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Ephemeral Rollup

Why We Need an Ephemeral Rollup

Section titled “Why We Need an Ephemeral Rollup”

Real-time action games need millisecond-level responsiveness. Running every tiny movement or bullet update directly on L1 would be:

  • Too slow for competitive play.
  • Too expensive in transaction fees.

SOLANA ZERO uses an ephemeral rollup layer to handle real-time gameplay, then anchors final results to Solana.

What the Ephemeral Rollup Is

Section titled “What the Ephemeral Rollup Is”

At a high level, the ephemeral rollup is:

  • A match-local execution environment that runs at game-speed.
  • Backed by Magicblock style infrastructure for low-latency program execution.
  • Connected to the on-chain On-chain Architecture that records final state.

Inside this rollup, we simulate:

  • Player movement and combat.
  • HP changes.
  • Evacuations and deaths.
  • Event triggers for bounties and CP.

High-level Flow

Section titled “High-level Flow”

  1. Match Start

    • Players stake / register on Solana.
    • A new match instance is created in the ephemeral rollup.

  2. Real-time Simulation

    • Player actions are processed in the rollup with ~game-tick latency.
    • The system tracks all key events (kills, objectives, timeouts).

  3. Commit to Solana

    • When important events or the end-of-match condition are reached, the rollup produces a compact summary.
    • This summary is sent to the Solana programs that own the authoritative state.

  4. On-chain Effects

    • Match outcome and stakes are finalized.
    • WANTED / CP updates are applied.
    • Bounty and fee distribution is executed.

From the player’s perspective, outcomes feel instant, while still resolving through verifiable on-chain programs.

Guarantees and Trade-offs

Section titled “Guarantees and Trade-offs”

Design goals:

  • Low latency during matches.
  • Verifiable outcomes anchored to Solana.
  • A path toward progressive decentralization as infra matures.

Trade-offs:

  • Some parts of the real-time loop rely on specialized infrastructure providers.
  • Full decentralization of every millisecond tick is not realistic yet, so we prioritize final state correctness.

Relationship to Other Systems

Section titled “Relationship to Other Systems”

The ephemeral rollup ties into:

As these systems evolve, implementation details may change, but the core idea remains:

Use an ultra-fast layer for gameplay, and Solana for final truth.