What is Saga (SAGA)?

Saga is a Layer 1 network built using the Cosmos SDK that offers unlimited possibilities for horizontal scalability. The project's goal is to streamline and improve the DeFi and Web3 gaming sectors by offering a more efficient and customizable approach to building new applications.

Within the Saga chain network, blockchain developers can design their own independent decentralized applications known as "Chainlets," which are not tied to any specific virtual machine manager. This capability allows for endless horizontal scaling options and enables the creation of applications that are highly flexible, compatible, predictable in terms of fees, and straightforward to develop.

Saga is a Layer 1 blockchain protocol that enables developers to automatically create virtual machine-agnostic, parallel, and interoperable dedicated chains, known as "Chainlets." These Chainlets offer applications unlimited horizontal scalability and replicate the Saga Mainnet with an identical validator set and security model.

Saga aims to empower the next 1,000 chains in gaming and entertainment, contributing to the expansion of the Saga Multiverse. With the anticipated mass adoption of blockchain, developers require a foundational infrastructure that offers infinite scalability, interoperability, and cost-efficiency for consumer applications. 

Saga addresses these needs by allowing developers to launch dedicated block space on demand that can dynamically scale based on performance requirements, providing swift bridges to other ecosystems and pricing at commodity levels. This comprehensive infrastructure equips developers to create the next generation of blockchain applications.

What is the history behind SAGA?

Saga was co-founded by Rebecca Liao (CEO), Jin Kwon (CSO), Jacob Mcdorman (CTO), and Bogdan Alexandrescu (VP of Engineering). Liao has a history of launching successful startups in the fields of crypto and AI, such as Skuchain and Globality, while also serving as a senior policy advisor during presidential campaigns for Biden and Clinton. 

Kwon has been involved in the Cosmos ecosystem since 2018, starting with his role as Chief of Staff to the CEO at Tendermint. Mcdorman is an entrepreneur, product developer, and researcher, while Alexandrescu previously held a position as an Engineering Leader at Apple Inc., focusing on large-scale distributed computing, machine learning, AI, and infrastructure projects.

What is the working mechanism of SAGA?

Saga serves as an all-in-one platform for developers aiming to deploy their own specialized appchains and bring their crypto vision to life. It offers the necessary support to seamlessly launch a dedicated blockchain, known as a chainlet, as effortlessly as deploying a smart contract.

Developers can deploy their compiled smart contract binary to the Saga Mainnet, where it is processed by Saga validators to automatically deploy the corresponding chainlet containing the smart contract.

Each chainlet hosts a single set of smart contracts, giving developers enhanced flexibility in development. Chainlets operate independently, not sharing blockspace with other applications, resulting in a more predictable fee structure. 

Furthermore, chainlet components are virtual machine (VM) neutral, allowing developers to use any VM, including Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), Solana VM, MoveVM, and more. Saga's components can also be independently updated, offering greater system upgradability.

Early appchains faced challenges in securing their chains with their own validator set and token. With Saga, this is no longer necessary as Saga chainlets benefit from shared security provided by Saga's validators. These validators use Saga's orchestration tools to automatically manage and process thousands of concurrent chainlets.

Additionally, each chain runs in parallel, ensuring chainlets don't compete for resources and function independently. This allows a single application to shard its workflow across multiple chainlets, enabling substantial scalability.

Saga's initial focus will be on gaming and entertainment due to their demand for high-performance environments. However, DeFi applications are also encouraged to use Saga's technology to unlock new opportunities in the DeFi sector.

What makes SAGA unique?

Saga is the first Layer 1 platform designed to deploy other Layer 1 blockchain, offering infinite horizontal scalability to developers. Each Saga Chainlet offers these features:

▪️ Unlimited horizontal scalability: Chainlets are parallelized appchain instances, enabling applications to scale elastically for peak performance and speed.

▪️ No-cost transactions and predictable chain fees: Developers have the flexibility to select their preferred monetization model, including custom tokens (or no token), fiat, stablecoins, or tokens from other ecosystems. Chainlet fees are determined by a daily reverse auction among validators, promoting competitive pricing for blockspace.

▪️ Automation: Developers can easily launch a Chainlet with a single click through the Saga WebApp.

▪️ Interoperability and fast bridging: Users can quickly transfer assets between Chainlets and across other ecosystems using automated interoperability and async composability. With fast transaction finality, users can also benefit from rapid bridging to other chains.

▪️ Customizable stack: Developers gain dedicated chains for maximum flexibility and customization.

The Saga Chainlet Realm automates the management of blockspace beyond the Chainlet stack through the Saga Protocol. Saga Realms allows developers to create custom chains on Saga with unique features such as technology stack, security sources, and varying obligations. 

Under this framework, the standard Saga Chainlet becomes one of many supported Realms, including those for Saga's partners like Ethereum (Ethlets), Polygon, Avalanche, Celestia, XPLA, and more.

What are the latest developments of SAGA?

Within just under two years, Saga expanded its protocol to encompass 350 projects, with 80% of them focused on gaming. Another 10% are related to NFTs and entertainment, and the remaining 10% are centered on DeFi. A complete list of these projects is available here.

Saga has formed partnerships with Polygon, Avalanche, MarbleX, Com2uS, and Celestia to scale their infrastructure automatically using Chainlets.

In March 2024, Saga introduced Saga Origins, a new division dedicated to publishing games that are bold, immersive, and innovative. Saga is the first and only web3 chain to establish a dedicated game publishing branch to work with developers on releasing their projects.

Saga Origins aims to provide comprehensive support to bring games to a global audience. Instead of developers solely securing grants to build and launch their games, Saga Origins offers additional support, such as partnerships with influencers for increased visibility, sponsored user acquisition campaigns, community engagement, and promotional assistance.

With the introduction of Play-to-Airdrop as a powerful web3-native user acquisition tool, Saga has created a distribution channel for web3 applications that many other protocols in the field have since adopted.

To read more information about SAGA, visit Suncrypto Price Explorer