Imua is a decentralized, purpose-built Layer 1 blockchain designed to function as a universal protocol for shared security. The platform aggregates economic security from staked assets across various major blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and Solana, and extends this security to validate and secure a wide range of off-chain services and applications. ^{[4] [3] [5]}

Overview

Imua operates as a sovereign, EVM-compatible blockchain that enables users to stake or restake assets from different networks in a non-custodial manner. This aggregated capital forms a security pool that is then used by network operators to validate external systems, known as Actively Validated Services (AVS) or verifiable services.

These services, which can range from AI networks and financial protocols to robotics and media platforms, pay fees to the Imua protocol for this security. The revenue generated from these fees is then distributed as yield to the asset stakers and network operators, creating a self-sustaining economic model. The project's mission is to address the decline of trust in digital and traditional institutions by providing a mechanism for on-chain verifiability for off-chain applications. ^[4]

The protocol's architecture is designed to be modular, managing complex staking and validation logic at the core protocol level rather than relying solely on smart contracts. This approach is intended to enhance security and reduce the attack surface. By sourcing liquidity and security from multiple blockchain ecosystems, Imua aims to unify fragmented capital under a common security framework. The name "Imua" is a Hawaiian word meaning "to move forward," reflecting the project's goal of advancing the application of blockchain security. The project was formerly known as Exocore, with its foundational concepts detailed in a whitepaper titled "Exocore 2023." ^{[3] [5]}

History

Imua was co-founded by crypto veterans Warren Paul Anderson and Rongjian Lan, along with Raluca Ada Popa, a UC Berkeley Professor of computer science with a focus on cryptography and AI security. In February 2025, the project announced it had raised $5 million in a seed funding round to support its development and ecosystem growth. At the time of the announcement, the public testnet was live with 42 validators, and the mainnet was expected to launch soon after. ^[5]

The seed round was led by Draper Dragon, No Limit Holdings, and Paramita Capital. The funding round was oversubscribed, with additional participation from Reforge Capital, Caladan Capital, Tané Labs, Syntax Capital, MH Ventures, 57 Blocks, and Lecca Ventures. Shima Capital also provided early incubation support. This diverse backing indicates significant interest from various sectors of the venture capital landscape in Imua's shared security model. ^[5]

Technology

Imua is built as a modular, purpose-built Layer 1 blockchain that integrates several key technologies to achieve its shared security objectives. Its design emphasizes interoperability, security, and developer accessibility. ^[3]

Core Architecture

The foundation of Imua is a sovereign blockchain that utilizes a Tendermint-based Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus mechanism to ensure network integrity and agreement among validators. The platform is fully EVM-compatible, which allows developers from the Ethereum ecosystem to build and deploy applications on Imua using familiar tools and programming languages like Solidity.

For cross-chain communication, Imua employs Zero-Knowledge (ZK) light-client bridging technology. This approach enables trust-minimized interactions with other blockchains, reducing reliance on centralized or multi-signature-based bridge designs that have historically been vulnerable to exploits. The protocol's modularity is a central design principle, allowing for horizontal scalability and flexibility in integrating new blockchains and verifiable services. ^{[4] [3]}

Five-Layer Architecture

The Imua protocol is structured into five distinct layers, each with a specific function in the shared security process. This layered design separates concerns and allows the system to manage the complex interactions between different blockchains, stakers, operators, and services.

