Relayer
A relayerRelayer A process that moves data between chains. Shinzo uses two that share nothing but the name: the EVM relayer bridges Ethereum to ShinzoHub, and Hermes bridges ShinzoHub to SourceHub over IBC. is a process that moves data from an external chain to ShinzoHubShinzoHub Shinzo's coordination chain: a Cosmos SDK chain (v0.53.4) with an integrated EVM, running CometBFT consensus. It holds the view, host, and indexer registries and the economic layer (staking, pricing, payments). It does not store or serve indexed blockchain data.. It watches for assertionsAssertion A cryptographic proof, produced on a source chain, that a validator is who they claim to be. It ties the validator's consensus identity to an operator key. Without a valid assertion, a validator cannot register as an indexer on ShinzoHub. and payments produced by outpost contracts and delivers them to ShinzoHubShinzoHub Shinzo's coordination chain: a Cosmos SDK chain (v0.53.4) with an integrated EVM, running CometBFT consensus. It holds the view, host, and indexer registries and the economic layer (staking, pricing, payments). It does not store or serve indexed blockchain data. as Cosmos SDKCosmos SDK A Go framework for building app-specific blockchains. ShinzoHub (v0.53.4) and SourceHub are both Cosmos SDK chains. ShinzoHub also bundles an EVM module. transactions.
ShinzoHubShinzoHub Shinzo's coordination chain: a Cosmos SDK chain (v0.53.4) with an integrated EVM, running CometBFT consensus. It holds the view, host, and indexer registries and the economic layer (staking, pricing, payments). It does not store or serve indexed blockchain data. does not watch external chains. It only processes messages that are broadcast to it. The relayerRelayer A process that moves data between chains. Shinzo uses two that share nothing but the name: the EVM relayer bridges Ethereum to ShinzoHub, and Hermes bridges ShinzoHub to SourceHub over IBC. reads what happened on the source chainSource chain Any external blockchain that Shinzo indexes — Ethereum, an L2, a Cosmos chain, etc. A source chain hosts an outpost contract and is read by indexers. and tells ShinzoHubShinzoHub Shinzo's coordination chain: a Cosmos SDK chain (v0.53.4) with an integrated EVM, running CometBFT consensus. It holds the view, host, and indexer registries and the economic layer (staking, pricing, payments). It does not store or serve indexed blockchain data. about it.
The relayerRelayer A process that moves data between chains. Shinzo uses two that share nothing but the name: the EVM relayer bridges Ethereum to ShinzoHub, and Hermes bridges ShinzoHub to SourceHub over IBC. is a standalone Go process, not a smart contractSmart Contract Deterministic code deployed on a blockchain. The same inputs always produce the same output, and the output is verifiable by anyone.. It connects to both the source chainSource chain Any external blockchain that Shinzo indexes — Ethereum, an L2, a Cosmos chain, etc. A source chain hosts an outpost contract and is read by indexers. and ShinzoHubShinzoHub Shinzo's coordination chain: a Cosmos SDK chain (v0.53.4) with an integrated EVM, running CometBFT consensus. It holds the view, host, and indexer registries and the economic layer (staking, pricing, payments). It does not store or serve indexed blockchain data.: reads from one, writes to the other.
