⚡ ANIMICA 10.1.0 — POST-QUANTUM L1 + ANM-NATIVE L2 + VERIFIABLE AI INFRASTRUCTUREFrom 9.0.8 to 10.1.0, Animica has undergone one of the largest development cycles in the history of the network.Animica is an open-source Layer-1 blockchain built around three ideas that we believe will become increasingly important over the next decade:
• Post-quantum cryptography
• Decentralized/verifiable AI and useful compute
• A programmable monetary and application layer built around ANM
10.x significantly expands that architecture.
The project is open source:
https://github.com/animicaorg/allMain website:
https://animica.orgWHAT IS ANIMICA?Animica is not an ERC-20 token or a token deployed on another chain.
It is an independent Layer-1 blockchain with its own:
• Consensus implementation
• P2P network
• Block production
• Native ANM asset
• Account/state model
• Post-quantum transaction signatures
• Smart-contract execution environment
• Mining infrastructure
• AI capability framework
• Wallets
• Explorer
• SDKs
• RPC stack
• Developer tooling
• Data-availability infrastructure
The network uses
PoIES — Proof of Integrated External Services — which is designed to combine conventional proof-of-work security with externally useful services such as AI, quantum/randomness and storage proofs.
Animica also uses a deterministic Python-based VM for smart contracts rather than simply cloning the EVM.
9.0.8 — STABILIZING THE L19.0.8 was largely about making the existing Layer-1 infrastructure considerably more robust.
One of the problems identified was an unexpectedly expensive P2P peer-store path.
The peer store was repeatedly opening SQLite connections and executing PRAGMAs during peer ingestion.
Under load, a single large peer-list message could cause enormous amounts of synchronous work on the asyncio event loop.
Measured internally, opening/writing/closing the peer store was around
135x slower than using the cached connection path.
Under pathological conditions this could translate into tens of seconds of event-loop blocking.
The result looked strange from the outside:
The node could technically remain alive while RPC requests timed out.
That meant miners could fail to retrieve new block templates even though the node process itself appeared healthy.
9.0.8 changed the peer store to reuse a cached SQLite connection protected by the existing lock.
The network-hashrate calculation was also corrected so that its cache actually survived across blocks instead of effectively being invalidated every time a new block appeared.
The practical result:
RPC timeouts that could exceed 20 seconds were reduced to sub-second operation in testing, while block production remained healthy.This was an important foundation for what came next.
10.x — ANM INSTANT / ANM-NATIVE LAYER 2The largest architectural addition in 10.0.0 is the introduction of an
ANM-native Layer-2 payments rollup.This is not intended to replace Animica L1.
Animica L1 remains the settlement and security layer.The L2 is additive and opt-in.
It is designed to allow ANM transfers and payment activity to execute at much higher throughput while periodically committing the resulting state back to Layer 1.
Think:
ANM for settlement on L1.
ANM Instant for high-frequency payments on L2.POST-QUANTUM L2 TRANSACTIONSThe L2 does not abandon Animica’s post-quantum identity.
Transactions are built around
ML-DSA-65 signatures.
That means the high-throughput payment layer remains aligned with the post-quantum cryptographic direction of the base chain.
DETERMINISTIC PARALLEL EXECUTIONOne of the central goals of the L2 is throughput.
Instead of treating every transaction as something that must wait for an entire Layer-1 block cycle, the L2 can process transactions separately and batch settlement.
The execution architecture includes deterministic parallel processing.
The objective is straightforward:
Increase practical transaction throughput without changing Animica L1 into a centralized high-speed database.AUTHENTICATED L2 STATEThe rollup maintains authenticated state using a
Sparse Merkle Tree (SMT).
This allows account/state transitions to be represented by cryptographic roots that can be committed and verified rather than requiring participants to blindly trust an opaque balance database.
DATA AVAILABILITYBatches include reconstructable data-availability blobs.
The goal is that the state transition is not merely represented by a mysterious hash.
The data necessary to reconstruct the rollup’s activity can be made available alongside the commitment structure.
PROOF ARCHITECTUREThe proof system is intentionally pluggable.
The current implementation supports
validity by deterministic re-execution.
The architecture also contains a backend slot for future zero-knowledge proving systems.
We want to be precise here:
Animica 10.x is not claiming that the current L2 is already a production zk-rollup.The design creates a path toward stronger cryptographic validity proofs without pretending that technology exists where it does not.
