What is Cartesi?

Cartesi is an open-source framework for application-specific rollups, with a RISC-V virtual machine running Linux as the execution layer. Each application has dedicated compute on its own rollup. An interactive fraud-proof protocol lets the system inherit Ethereum's security without relying on a trusted operator.

Erick de Moura, Augusto Teixeira, Diego Nehab and Colin Steil founded Cartesi in 2018. Its original whitepaper described the hybrid model still used today: heavy computation runs offchain inside a reproducible machine, and Ethereum intervenes only when two parties disagree about the result. CTSI launched on Binance Launchpad in April 2020.

As an optimistic rollup, Cartesi accepts claims unless someone proves them wrong within a challenge window. Our comparison of ZK rollups and optimistic rollups explains how this trade-off allows verification of programs of any size, with a seven-day exit delay.

L2BEAT classifies the PRT Honeypot v2 application as a Stage 2 rollup, its highest maturity tier. No multisig, security council or admin key can override the fraud-proof system's decision. The classification applies to that deployment and its underlying stack, while L2BEAT continues to formalize how application-specific chains fit its framework.

How Does Cartesi Work?

Application logic executes offchain inside a deterministic Linux machine. Ethereum records every input, allowing any node to recompute the state and challenge an incorrect claim. A Cartesi app can therefore run demanding software while Ethereum determines the outcome of disputes.

The system uses the following components:

• Cartesi Machine: A RISC-V emulator that boots a full Linux kernel and user space. Identical inputs always produce the same state. Its architecture exposes every register and memory range, allowing a dispute to be narrowed to one instruction.
• Linux execution environment: Developers can use Python with NumPy, C++ standard libraries, SQLite databases or Rust crates without rewriting them for the EVM. Cartesi says the machine has processed more than 3.6 billion instructions within the average interval between Ethereum blocks. The base layer's per-block budget, by comparison, is measured in tens of millions of gas units, as our Ethereum gas tracker shows.
• App-specific rollups: Each application has its own rollup, so unrelated traffic never competes for its block space. Deployment options include an L2 on Ethereum, an L3 on Arbitrum or Optimism, or a sovereign chain.
• Input Box: An Ethereum contract that records all inputs and deposits in order. Anyone can write to it, allowing users to force a transaction through even if every offchain node ignores them.
• Rollups Node: Offchain software that reads the Input Box, advances the machine and publishes claims. Node v2, currently in testing, supports several applications from one node and survives restarts.
• Outputs (vouchers and notices): The machine emits verifiable messages, including withdrawal instructions and state attestations. Ethereum contracts execute them after the settlement period closes.
• Sequencer: An alpha component that provides fast provisional confirmations for trading applications while the fraud-proof system completes settlement.
• PRT fraud proofs: A dispute protocol through which one honest node can defeat any number of dishonest nodes, as covered in the security section.

Why Cartesi Narrowed Its Focus to DeFi

Until this year, Cartesi presented itself as a general-purpose execution layer for gaming, AI inference, sensor data and other workloads that did not fit inside a smart contract. It now builds for DeFi developers and has shelved work outside that focus.

The Foundation's Technical Evolution Plan, last updated on 3 August, sets three priorities. Dispute resolution and recovery paths must hold under attack. Risk models and statistical analysis need to be affordable enough to run every block. Developers should also be able to ship onchain in a day with tools they already know.

The “set aside” list covers Bitcoin execution, the EigenLayer coprocessor and Lambada, plus integrations with alternative data-availability layers such as Celestia and Avail. Third-party sequencer integrations, ENS resolution and browser-based rollups are also on hold. Their code remains open source.

An April post illustrated the DeFi case through the Curve Finance incident, when the founder's CRV-backed loans nearly triggered liquidations across Aave and Frax. Cartesi argued that checking a token's price history before approving a large lending position could have limited the damage. Analysis requiring billions of individual EVM operations becomes a NumPy call inside a Cartesi Machine.

Foundation board members Felipe Argento and Brandon Isaacson resigned in June to build applications on the stack full time. Co-founder Erick de Moura sees DeFi as the technology's first proving ground, with broader uses expected once the stack has been tested in financial markets.

How to Use Cartesi

CTSI holders can stake, vote in governance and participate in the bug bounty. Developers use a command-line interface and contracts, with AI coding tools playing a growing role.

Cartesi for Users

CTSI holders can participate through these steps:

1. Buy CTSI on an exchange: CTSI trades as a spot pair on Binance, Coinbase and Kraken. Several derivatives exchanges also offer USDT perpetuals. Withdraw to an ERC-20-compatible self-custody wallet, such as those in our best crypto wallets guide.
2. Stake through the explorer: Connect your wallet to the Cartesi Explorer, select a pool and delegate. The pool operates the node and retains a share of the rewards.
3. Vote in governance: Staked CTSI gives holders voting rights on grant allocations and technical proposals in the Governance Hub.
4. Study the Honeypot, but do not deposit: The PRT Honeypot is a live bug bounty. Anyone who breaks the fraud-proof system may claim its locked CTSI. Deposits are treated as donations.
5. Browse Rollup Lab: Applications listed in the Rollup Lab range from DeFi prototypes to the RIVES game console.

