Gear Protocol Unveils Computational Layer To Scale Ethereum Dapps

Gear Protocol is building a decentralized computational layer to scale Ethereum.

On Oct. 11, Gear Protocol unveiled Gear.exe, a network facilitating parallelized transaction execution claiming to increase the computational capacity of Ethereum-based dApps by 1,000 times.

Gear.exe comprises a network extension rather than a blockchain, meaning it does not require asset bridging or necessitate the liquidity fragmentation associated with Layer 2 rollups. Gear Protocol said Ethereum’s high latency and slow finality contributes to a “poor user experience.” The team also said rollups foster siloed environments that are prone to liquidity fragmentation.

“Gear.exe is designed for developers who need to outsource complex computational workloads without compromising on decentralization, security, or scalability,” Gear Protocol said. “It offers a fundamentally different approach to scaling dApps, addressing the limitations of existing L2 rollups.”

The project claims to reduce transaction fees by more than 90%, offer sub-second latency, and provide a development environment optimized for the Rust programming language. Gear.exe seeks to host integrations from computationally-intensive dApps, including DeFi applications, gaming platforms, and machine-learning models, alongside infrastructure and middleware protocols.

Gear.exe leverages security provided by the Symbiotic restaking protocol, and uses a sequencer to communicate batched transactions and state root hashes with the Ethereum mainnet.

Gear.exe is currently live on Ethereum’s Holesky testnet, with plans for a mainnet launch during the first half of 2025.

Gear Protocol also plans to support integrations from protocols leveraging blockchains outside of Ethereum, stating Gear.exe can be implemented to any Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) or non-EVM chain.

Gear Protocol previously developed the Vara Network Layer 1, which will facilitate staking, validation, and fee payments.

The news comes as Layer 2 rollups have emerged as the leading architecture for scaling Ethereum.

Rollups drove 14.6 transactions per second (TPS) over the past 24 hours, compared to 13.4 TPS on the Ethereum mainnet, according to L2beat.