This is the EVM relayerEVM Relayer A Go process that bridges an external EVM chain (e.g. Ethereum) to ShinzoHub. It subscribes to outpost events, extracts assertion or payment data, and broadcasts the relevant Cosmos SDK messages to ShinzoHub. Not the same as the Hermes IBC relayer., which bridges Ethereum to ShinzoHubShinzoHub Shinzo's coordination chain: a Cosmos SDK chain (v0.53.4) with an integrated EVM, running CometBFT consensus. It holds the view, host, and indexer registries and the economic layer (staking, pricing, payments). It does not store or serve indexed blockchain data.. It is a completely different system from the HermesHermes An IBC relayer written in Rust by Informal Systems. It moves IBC packets between ShinzoHub and SourceHub by fetching Merkle proofs from one chain and submitting them to the other. It is stateless and cannot fabricate packets; SourceHub verifies each one against a state proof. IBCIBC A protocol for passing authenticated messages between independent blockchains. It works in layers: light clients verify state proofs, connections link two chains, channels carry ordered or unordered packets, and applications (like ICA) run on top. ShinzoHub and SourceHub communicate over IBC. relayerRelayer A process that moves data between chains. Shinzo uses two that share nothing but the name: the EVM relayer bridges Ethereum to ShinzoHub, and Hermes bridges ShinzoHub to SourceHub over IBC., which bridges ShinzoHubShinzoHub Shinzo's coordination chain: a Cosmos SDK chain (v0.53.4) with an integrated EVM, running CometBFT consensus. It holds the view, host, and indexer registries and the economic layer (staking, pricing, payments). It does not store or serve indexed blockchain data. to SourceHubSourceHub A separate Cosmos SDK chain built by Source Network that handles authorization for Shinzo. It runs the ACP module (based on Google's Zanzibar model) and stores authorization tuples in the form `object#relation@user`. Users never call SourceHub directly — ShinzoHub sends commands to it via ICA.. They share the word relayerRelayer A process that moves data between chains. Shinzo uses two that share nothing but the name: the EVM relayer bridges Ethereum to ShinzoHub, and Hermes bridges ShinzoHub to SourceHub over IBC. and nothing else.
Assertion relay
When a signed assertionAssertion A cryptographic proof, produced on a source chain, that a validator is who they claim to be. It ties the validator's consensus identity to an operator key. Without a valid assertion, a validator cannot register as an indexer on ShinzoHub. is detected on the source chainSource chain Any external blockchain that Shinzo indexes — Ethereum, an L2, a Cosmos chain, etc. A source chain hosts an outpost contract and is read by indexers., the relayerRelayer A process that moves data between chains. Shinzo uses two that share nothing but the name: the EVM relayer bridges Ethereum to ShinzoHub, and Hermes bridges ShinzoHub to SourceHub over IBC.:
- Extracts the assertionAssertion A cryptographic proof, produced on a source chain, that a validator is who they claim to be. It ties the validator's consensus identity to an operator key. Without a valid assertion, a validator cannot register as an indexer on ShinzoHub. data (consensus keyConsensus Key The public key a validator uses to sign blocks and participate in chain consensus. During an assertion, this key is bound to an operator key so the indexer can act on the validator's behalf on ShinzoHub., delegate signature, digest, etc.).
- Recovers the delegate public key from the delegate signature.
- Packages everything into a
MsgIndexerAssertion. - Broadcasts the message to ShinzoHubShinzoHub Shinzo's coordination chain: a Cosmos SDK chain (v0.53.4) with an integrated EVM, running CometBFT consensus. It holds the view, host, and indexer registries and the economic layer (staking, pricing, payments). It does not store or serve indexed blockchain data..
After ShinzoHubShinzoHub Shinzo's coordination chain: a Cosmos SDK chain (v0.53.4) with an integrated EVM, running CometBFT consensus. It holds the view, host, and indexer registries and the economic layer (staking, pricing, payments). It does not store or serve indexed blockchain data. processes the message, the validatorValidator An entity that participates in a chain's consensus. On Ethereum, a validator's withdrawal key signs an EIP-712 message on the outpost to authorize an operator key as its indexer. can register as an indexerIndexer A node that reads blockchain data from a source chain, parses it into structured documents, and writes them to defraDB. Indexers are write-only: they push data out over P2P and reject all incoming replication. in the Indexer RegistryIndexer Registry The ShinzoHub EVM precompile at `0x0212` that tracks registered indexers. An indexer cannot register here directly — it must first complete an assertion via an outpost contract. The registry verifies the stored assertion before accepting registration. (0x0212).
