Why Choose CDK?

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EVM Compatibility

Chains built with the Polygon Chain Development Kit (CDK) are fully EVM-equivalent. Existing smart contracts can be deployed without modification, and standard Ethereum tooling works without reconfiguration.

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Performance

• 60 to 100+ Mgas/s throughput
• 20,000+ TPS when optimized for payment workloads
• Sub-60-minute finality in zkRollup and validium modes

CDK supports two OP Stack execution clients: op-geth (Geth-based) and op-reth (Reth-based), giving operators flexibility in resource usage and performance tuning. For a validator-operated private ledger, CDK Besu runs Hyperledger Besu with QBFT consensus.

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Rollup Modes

Every CDK chain supports multiple rollup modes:

• Sovereign: No ZK prover required. Agglayer enforces security through pessimistic proofs. Default configuration.
• Validium: ZK-secured execution with offchain data availability. Lower cost and higher throughput than zkRollup.
• zkRollup: Fully onchain ZK rollup. Maximum security and Ethereum-aligned trust assumptions.

Operators select the mode that best balances cost, trust assumptions, and data availability for their use case. CDK Besu chains run in sovereign mode only.

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Agglayer Integration

All CDK chains connect to Agglayer by default. Cross-chain interoperability, unified liquidity, and shared state are native features of every enterprise chain, not add-ons that require additional infrastructure.

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Implementation Providers

For production deployments, CDK chains are typically launched with the support of an implementation provider:

• Conduit and Gateway both support op-reth and op-geth execution clients.
• Both providers are building open source tooling for CDK deployments.

To deploy a CDK Besu chain, follow the public cdk-besu runbook.