• Re/stakers Layer: This is the foundational layer that provides the economic security for the entire network. Participants, known as Re/stakers, deposit various forms of collateral into the protocol. Supported assets include native tokens from other blockchains (e.g., BTC, ETH), liquid staking tokens (LSTs), liquidity provider (LP) tokens, and stablecoins.
• Chains Layer: This layer consists of the external Layer 1 and Layer 2 blockchains from which security is sourced, referred to as "client chains." Imua is designed to be chain-agnostic, supporting multiple execution environments such as UTXO (Bitcoin), EVM (Ethereum), Rust (Solana), WASM, and MOVE. On each client chain, Imua deploys smart contracts, including vaults and controllers, that allow restakers to deposit, delegate, and withdraw their collateral while maintaining self-custody.
• Communication Layer: This layer functions as the messaging bridge between the Imua blockchain and the various client chains. It is a modular component that can integrate with third-party messaging protocols like LayerZero, Axelar, Chainlink, Wormhole, or the Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC). It operates primarily as a "one-way state peg," writing commands such as lock, unlock, and slash to the client chains and reading state updates from them to relay back to Imua. This design minimizes the security risks commonly associated with traditional two-way asset bridges.
• Coordination Layer: This is the Imua L1 blockchain itself, acting as the central control plane and accounting system for the entire protocol. It orchestrates all interactions between restakers, client chains, operators, and services. Its core modules execute the restaking logic, including asset management, slashing conditions, and the calculation and distribution of rewards.
• Services Layer: This is the top layer, comprising the consumers of Imua's shared security. These include Actively Validated Services (AVS), rollups, and specialized cryptographic networks for applications like Zero-Knowledge proofs, Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), Multi-Party Computation (MPC), and Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs). These services pay fees to the protocol in exchange for economic security.

The five-layer architecture provides a structured framework for aggregating and extending security across the blockchain ecosystem. ^[3]

Key Concepts and Innovations

Imua introduces several key concepts that underpin its shared security model.

• restaked Proof-of-Stake (rPOS): This is the core consensus and security model of the Imua network. It extends the traditional Proof-of-Stake model by allowing assets already staked on other blockchains (or their liquid derivatives) to be "restaked" to secure the Imua network and its ecosystem of verifiable services.
• Multi-Token and Multi-Chain Restaking: The protocol is designed to be omnichain, accepting a diverse range of digital assets from numerous blockchains as collateral. This multi-token, multi-chain approach significantly expands the total addressable market for economic security that the protocol can aggregate.
• Enshrined Price Oracle: A critical component of the protocol is a built-in, or "enshrined," price oracle. This oracle is responsible for normalizing the value of all diverse restaked assets into a common, USD-denominated measure. This allows for a consistent and predictable accounting of the total economic security available to the network and ensures that security guarantees are standardized across all services.
• Tribe Staking: The official documentation mentions a specific staking concept referred to as "Tribe Staking," though further details on its mechanics are not fully elaborated in the introductory materials.

These innovations collectively enable Imua to create a universal and standardized market for decentralized trust. ^[3]

Economic Model

Imua's economic model is designed to create a sustainable and revenue-driven ecosystem for all participants. The model is centered on a clear value flow where verifiable services pay for security, and the resulting revenue is distributed as yield to those providing the security. This contrasts with inflationary models where rewards are generated primarily through new token issuance. ^[4]

The process for participants generally follows a three-step cycle:

1. Stake: Users stake or restake native tokens from various blockchains (e.g., BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP) in a non-custodial manner. This means they deposit their assets into Imua's smart contracts on the respective client chains but retain ownership and control.
2. Delegate: Stakers delegate their staked capital to an operator, who runs the validator infrastructure for the Imua network. These operators are responsible for performing the validation tasks required by the verifiable services.
3. Earn: Operators use the delegated stake to secure verifiable off-chain services. These services pay fees to the Imua protocol for the economic security they receive. This revenue is then distributed as yield to the stakers who provided the capital and the operators who performed the work.

This cycle creates a direct link between the demand for security from real-world applications and the rewards earned by stakers. The project emphasizes that the yield is "sustainable" and "backed by real revenue," aiming to provide a more stable incentive structure for long-term participation. ^[4]

Ecosystem

The Imua ecosystem is composed of distinct participants and a growing number of services building on its protocol.

Ecosystem Participants

There are three primary roles within the Imua network:

• Re/stakers: These are the individuals and entities that provide the economic security for the network. By depositing and delegating their assets (such as LSTs, LP tokens, or native cryptocurrencies), they form the capital base that underpins the protocol's security guarantees.
• Operators: These are the technical providers that run validator nodes for the Imua Proof-of-Stake network. They are responsible for maintaining network consensus, validating transactions, and performing the specific validation tasks required by the services that subscribe to Imua's security.
• Services (AVS): These are the applications, protocols, or networks that consume Imua's shared security. They pay fees to the protocol to secure their own operations, leveraging the aggregated economic stake of the Imua network instead of needing to bootstrap their own validator sets and economic security from scratch.