What gets relayed
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Consensus public key | Public key of the validatorValidator An entity that participates in a chain's consensus. On Ethereum, a validator's withdrawal key signs an EIP-712 message on the outpost to authorize an operator key as its indexer. |
| Delegate address | Address derived from the delegate key |
| Source chainSource chain Any external blockchain that Shinzo indexes — Ethereum, an L2, a Cosmos chain, etc. A source chain hosts an outpost contract and is read by indexers. | Identifier of the source chainSource chain Any external blockchain that Shinzo indexes — Ethereum, an L2, a Cosmos chain, etc. A source chain hosts an outpost contract and is read by indexers. |
| Source chainSource chain Any external blockchain that Shinzo indexes — Ethereum, an L2, a Cosmos chain, etc. A source chain hosts an outpost contract and is read by indexers. ID | Chain ID of the source chainSource chain Any external blockchain that Shinzo indexes — Ethereum, an L2, a Cosmos chain, etc. A source chain hosts an outpost contract and is read by indexers. |
| AssertionAssertion A cryptographic proof, produced on a source chain, that a validator is who they claim to be. It ties the validator's consensus identity to an operator key. Without a valid assertion, a validator cannot register as an indexer on ShinzoHub. ID | ID from the outpostOutpost A smart contract deployed on a source chain. Validators call it to prove their identity before registering as indexers; users call it to pay for view access in the source chain's native currency. Each chain type has its own outpost implementation. contract |
| Delegate digest | The assertionAssertion A cryptographic proof, produced on a source chain, that a validator is who they claim to be. It ties the validator's consensus identity to an operator key. Without a valid assertion, a validator cannot register as an indexer on ShinzoHub. digest that was signed |
| Delegate signature | The delegate's signature over the digest |
Chain-specific detection
How the relayerRelayer A process that moves data between chains. Shinzo uses two that share nothing but the name: the EVM relayer bridges Ethereum to ShinzoHub, and Hermes bridges ShinzoHub to SourceHub over IBC. detects assertionsAssertion A cryptographic proof, produced on a source chain, that a validator is who they claim to be. It ties the validator's consensus identity to an operator key. Without a valid assertion, a validator cannot register as an indexer on ShinzoHub. depends on the source chainSource chain Any external blockchain that Shinzo indexes — Ethereum, an L2, a Cosmos chain, etc. A source chain hosts an outpost contract and is read by indexers.. EVMEVM The runtime that executes Solidity smart contracts. ShinzoHub embeds an EVM module so its registries are accessible as precompiled contracts at fixed addresses, callable from any EVM tooling. chains expose data through block headers and event logsLog A document type the indexer produces for event logs emitted during transaction execution. `topics` holds the indexed parameters and `data` holds the non-indexed ones, both as raw hex. ABI decoding happens later, in a lens.. Cosmos chains emit wasm-assertion_signed events. ShinzoHubShinzoHub Shinzo's coordination chain: a Cosmos SDK chain (v0.53.4) with an integrated EVM, running CometBFT consensus. It holds the view, host, and indexer registries and the economic layer (staking, pricing, payments). It does not store or serve indexed blockchain data. does not care how the relayerRelayer A process that moves data between chains. Shinzo uses two that share nothing but the name: the EVM relayer bridges Ethereum to ShinzoHub, and Hermes bridges ShinzoHub to SourceHub over IBC. found the assertionAssertion A cryptographic proof, produced on a source chain, that a validator is who they claim to be. It ties the validator's consensus identity to an operator key. Without a valid assertion, a validator cannot register as an indexer on ShinzoHub.. As long as it gets a valid MsgIndexerAssertion, it processes it the same way.
Payment relay
When the relayerRelayer A process that moves data between chains. Shinzo uses two that share nothing but the name: the EVM relayer bridges Ethereum to ShinzoHub, and Hermes bridges ShinzoHub to SourceHub over IBC. sees a PaymentCreated event from the outpostOutpost A smart contract deployed on a source chain. Validators call it to prove their identity before registering as indexers; users call it to pay for view access in the source chain's native currency. Each chain type has its own outpost implementation. contract, it extracts the payment details (resource type, identity, stream IDStream ID A unique identifier assigned to a curated data feed when it is registered., expiration) and broadcasts MsgRequestStreamAccess to ShinzoHubShinzoHub Shinzo's coordination chain: a Cosmos SDK chain (v0.53.4) with an integrated EVM, running CometBFT consensus. It holds the view, host, and indexer registries and the economic layer (staking, pricing, payments). It does not store or serve indexed blockchain data..