Cartesi for Developers

Development now centers on the v2 stack and AI tooling:

1. Install the CLI and scaffold a project: Cartesi CLI 2.0 alpha creates templates in Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Rust and other languages. It also catches configuration problems before startup.
2. Write ordinary code: The application reads Input Box inputs and emits vouchers and notices. The logic between those steps is ordinary Linux software.
3. Build and run locally: A local devnet starts the contracts, node and explorer. It includes a USDC-like test token for checking deposits and withdrawals end to end.
4. Deploy to Sepolia, then mainnet: Fresh alphas of the Rollups Contracts and PRT dispute contracts are deployed and verified on Sepolia. The documentation covers hosted and self-hosted node options.
5. Point your AI assistant at the stack: Mugen Builders contributors released an MCP server and a cartesi-skills repository containing ten skills plus a workflow skill. These cover scaffolding, debugging, frontend, contracts and deployment to help tools such as Cursor or Claude generate correct Cartesi code. The documentation provides an llms.txt file for the same purpose.
6. Try the browser playground: An alpha of the Machine bindings runs a Cartesi Machine, including a terminal, inside a browser tab without a local installation.

What is the CTSI Token?

CTSI is an ERC-20 token used for staking rewards and governance, with a planned role in a future Validator Marketplace. It does not fund transactions on Cartesi rollups. Applications pay Ethereum for data and settlement in ETH, which PRT validators also use for their bonds.

CTSI Tokenomics

CTSI has a maximum supply of 1 billion. About 947 million tokens, roughly 95 percent, are circulating according to CoinMarketCap. Investor, team and Foundation allocations all finished unlocking in mid-2023. New supply now comes solely from the Mine Reserve that funds staking rewards.

Current and planned uses:

• Staking rewards: The Mine Reserve releases CTSI to stakers in proportion to their share of the total stake.
• Governance: Staked balances carry votes on grant funding and technical consultations through the Governance Hub.
• Validator Marketplace: A November 2024 proposal would allow holders to delegate CTSI to validators securing individual applications and share their fees. The Foundation still lists full implementation as pending.

At the time of writing, CTSI trades around $0.025, with a market capitalization near $24 million. The price is roughly 98 percent below its May 2021 all-time high of $1.74 and modestly above its all-time low of about $0.02. Stage 2 headlines drove an April rally above $0.049, but the token subsequently gave back most of that gain.

Foundation Treasury

Most of the Foundation's treasury is held outside CTSI. Its 2025 Transparency Report, published in January, shows that fiat in bank accounts represented 65.16 percent of year-end assets. Stablecoins, ETH and other crypto accounted for 16.29 percent, while CTSI made up 18.55 percent at a year-end price of $0.0314.

At current commitments, that treasury provides a projected runway of four years and four months, or three years and six months excluding CTSI. The Foundation had deployed 59.83 percent of its CTSI to staking or interest-bearing positions. Wallets and exchange accounts held the remaining 40.17 percent.

Of core spending in 2025, R&D unit grants received 36 percent, ecosystem unit grants 12 percent and core company grants 11 percent. Foundation initiatives, operations, marketing and growth accounted for the other 41 percent.

CTSI Staking Mechanics

CTSI staking secures Reserve Mining, a proof-of-stake process. Nodes are selected to produce blocks in proportion to their stake and receive CTSI released from the Mine Reserve.

Before delegating, consider these mechanics:

• Reward source: The Foundation transfers tokens from a DelayedWithdraw wallet, which imposes a seven-day delay, to a Reserve Mine wallet. That wallet funds the RewardManager contract monthly, after which distribution is automatic.
• Pool delegation: Most holders use pools on the explorer because setting up a node carries fixed costs regardless of stake size.
• Yield expectations: Cartesi advertises returns of up to 20 percent. Actual rates vary with total participation and pool fees, and third-party trackers have reported lower figures. Our crypto staking calculator helps model the difference.
• No slashing for downtime: An offline node loses the opportunity to produce blocks, but its stake is not reduced.
• Separate from PRT validation: Entering a dispute tournament to defend a Cartesi rollup requires an ETH bond, currently about 0.232 ETH per entry. CTSI staking plays no role in that process.

What Is Being Built on Cartesi

Five applications illustrate the stack's current uses, with four in finance and one in gaming.

1. PRT Honeypot v2

Honeypot is Cartesi's standing bug bounty on Ethereum mainnet. The current version launched on 8 November 2025 and received its Stage 2 listing on L2BEAT the following month. It secures under $1,500 of CTSI, according to the tracker.

The bounty remains small while the stack is in alpha. Its predecessor used permissioned settlement, passed 1 million CTSI in July 2024 and was never drained. In v2, only a 3-of-6 Cartesi multisig can withdraw, and it can send funds only to itself.

2. Nucleus

Nucleus is a hackathon-winning lending protocol with a conventional interface and Python-based statistical risk analysis underneath. NumPy and other open-source libraries run inside the Cartesi Machine, setting collateral limits from an asset's full price history rather than a single price-feed reading.

