“It’s been incredibly exciting to run the SKALE Network and see it grow to 153 nodes and over $2 Billion in total value locked in just 6 months. As a validator, the Denali upgrade is particularly exciting as it brings sub ½ second blocktimes and it’s dapp specific multichain framework at a critical growth period for Ethereum. With its well thought security model and incentive arrangements, SKALE is really well positioned to power many of the top Dapps in the coming year.” Konstantin Richter, CEO & Founder of Blockdaemon

"SKALE’s Denali upgrade is coming at just the right time as the crypto space is moving to a multichain paradigm with developers deploying and users using applications on different blockchains. From a validator perspective, the experience has been incredibly smooth and we believe that dapp-specific SKALE chains will help to unleash a new wave of innovation." Brian Fabian Crain, CEO and Co-Founder, Chorus One

About SKALE

SKALE is an Ethereum native, multichain network that gives developers the ability to easily provision their own dapp specific, fully decentralized blockchains. These SKALE chains can execute sub ½ second block times, run very high tps per chain, and run full-state smart contracts, support decentralized storage, execute Rollups, and machine learning in EVM. The SKALE Network is an open source project with many contributors including SKALE Labs, Inc. headquartered in San Francisco, CA. The SKALE Network’s supporters include Arrington Capital, Blockchange, ConsenSys Labs, Hashed, HashKey, Floodgate, Multicoin Capital, Recruit Holdings, Signia VP, and Winklevoss Capital. The SKALE Network is supported by many of the top validators in the world including 01NODE, Ankr, Anonstake, Audit One, Blockdaemon, Blockware, Chainflow, Chainode, Chorus One, Cypher Core, Dokia Capital, Figment Networks, FreshSkale, Hashed x DELIGHT, Hashquark, Staked, Stakin, Stake With Us, WolfEdge Capital, as well as Staking Facilities. SKALE Network utilizes the $SKL token which is listed on 23 exchanges globally, including Binance, Coinbase, FTX, Gemini, Huobi, OKEx and more.