The payment pipeline is optional and can be toggled in the relayerRelayer A process that moves data between chains. Shinzo uses two that share nothing but the name: the EVM relayer bridges Ethereum to ShinzoHub, and Hermes bridges ShinzoHub to SourceHub over IBC.'s configuration.
Connections
The relayerRelayer A process that moves data between chains. Shinzo uses two that share nothing but the name: the EVM relayer bridges Ethereum to ShinzoHub, and Hermes bridges ShinzoHub to SourceHub over IBC. maintains two connections:
| Connection | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Source chainSource chain Any external blockchain that Shinzo indexes — Ethereum, an L2, a Cosmos chain, etc. A source chain hosts an outpost contract and is read by indexers. (Ethereum) | Read assertionAssertion A cryptographic proof, produced on a source chain, that a validator is who they claim to be. It ties the validator's consensus identity to an operator key. Without a valid assertion, a validator cannot register as an indexer on ShinzoHub. and payment data |
| ShinzoHubShinzoHub Shinzo's coordination chain: a Cosmos SDK chain (v0.53.4) with an integrated EVM, running CometBFT consensus. It holds the view, host, and indexer registries and the economic layer (staking, pricing, payments). It does not store or serve indexed blockchain data. | Broadcast transactions |
The relayerRelayer A process that moves data between chains. Shinzo uses two that share nothing but the name: the EVM relayer bridges Ethereum to ShinzoHub, and Hermes bridges ShinzoHub to SourceHub over IBC. has its own wallet on ShinzoHubShinzoHub Shinzo's coordination chain: a Cosmos SDK chain (v0.53.4) with an integrated EVM, running CometBFT consensus. It holds the view, host, and indexer registries and the economic layer (staking, pricing, payments). It does not store or serve indexed blockchain data. and needs SHNZSHNZ ShinzoHub's native token. The display denomination; on-chain the base unit is `ushinzo` (1 SHNZ = 10^18 ushinzo). Used for staking, transaction fees, view funding, and relayer gas. for gas to broadcast transactions. It maintains a persistent block cursor so it can resume exactly where it left off after a restart.
Implementations
| Implementation | Source chainSource chain Any external blockchain that Shinzo indexes — Ethereum, an L2, a Cosmos chain, etc. A source chain hosts an outpost contract and is read by indexers. type | Status |
|---|---|---|
| shinzo-evmEVM The runtime that executes Solidity smart contracts. ShinzoHub embeds an EVM module so its registries are accessible as precompiled contracts at fixed addresses, callable from any EVM tooling.-relayerRelayer A process that moves data between chains. Shinzo uses two that share nothing but the name: the EVM relayer bridges Ethereum to ShinzoHub, and Hermes bridges ShinzoHub to SourceHub over IBC. | EVMEVM The runtime that executes Solidity smart contracts. ShinzoHub embeds an EVM module so its registries are accessible as precompiled contracts at fixed addresses, callable from any EVM tooling. (Ethereum, L2s) | Complete |
| Cosmos relayerRelayer A process that moves data between chains. Shinzo uses two that share nothing but the name: the EVM relayer bridges Ethereum to ShinzoHub, and Hermes bridges ShinzoHub to SourceHub over IBC. | Cosmos SDKCosmos SDK A Go framework for building app-specific blockchains. ShinzoHub (v0.53.4) and SourceHub are both Cosmos SDK chains. ShinzoHub also bundles an EVM module. chains | Not yet implemented |
| CosmosEVM relayerRelayer A process that moves data between chains. Shinzo uses two that share nothing but the name: the EVM relayer bridges Ethereum to ShinzoHub, and Hermes bridges ShinzoHub to SourceHub over IBC. | Hybrid Cosmos+EVMEVM The runtime that executes Solidity smart contracts. ShinzoHub embeds an EVM module so its registries are accessible as precompiled contracts at fixed addresses, callable from any EVM tooling. chains | Not yet implemented |
Supporting a new chain type means writing a new relayerRelayer A process that moves data between chains. Shinzo uses two that share nothing but the name: the EVM relayer bridges Ethereum to ShinzoHub, and Hermes bridges ShinzoHub to SourceHub over IBC. implementation. The detection mechanism can differ as long as the output (MsgIndexerAssertion) follows the same format.