These roles create a symbiotic relationship where services receive cost-effective security, while stakers and operators earn real yield for their contributions. ^[3]

Verifiable Services and Partnerships

Imua has attracted a number of projects, referred to as "verifiable services," that are building on its protocol. The official website lists over a dozen partners leveraging its shared security model. Notable partners include:

• AlphaGuard
• corecast
• DSC
• FastNode
• Gama Protocol
• Himera
• Hyperbolic
• LayerZero
• Monallo
• Sirkl
• Tessium
• TriggerX
• Veritas
• Zeru

Use Cases

Imua's shared security model is designed to be broadly applicable, extending on-chain trust to a variety of off-chain sectors. The protocol aims to provide verifiable security for systems where full on-chain execution is impractical or inefficient.

• Artificial Intelligence (AI): Securing decentralized AI networks by enabling verifiable task execution, model inference, and output validation.
• Robotics: Providing a trust layer for robotic operations, as highlighted by the website's headline "stake BTC to verify ROBOTS." This could involve verifying data integrity from sensors or confirming the execution of automated tasks.
• Stablecoins: Offering credible and transparent economic backing for new or existing stablecoins, enhancing their resilience and trustworthiness.
• Cross-Chain Bridges: Augmenting the security of cross-chain bridges by adding a layer of verifiable trust derived from multi-chain collateral, making them less susceptible to exploits.
• Oracles: Increasing the economic security budget of oracle networks to protect against data manipulation attacks and ensure the delivery of accurate, tamper-proof data to smart contracts.
• RPC Infrastructure: Enabling on-chain verifiability for Service Level Agreements (SLAs) of RPC providers, ensuring reliability and uptime guarantees.
• DeFi Protocols: Securing off-chain components of DeFi applications, such as order books or matching engines, to make them more transparent and censorship-resistant.
• GameFi: Verifiably rewarding user behavior and validating in-game actions without requiring the entire game's logic to be processed on-chain, which can be costly and slow.
• Media: Verifying the authenticity and provenance of digital content to combat misinformation and ensure creators are properly credited.

These use cases demonstrate the protocol's flexibility in applying blockchain-based security to a wide array of digital and physical systems. ^{[4] [3]}

Risk Management

The Imua documentation outlines a structured approach to identifying and mitigating the various risks inherent in a complex crypto-economic protocol. The strategy involves both proactive analysis and the implementation of protective mechanisms.

Risk Analysis

The project focuses on analyzing several key areas of potential risk:

• Crypto-Economic Risk: This involves modeling and analyzing potential economic attacks on the protocol, such as a malicious actor attempting to corrupt a verifiable service by overwhelming its security with a large amount of capital.
• Unintended Slashing: This assesses the risk of honest operators being unfairly penalized (slashed) due to software bugs, network issues, or other external factors beyond their control.
• Black Swan Events: This involves planning for unexpected, high-impact events that could threaten the stability or security of the protocol, such as a major de-pegging of a staked asset or a critical vulnerability in a client chain.

Mitigation Strategies

To address these identified risks, Imua plans to implement several mitigation strategies:

• Smart Contract Simplicity: Designing the protocol's smart contracts to be as simple and minimal as possible to reduce the potential attack surface and the likelihood of bugs.
• Audits: Committing to rigorous third-party security audits of the protocol's codebase to identify and rectify vulnerabilities before deployment.
• Slashing Prevention and Vetos: Implementing mechanisms to prevent unfair slashing events and establishing a governance process that can review and potentially overturn incorrect slashing decisions.
• Insurance Pools: Establishing pools of capital that can be used to cover losses in the event of a security breach or a slashing event that impacts user funds.
• Circuit Breakers: Integrating automated systems designed to halt specific protocol functions or the entire protocol under anomalous or dangerous conditions, such as rapid price drops in collateral assets or suspected exploits. ^[3]