3. DCA Monster

DCA Monster offers stream swaps and conditional swaps on a decentralized exchange whose core automated market maker logic is written in Python. Its focus is order types that centralized venues routinely support but most decentralized exchanges still cannot offer.

4. Combinatorial Information Market

A June demo treats forecasting variables as a connected probabilistic system. Conventional prediction markets price each question separately. Using exact-inference algorithms, specifically a junction tree with belief propagation, the demo shows how inflation expectations, elections and policy outcomes affect one another. All computation is deterministic and verifiable onchain.

5. RIVES

RIVES is an onchain fantasy console powered by RIV, a deterministic emulator that runs in browsers and inside rollup validators. Players download a cartridge and play in the browser, then submit a tape of their inputs. The rollup replays that tape to verify the score.

Running on Base mainnet, RIVES hosts DOOM ports and other retro titles. It remains Cartesi's most visible consumer application.

Cartesi Security: PRT, Stage 2 and the Honeypot Freeze

Cartesi's Permissionless Refereed Tournaments (PRT) let one honest validator defeat any number of dishonest participants. Introduced in a 2022 paper and formalized as Dave in peer-reviewed research in May 2025, PRT narrows disputes to one RISC-V instruction that Ethereum checks. Mainnet uses three tournament levels, a minimum seven-day challenge period and bonds of about 0.232 ETH per entrant.

PRT Honeypot v2 holds L2BEAT's Stage 2 classification, reflecting the removal of administrative controls described in Vitalik Buterin's rollup milestones. Its contracts are immutable, proving is permissionless and nobody can override results. Security still requires an honest validator, while delay attacks can slow settlement.

Those constraints became clear in September 2025 when Cartesi submitted a fraudulent test claim to the first PRT Honeypot. A contract bug prevented the honest validator from claiming victory, permanently freezing roughly $1,000 of Cartesi-owned CTSI. The postmortem confirmed that no incorrect state settled, but there was no admin key to recover funds. A fixed v2 launched two months later.

Subsequent safeguards include emergency withdrawals in June's Rollups Node v2.0.0-alpha.12 and claim staging in July, which adds a window before tournament results become final. The roadmap prioritizes validator diversity, Fraud-Proof System v3, external audits and AI-agent testing before applications hold real money. Cartesi is also exploring ZK verification to eliminate delay attacks while preserving Linux execution and support for computation of any size.

Cartesi Statistics & Trends

Key figures as of September:

• Market: CTSI trades near $0.025, a market cap of roughly $24 million, with about 947 million of the 1 billion cap circulating. That is about 98.5 percent below the May 2021 high of $1.74.
• Value secured: Under $1,500 of CTSI in the PRT Honeypot v2 rollup, kept small during the alpha phase.
• Fraud-proof parameters: Three tournament levels, a challenge period of about seven days and a bond of about 0.232 ETH per entrant.
• Stage 2 timeline: Mainnet launch June 2025, freeze September 2025, v2 redeployed 8 November 2025, Stage 2 listing December 2025.
• Foundation runway: Four years and four months including CTSI, or three years and six months without it, on a treasury that is 65.16 percent fiat.
• Compute headroom: More than 3.6 billion RISC-V instructions per average Ethereum block interval, per Cartesi's own benchmarks.
• Release cadence: Machine Emulator v0.21.0, Rollups Contracts 3.0.0-alpha.9, Rollups Node v2.0.0-alpha.12, Sequencer v0.1.0-alpha.9 and CLI 2.0.0-alpha.35 all shipped between April and August, tracked on Cartesi's GitHub.

The trends behind those numbers:

• Focus over breadth: Dropping the EigenLayer coprocessor, Bitcoin execution and alternative data-availability work is the largest strategic change in the project's history.
• Safety before deposits: Emergency withdrawals, claim staging, validator diversity and audits all come before any push for total value locked, and no DeFi application holds meaningful funds yet.
• Stage 2 is getting crowded: Aztec joined the tier in June after revoking ownership of its rollup contract, so the badge is becoming a baseline.
• Token utility lags the technology: The Validator Marketplace that would tie CTSI to application revenue has been a proposal since November 2024, so the price tracks sentiment more than usage.

Pros and Cons of Cartesi

Cartesi Founders

Erick de Moura, Cartesi's CEO, founded the project in 2018 with Augusto Teixeira, Diego Nehab and Colin Steil. Teixeira researches probability theory and Nehab computer graphics at IMPA, Brazil's national institute for pure and applied mathematics.

Felipe Argento and Brandon Isaacson left the Foundation board in June to build applications. Their move suggests that those closest to the stack see shipping products as its next test.

Final Thoughts

Cartesi has completed the difficult infrastructure work. Its fraud-proof system can withstand Sybil attacks, holds Stage 2 status on L2BEAT and has been stress-tested by a real mainnet freeze. Most rollups cannot claim as much.

The remaining task is to attract money to that infrastructure. Cartesi's DeFi pivot rests on whether Python risk engines, exact bonding curves and native conditional orders can bring liquidity to an application-specific chain with a seven-day exit. We consider the thesis sound and the execution honest. The case for a CTSI revaluation depends on which applications ship over the coming year and how much money users entrust to them.