Two mainnets, a consensus engine and an SDK — engineered from zero
Zenith mainnet live since Jan 2021 · 26.1M blocks · 65 active validators · Catena CVM chain
CreataChain is a Layer 0 modular blockchain mainnet with a dual-chain architecture — not a fork, and not a contract layer rented from someone else’s chain. We were the core technology partner and engineered it end to end: consensus, node software, wallet and the ecosystem tooling a public chain needs to go live and stay live.
A Layer 0 ecosystem, engineered from research
CreataChain set out to build an open, interoperable public blockchain — a network where assets and data move between chains instead of being trapped on one. Delivering that meant owning the full stack rather than renting it, and it meant a settlement layer and an EVM execution layer that were designed together rather than bolted together later. At a high level, the goal was to stand up a production-grade public blockchain with its own consensus, node software and ecosystem tooling — not a fork or a smart-contract layer on top of an existing chain, but a network engineered from the ground up.
Magnus Mage was responsible for the Augusteum consensus engine, the node client, the Creata SDK application framework, the CTA token and staking economics, the CIP-20 token standard on the EVM chain, the wallet, both block explorers and Lunar Link, its Inter-Chain Protocol relayer. We staffed the engagement with a dedicated engineering team working under the Magnus Mage umbrella — with Sarmad, Omaid and Hamza as principal architects, and authorship of the network whitepaper alongside it. That team worked across architecture, build, testnet and mainnet, and stayed on through two separate mainnet launches — Zenith, live since January 2021, and Catena — and the validator onboarding, upgrades and operations that followed.
Building a network people can trust with value
Launching a public blockchain ecosystem is one of the hardest problems in software. The chain has to reach agreement across a distributed set of nodes with no central authority, produce blocks quickly and finalize them safely, resist adversarial behaviour, and keep running without interruption — all while remaining cheap enough to use and simple enough for developers to build on. Get the consensus wrong and the network forks or stalls; get the economics wrong and validators leave; get the tooling wrong and no ecosystem forms.
CreataChain came to us needing a public chain that could settle value with deterministic finality and, separately, run ordinary EVM applications — without forcing developers to choose between the two or bridge through a third party. That constraint shaped everything: a bounded validator set of 100 with real slashing on the settlement chain, and a second, EVM-compatible execution chain speaking the same identity and the same cross-chain protocol. The shape of the problem was clear: they needed a team that had actually engineered consensus and node software before, not one that would learn on their network.
Beyond the protocol itself, a live chain needs the surrounding system: a node client that others can run, a block explorer so activity is transparent, a wallet so people can hold and move assets, and the monitoring and release process to operate it safely in production. Any one of these missing undermines trust in the whole. That end-to-end scope — not just a clever consensus paper — was the real challenge.
Network figures read from the public Zenith explorer on 19 August 2026; chain parameters from the published genesis of main-chain-1. Live values move — the explorer is the source of record.
One team, the whole stack
We engineered CreataChain as a single system — from the consensus engine and node client up to the ecosystem products teams actually use: a smart-contract dApp that mirrors contracts from EVM chains, an AI-based KYT platform, and a self-serve chain-launch platform. Here is how the architecture layers up.
Consensus & protocol engineering
We designed and implemented the consensus mechanism that keeps the network in agreement — block production, validator participation and finality — and the on-chain protocol rules that govern it. On CreataChain that engine is Augusteum Consensus Core — a BFT-based delegated proof-of-stake engine written in Go and built for this network rather than adapted from a framework, with a 100-validator cap — 65 slots filled at the time of writing — a 21-day unbonding period, and slashing set at 5% for double-signing and 1% for downtime. Measured across the whole of mainnet, the chain averages roughly 5.8 seconds per block against a 5-second nominal target.
Node & network infrastructure
We built the node client others run to join the network: the P2P networking layer, transaction propagation, state storage, and the RPC and indexing services applications depend on. The client is Go, targeting standard Linux server profiles, with consensus, P2P, mempool, evidence handling, state storage, RPC and proxy layers maintained as a single codebase and released alongside the published genesis configuration for main-chain-1.
