Continuum Protocol

Continuum is a universal interoperability solution with a forward-compatible EVM layer, built with trust minimization at its core.

Key properties

• Trust-minimized interoperability: Cross-chain messaging modeled as authenticated communication between replicated state machines, backed by light clients and zk light clients.
• Forward-compatible EVM: Runs existing EVM contracts and tooling while exposing new verification and cryptographic primitives via precompiles and extensions.
• Cosmos-native integration: Access core Cosmos modules (bank, staking, governance, etc.) directly from Solidity.
• Heterogeneous interop: Native support for IBC-style flows, Solana-aware parsing and verification, and rich cryptographic support.
• Production-ready ecosystem surface: Ships widely used pre-deployed contracts (Multicall, Safe factories, Permit2, WETH, etc.) at well-known addresses.

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Interoperability

Continuum treats interoperability as a problem of authenticated communication between replicated state machines.

Trust minimization by construction

Many cross-chain systems introduce an additional trust domain (operator committees, multisigs, MPC/TSS groups, external verifier networks). Continuum's design goal is to avoid adding a privileged correctness third party by emphasizing light-client verification and on-chain zk light clients.

In this model, safety reduces to the security assumptions of the underlying chains' consensus plus the soundness assumptions of the proof system used for succinct verification. Empirically, a significant fraction of cross-chain losses come from compromising the bridge's trust perimeter rather than compromising the base chains.

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Execution layer

Continuum provides an EVM environment for standard Ethereum developer workflows (Solidity, JSON-RPC, familiar tooling), but treats the VM as an extensible surface via precompiles and custom extensions. This allows Continuum to introduce new verification and cryptographic primitives while remaining compatible with existing contracts.

Compatibility with Ethereum

Continuum is forward-compatible with Ethereum:

• It can run any valid smart contract from Ethereum.
• It can implement new features that are not yet available on the standard Ethereum EVM, effectively moving the standard forward.

Precompiles

Precompiles are natively executed system interfaces exposed at fixed addresses. They are used when (a) a computation is too costly or complex in EVM bytecode (e.g., SNARK verification, advanced signature schemes), or (b) contracts must safely interface with native chain modules without re-implementing them in Solidity.

Continuum exposes a curated set of precompiles that emphasize interoperability and cryptographic expressiveness:

• IBC-style light clients & token transfers – Expose light-client verification and standardized IBC fungible token transfers directly to Solidity (ics02, ics20), enabling trust-minimized cross-chain messaging and asset movement without bespoke bridges.

• zkVM proof verification (SP1 verifiers and ZK hashes) – Native precompiles for SP1 Groth16/Plonk proof verification and ZK-efficient hashes (e.g., Poseidon), enabling "prove off-chain, verify on-chain" designs such as zk light clients and succinct state attestations.

• Advanced and post-quantum cryptography: Precompiles for PQ signatures (ML-DSA, SLH-DSA), partial signature verification (FROST), and multiple signature schemes/curves (Schnorr, Schnorrkel, P-256) for compatibility with existing systems.

• Solana-aware verification: Let contracts parse Solana transactions via solanatx and verify Ed25519 signatures, making heterogeneous Ethereum–Solana flows first-class citizens.

• Verifiable randomness: A verifiable random function ecvrf precompile that enables unbiased, publicly auditable randomness for lotteries, leader selection, and randomized protocols.

• Data & UX precompiles: json, addresstable, bech32 for structured JSON parsing, address compression, and bech32/EVM address bridging improve both developer ergonomics and end-user UX in multi-domain applications.

• Cosmos modules from Solidity: Precompiles for core Cosmos functionality (bank, staking, distribution, governance, slashing, ERC-20 surfaces, and custom validator rewards) let contracts reason about and control the underlying chain's native economic and governance mechanisms.

For a full catalogue of precompiles and detailed semantics, see precompiles.md.

Pre-deployed contracts

Continuum also ships with a curated set of pre-deployed ecosystem contracts at well-known addresses, mirroring Ethereum / rollup practice (e.g., OP Stack preinstalls). This removes the "bootstrap tax" of deploying basic infra (Safe factories, Multicall, Permit2, deterministic deployers) and makes Continuum immediately compatible with existing SDKs and tooling.

Name	Standard	Address	Description
Create2	Deterministic deployment helper (EIP-1014)	0x13b0D85CcB8bf860b6b79AF3029fCA081AE9beF2	Predictable contract addresses for counterfactual and multi-chain deployments.
Multicall3	Batched calls (read & write)	0xcA11bde05977b3631167028862bE2a173976CA11	Aggregate many calls into one transaction for efficient queries and execution.
Permit2	Shared token approvals (Uniswap)	0x000000000022D473030F116dDEE9F6B43aC78BA3	Standardized approvals and permit flows, improving UX across many protocols.
Safe singleton factory	Safe canonical factory	0x914d7Fec6aaC8cd542e72Bca78B30650d45643d7	Instantly compatible with Safe-based multisig and smart-account tooling.
EIP-2935 history storage	Historical block-hash storage	0x0000F90827F1C53a10cb7A02335B175320002935	Exposes an extended window of block hashes for protocols that need history.
EIP1820 registry	Interface registry / pseudo-introspection	0x1820a4B7618BdE71Dce8cdc73aAB6C95905faD24	Standard on-chain registry for interface detection and implementer lookup.
EIP2470 singleton factory	Deterministic singleton factory	0xce0042B868300000d44A59004Da54A005ffdcf9f	Deploy the same singleton bytecode to the same address on any network.
CreateX	Universal contract deployer	0xba5Ed099633D3B313e4D5F7bdc1305d3c28ba5Ed	Flexible CREATE/CREATE2-style deployments via a single well-known address.
MultiSend	Generic batch transaction executor (Safe)	0x998739BFdAAdde7C933B942a68053933098f9EDa	Execute multiple operations atomically from Safe and smart-account flows.
MultiSendCallOnly	Batch executor without DELEGATECALL	0xA1dabEF33b3B82c7814B6D82A79e50F4AC44102B	Safer batched execution that forbids DELEGATECALL by construction.
UniversalSigValidator	EIP-6492 signature validator for pre-deploy wallets	0x7dd271fa79df3a5feb99f73bebfa4395b2e4f4be	Supports account-abstraction flows with "not-yet-deployed" smart accounts.
WETH9	Canonical wrapped-native token	0xc8ef4398664b2eed5ee560544f659083d98a3888	ERC-20 wrapper for the native token, making it usable in existing DeFi tools.

For additional context and references, see predeploys.md.

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Getting started

To deploy a local node:

1. Build the node:

make install

2. Start a local node:

./local_node.sh

3. Connect an EVM wallet or dev tool (e.g., Foundry, Hardhat, ethers.js) to the exposed JSON-RPC endpoint (check local_node.sh for the default RPC URL and chain ID).

Mainnet

Network Name	c8ntinuum
HTTP RPC URL	https://evm.c8ntinuum.io
WebSocket RPC URL	wss://evm-ws.c8ntinuum.io
Chain ID	2184
Currency Symbol	CTM
Block Explorer	CTMScan

Contributing

We welcome open source contributions and discussions! For more on contributing, read the guide.

Open-source License & Credits

Continuum is fully open-source under the Apache 2.0 license. It is based on and extends Cosmos EVM.