L1 ↔ L2 BRIDGEThe L2 includes an L1 bridge architecture built around strict conservation of ANM.
ANM does not magically appear because it moved onto Layer 2.
The system is designed around a conservation invariant:
L2 value must remain backed by value entering through the Layer-1 side of the system.The architecture also includes forced-exit mechanisms intended to reduce dependence on the designated sequencer.
THE TRUST MODELWe also want to be transparent about what “trust-minimized” means.
The present architecture uses a designated sequencer.
That is different from claiming a completely decentralized sequencer network already exists.
The security model, escape mechanisms, settlement rules and limitations are documented in the repository.
The long-term objective is progressive decentralization without hiding the assumptions of the system today.
L2 RPC + CLI + EXPLORERThis isn’t only a whitepaper proposal.
The L2 implementation was introduced as a real code package with its own test suite.
10.0.0 reported
53 tests for the initial implementation.
The system integrates with the existing Animica node and exposes l2_* JSON-RPC functionality.
It also integrates with:
animica l2through the CLI.
Explorer support was added for L2 information including:
• L2 overview/status
• TPS information
• Batches
• Transactions
• Accounts
• State roots
The L2 can be explicitly enabled with:
The L1 consensus layer remains separate.
10.1.0 — REAL ML-DSA-65 SMART-CONTRACT DEPLOYMENT10.1.0 fixes an especially important issue in the smart-contract deployment path.
Animica’s node transaction allowlist accepts the real
ML-DSA-65 / FIPS 204 transaction signature scheme.
However, the SDK path used by:
animica contract deploy
animica contract send
was still restricting signing to legacy algorithm names.
This created a nasty deadlock:
A wallet using the real ML-DSA-65 scheme could not be signed by the CLI.
Meanwhile transactions using the legacy/stub algorithms would be rejected by the node.
The result was that genuine on-chain contract deployment could fail even though both the VM and transaction infrastructure existed.
10.1.0 fixes this.The omni_sdk signer now understands:
ml_dsa_65
ml-dsa-65
mldsa65
and routes signing through the real ML-DSA-65 backend.
VERIFIED ON MAINNETThis was not only tested locally.
The 10.1.0 release commit documents a real
ANM20 contract deployment on Animica mainnet from an ML-DSA-65 wallet.
The deployment was accepted and confirmed on-chain.
Recorded test:
Block: 71,724Contract prefix:
Reported deployment gas was approximately:
0.0002 ANMThat closes an important gap between Animica’s post-quantum transaction policy and its smart-contract tooling.
OMNI SDK NOW SHIPS WITH ANIMICAAnother practical 10.1.0 change is packaging.
omni_sdk is now vendored into the Animica Python package.
Previously it could exist as an optional dependency, creating situations where a basic Animica installation didn’t contain everything necessary for the contract-signing path.
The relevant runtime dependencies are now declared by the main package.
The objective is that:
provides a much more complete base installation.
POST-QUANTUM CRYPTOGRAPHYAnimica’s cryptographic architecture is one of the areas where the project intentionally differs from most existing cryptocurrency networks.
The current repository includes support centered around:
ML-DSA-65for post-quantum digital signatures, alongside other PQ infrastructure.
ML-DSA is the standardized successor to CRYSTALS-Dilithium under NIST’s FIPS 204 standard.
Animica is being designed around the assumption that blockchain infrastructure may need to survive much longer than today’s cryptographic comfort window.
That means post-quantum security is being treated as an architectural property rather than something we intend to bolt on years later.
AI IS PART OF THE NETWORK ARCHITECTUREAnimica is also being built around decentralized AI and useful compute.
The repository contains the
AICF — AI Capability Framework, AI agent runtime infrastructure, provider systems and compute coordination.
The broader goal is to create an environment where compute providers can perform useful AI workloads and where ANM can become the settlement asset connecting:
• AI inference
• Compute providers
• AI agents
• Applications
• Developers
• Users
• Blockchain settlement
AGENT INFRASTRUCTURE EXPANDEDThe development line leading into 10.1.0 also includes substantial work on the AI agent runtime.
The repository now contains expanded orchestration infrastructure, provider-hosted execution, entitlement handling and AICF worker improvements.
Animica’s direction is increasingly larger than “a blockchain with an AI API.”
