Rollups-as-a-Service (RaaS)

Rollups-as-a-service (RaaS) refers to platforms that let a company, app or community launch its own rollup, a blockchain that processes transactions separately and posts its results to a larger chain such as Ethereum, without building and operating the technology from scratch. The provider handles deployment, the software that orders transactions, nodes, block explorers, bridges and upgrades, usually for a fee or a share of revenue, much as cloud companies host websites for their clients.

RaaS emerged in 2022 and 2023 as rollups became the main way of scaling Ethereum and as open-source frameworks made new chains easier to create. It is part of a broader shift towards app-specific chains, or appchains, and towards modular designs in which different networks handle execution, settlement and data storage. Rollups themselves come in two main forms, the optimistic rollup and the ZK-rollup.

Imagine you want to open a restaurant. You could buy land, build a kitchen and hire every supplier yourself, or you could rent a fully fitted kitchen in a food hall that already has power, plumbing, cleaners and a shared dining area full of customers. You choose the menu and the decor; the food hall keeps the lights on.

RaaS is the fitted kitchen for blockchains. A project chooses its rules, its fee token and its features, and the provider runs the machinery. The big shared chain underneath, usually Ethereum, acts like the food hall's building, giving everyone the same foundation and security.

A typical RaaS set-up has several layers:

• Framework. The client picks a rollup software stack, such as Optimism's OP Stack, Arbitrum Orbit, the ZK Stack from the team behind ZKsync or Polygon's chain development kit.
• Sequencer. The provider runs the sequencer, the service that collects users' transactions, puts them in order and produces blocks. In most rollups this is a single operator.
• Settlement. The rollup regularly posts its state and proofs to a base chain, usually Ethereum, which acts as its settlement layer.
• Data availability. Transaction data is published either to Ethereum or to a cheaper data network such as Celestia, so that anyone can rebuild the chain's state.
• Extras. Providers add bridges, oracles, indexers, wallets and monitoring, often through partner integrations.

Clients can usually start on a test network within hours, then move to a production mainnet once they are ready.

Projects choose their own rollup for several reasons. Games and social apps want low, predictable fees and fast blocks. Exchanges and DeFi protocols want control over transaction ordering and the chance to capture fees that would otherwise go to a shared chain. Companies and financial institutions may want a chain with restricted access or custom compliance rules while still settling to a public network. Groups of rollups built on the same framework can share bridges and standards, as in Optimism's Superchain and the networks launched with Arbitrum Orbit.

RaaS providers, which have included companies such as Caldera, Conduit and AltLayer, typically charge a monthly hosting fee, a share of sequencer revenue or both. Framework owners may also take a share of fees from chains built with their stack. Competition has pushed prices down, and the market has been compared to early web hosting, with many small chains and a few large ones. Some providers also help clients design a fee token, run the token launch or recruit validators for a later move to decentralised sequencing, blurring the line between infrastructure vendor and consultant. Large exchanges and fintech firms have tended to work directly with framework teams instead, as Coinbase did when it built its Base network on the OP Stack. As of November 2026, a large number of rollups were live, but activity was concentrated in a small group, and many app-specific chains had low usage.

• Centralisation. Most rollups launched through RaaS rely on a single sequencer run by the provider, which can censor or delay transactions and is a single point of failure.
• Upgrade control. Admin keys that can change the rollup's contracts may let operators alter rules or move funds, a concern assessed by public risk trackers.
• Fragmentation. Thousands of small chains split users and liquidity, making interoperability and bridging harder and riskier.
• Dependence on vendors. Clients rely on the provider's uptime and business survival, much as with any outsourced infrastructure.

Supporters argue that shared sequencing, decentralised sequencer sets and better proof systems will reduce these risks, and that RaaS lowers the cost of experimenting with new kinds of scaling solutions.

• Optimism documentation
• Arbitrum documentation