river

Last week, we introduced River, an open protocol for building decentralized messaging apps.

To better understand River's future,  let's dig deeper into the architecture underpinning its decentralized nature. 👇

Decentralizing digital communication stands at the core of River, with data dispersed across a network of Stream Nodes. 

These nodes manage data chunks, ensuring no single entity can monopolize the information flow, enhancing security and redundancy.

River nodes accept, validate, & store encrypted communication data from clients. They read from River smart contracts to validate incoming message data from the associated address, ensuring that address has the proper membership token rights & meets the other rules of the Space.

River's scalability is dynamically designed. As the network grows, new nodes can join, and existing nodes can adjust their capacities. 

This flexibility ensures that River can meet its users' evolving demand for security.

New streams are created through contracts and allocated amongst the set of currently active nodes. River Chain is responsible for ensuring this source of truth and triggering commands like rebalances used by all nodes in the system.

Smart contracts on River also play a pivotal role, governing critical aspects such as message lifecycles and user memberships. These contracts ensure that River remains user-centric, with every process transparent, secure, and immutable.

River's smart contracts live on @base, which we think 
provides the best environment for executing complex operations without sacrificing performance or user experience. It enables River to harness Ethereum's security while addressing transaction speed and cost limitations.

Underpinning Stream Nodes is River Chain, an OP-Stack L2 which is used in the protocol for consensus on the state of the system. Approved nodes and their state are tracked and updateable on River Chain.