The goal is a network where autonomous software can:
discover → execute → pay → settle → verifyusing common infrastructure.
ANIMICA INTERNETAnother major experimental subsystem appearing in this development period is
Animica Internet.
The repository now contains a dedicated application covering areas including:
• Animica-native naming
• Resolution
• Registry interaction
• Network configuration
• Wallet integration
• Custom schemes
• Content serving
• Desktop UI
• Linux packaging
• macOS packaging
• Windows packaging
The broader idea is to allow Animica identities, services and applications to exist in a network-native namespace rather than treating the blockchain as nothing more than a payment ledger.
THE STACK IS GETTING LARGEThe Animica monorepo now includes dedicated systems for:
• Consensus
• Execution
• P2P networking
• Mining
• RPC
• Post-quantum cryptography
• Proof systems
• Randomness
• Data availability
• Smart contracts
• L2 payments
• AI
• AICF
• Agent runtime
• Wallets
• Browser wallet
• Desktop wallet
• Explorer
• SDKs
• Studio
• Developer tooling
• Compute providers
• Marketplace infrastructure
• Animica Internet
• dVPN-related infrastructure
• Apps and services
This is why the 9.x → 10.x transition is important.
Animica is increasingly becoming an integrated decentralized computing platform rather than a single-purpose cryptocurrency daemon.ANM’S ROLEANM is the native asset of the Animica network.
The goal is for the same asset to connect multiple economic layers:
L1 settlement
→ L2 payments
→ smart contracts
→ AI compute
→ applications
→ services
→ agentsRather than creating a new token for every subsystem, the intention is to make ANM increasingly useful across the stack.
WHY BUILD AN L2 THIS EARLY?Because payment infrastructure becomes far more interesting when users don’t have to think in block intervals.
L1 blockchains are excellent settlement systems.
They are not always ideal for every interaction inside a game, marketplace, AI service or application.
Imagine paying tiny amounts for:
• AI inference
• API calls
• Game actions
• Agent-to-agent services
• Compute jobs
• Marketplace purchases
• Streaming services
• Machine-to-machine payments
Waiting for an L1 block for every interaction is unnecessary.
Animica’s model is therefore becoming:
L1 for security and settlement.
L2 for speed and high-frequency economic activity.10.1.0 IS NOT THE ENDThere is still a large amount of work ahead.
Areas we are continuing to investigate include:
• L2 sequencer decentralization
• Stronger validity-proof systems
• Higher transaction throughput
• Additional AI provider decentralization
• Better developer tooling
• More robust wallet integration
• Contract ecosystem growth
• More real economic activity denominated in ANM
• Improved node performance
• Broader infrastructure distribution
Animica is experimental technology.
We would rather publish the architecture, document assumptions and improve it in public than claim every part of the system is finished.
FOR DEVELOPERSThe entire project can be inspected here:
https://github.com/animicaorg/allThe repository currently contains more than
5,000 commits and includes the blockchain implementation alongside the surrounding ecosystem.
Clone:
git clone https://github.com/animicaorg/all.git
cd all
Setup:
./setup.sh
source .venv/bin/activate
Check the CLI:
NETWORKAnimica Mainnet:
Native Chain ID: 1
Default RPC: 8545
Default P2P: 30333
The network supports peer discovery, gossip propagation and multiple transport mechanisms.
Run your own node if you want to independently verify the network rather than depending on public infrastructure.
WHERE WE ARE HEADINGAnimica began with a relatively simple question:
What should a blockchain designed for a post-quantum, AI-heavy computing world actually look like?10.1.0 moves the answer considerably further.
It now includes the foundations for:
Post-quantum L1 security.
Post-quantum smart-contract transactions.
ANM-native high-speed L2 payments.
Verifiable AI infrastructure.
Useful compute.
Autonomous agents.
Native applications.
A broader decentralized service economy settled in ANM.There is plenty left to build.
But the architecture is becoming real code rather than a roadmap diagram.
WELCOME TO ANIMICA 10.1.0.Build. Mine. Compute. Verify. Settle.Website:
https://animica.orgSource:
https://github.com/animicaorg/allWallet:
https://animica.org/walletExplorer:
https://explorer.animica.orgAI / Developer Platform:
https://animica.devMining:
https://pool.animica.orgWe welcome miners, node operators, developers, cryptographers, AI researchers and anyone interested in experimenting with the network.
