All terms
A blockchain dedicated to a single application.
An appchain gives one application its own block space, so it never competes for capacity and can customize gas, governance and validator rules.
The cost is bootstrapping: security, liquidity and users all have to come from somewhere, which is why most appchains now launch as layer 3s instead of standalone chains.
dYdX moved from a rollup to its own Cosmos chain to control its order book fully.
That a dedicated chain is automatically better. It buys control over fees and block space, and it costs you the security and liquidity of a shared network, plus the job of finding validators. It suits a few applications and very few of the ones that announce it.
Common questions
Why would an app want its own chain?
What does an appchain give up?
Where this comes up on the site
The guides that actually use this word, rather than a list of everything we have written.
Where to go next
More technology terms
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