Glossary
Layer 1
The base blockchain that settles its own transactions and runs its own consensus, providing the security other layers and applications ultimately rely on.
A Layer 1 is a base blockchain — Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana — that executes transactions, reaches consensus, and finalizes state entirely on its own. It defines its native asset, its block production rules, and the security budget that everything built on top inherits.
Because an L1 does everything itself, throughput is bounded by what its validator set can safely process. That constraint is why Layer 2s, sidechains, and modular data-availability layers exist: they push execution elsewhere while still settling back to the L1. The L1 remains the ultimate source of truth — if it reorgs or halts, the layers above it feel it directly.