Nitro Labs, a technology company specializing in blockchain solutions, has announced that it is enabling Solana developers to access the fast-growing Cosmos ecosystem. The move is expected to open the door for rapid scaling for Dapps.

So how does Nitro achieve this? By using a modular architecture that separates its execution and settlement layers. This separation allows both layers to be optimized on their respective chain, resulting in a more efficient and faster system.

To better understand this architecture, let’s take a look at how it interacts with Sei, a Layer 1 Cosmos chain. Nitro is composed of four main components: an execution layer, an indexer, a manager on Sei, and a bridge between Sei and Nitro.

The execution layer is a Solana cluster that comprises a sequencer and multiple non-validator nodes. The validator node funnels transaction and state data to the indexer for packaging and sending to Sei. The indexer, on the other hand, maintains a Merkle tree of all accounts’ current state, sends one transaction batch to Sei every 120 slots, cleans up historical account data after the fraud challenge period, and serves as a backup for L2 in the case of an unintentional fraud.

The manager, as a module on Sei, will persist transactions to Sei without any computation and handle fraud challenges. In the event of fraudulent transactions, the manager will slash faulty validators through the use of the bond mechanism.

Finally, the bridge allows for bridging tokens between Sei and Nitro. It is a secure lock-and-mint bridge, whereby users lock tokens on the L1, and the bridge mints an equivalent amount and type of tokens on the L2.

Overall, Nitro's modular architecture allows for optimized execution and settlement layers, resulting in faster and more efficient processing of transactions. With Nitro's integration with the Cosmos ecosystem, Solana developers can now take advantage of this technology and scale their Dapps more rapidly.