Contracts, token & economics
We implemented the token standard and core smart contracts, with secure upgrade paths and full test coverage, plus the incentive design that keeps validators and users aligned. CTA is the native staking and gas denomination, held on-chain as ucta, with an adaptive inflation band of 7–20% targeting a 67% bonded ratio. Governance runs on a 48-hour voting period with a 10 CTA minimum proposal deposit. On the Catena chain, the CIP-20 standard provides EVM-equivalent fungible tokens.
Wallet, explorer & ecosystem
We delivered the user-facing surface that makes a chain usable: a wallet for holding and moving assets, a block explorer for transparency, and SDKs and APIs so third-party developers can build on the network. We shipped the wallet, two block explorers — Zenith for the settlement chain and Catena for the EVM chain, both open-sourced — the Creata SDK in Go so other teams can build chains and applications on the same primitives, and Lunar Link, the Inter-Chain Protocol relayer that moves CTA and assets between Zenith, Catena and external networks.
How the engagement ran
A disciplined path from first principles to a live network — the same shape we bring to every deep-tech build.
Discovery
Requirements, use cases and constraints — and the honest question of whether a custom chain was the right call at all.
Architecture
Consensus, node, contract and economic design, plus threat modelling, before a line of production code was written.
Build
Consensus, node, contracts and tooling built in short cycles with continuous testing and demoable increments.
Review & testnet
Internal review, automated static and dynamic analysis, and adversarial testing — then a full public testnet under real network conditions.
Launch
Coordinated mainnet deployment, validator onboarding, monitoring and runbooks for a confident go-live.
Support & scale
Ongoing monitoring, upgrades and optimisation as the network and its usage grow. We authored the network whitepaper and are architecting v2 — post-quantum cryptography and an AI layer alongside the consensus protocol for automation. V2 is in development and not yet released.
The hard problems, and how we approached them
Throughput vs. finality
A chain has to produce blocks fast enough to be useful but finalize them safely enough to be trusted — the two pull against each other, and naive tuning breaks one or the other. The target profile here was single-digit-second blocks with deterministic finality rather than probabilistic confirmation — which is precisely what pushed the design toward a BFT engine with a bounded validator set instead of proof-of-work or an open long-tail proof-of-stake.
Consensus tuned to the use case
We chose and tuned a consensus design around the real workload, validated it on testnet under adversarial and load conditions, and iterated the parameters against measured behaviour rather than assumptions.
Funds-at-risk security
On a public chain, a single consensus or contract flaw can be exploited for real value the moment it goes live — there is no quiet patch window. The exposed surface on this chain was the staking and delegation path. With a 100-validator set, delegated stake and live slashing conditions, a fault in the bonding, unbonding or evidence-handling logic puts user funds at risk directly — not just network liveness.
Security built in, not bolted on
Threat modelling from architecture onward, established cryptographic and consensus patterns, automated analysis and fuzzing, and a staged public testnet under adversarial conditions before mainnet — so the network launched with confidence.
Operability from day one
A network no one can run, observe or debug does not survive contact with production — and third parties need to run nodes for it to be credibly decentralized. CreataChain needed independent third-party validators running nodes from launch, so we designed for operators with general infrastructure skill rather than protocol engineers. The tooling had to assume no knowledge of the codebase, which is why the node, both explorers and the SDK were published as open source.
Tooling, monitoring & docs
We shipped a runnable node client, an explorer, monitoring and runbooks, and documentation clear enough for external operators — so the chain was observable and ownable from launch.
What we built it with
Solid outlines are shipped and running on mainnet. Dashed outlines are the v2 architecture — post-quantum cryptography and an AI layer alongside consensus — which is in development and not yet released. AI and monitoring entries are marked for client confirmation.
What the network delivered
Technical and operating outcomes from the engagement. Every figure below is readable from CreataChain’s public explorer or its published genesis parameters, so a reader can verify it without taking our word for it — we never publish a number we can’t stand behind. As at 19 August 2026 the settlement chain had produced 26,158,302 blocks and settled 921,905 transactions, with 105,140,924 CTA bonded across 65 active validators.
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