Relay Protocol

Relay Protocol is cross-chain payments infrastructure that lets users bridge, swap, and transact across 85+ blockchains — including Solana — in a median of 2.7 seconds, without wrapped assets, synthetic tokens, or waiting for challenge periods to close.

The Problem It Solves

Traditional cross-chain bridges suffer from a structural tension: they need to verify that assets have been locked on a source chain before releasing anything on a destination chain. That verification step, whether optimistic (with a 7-day challenge window) or proof-based (waiting for finality), introduces delays ranging from minutes to days. Wrapped tokens add custodial risk. Liquidity pools spread capital thin, driving up fees.

Relay sidesteps this by shifting the execution burden from a protocol to a competitive market of professional solvers. Users state what they want; solvers deliver it instantly using their own capital and settle later.

How It Works

Relay operates on an intent-based architecture with three phases: execution, settlement, and withdrawal.

Execution. When a user initiates a cross-chain transfer — say, moving USDC from Ethereum to Solana — they deposit funds into a Depository contract on the origin chain tagged with a unique order ID. A solver monitoring the network detects the deposit, immediately fulfills the order on the destination chain from its own pre-positioned balance, and the user receives funds within seconds. Because deposits go into the Depository contract rather than to the solver directly, user funds remain protected even if the solver fails to act.

Settlement. Once the solver has filled the order, it requests an attestation from Relay's custom Oracle. The Oracle reads the deposit data from the origin chain and the fill data from the destination chain, confirms they match, and returns a signed EIP-712 attestation. The solver submits that attestation to an Oracle contract on the Relay Chain — a purpose-built, low-cost settlement layer — which mints a Hub token balance representing the verified deposit and transfers it to the solver as payment.

Withdrawal. Solvers accumulate Hub balances on the Relay Chain and periodically withdraw to replenish capital on source chains. Withdrawals use deterministic addresses, MPC-signed cryptographic proofs, and nonce verification to prevent replay attacks.

This design means settlement never needs to happen on Ethereum mainnet. All settlement flows through the Relay Chain, where each order costs approximately $0.005 to settle, enabling sub-second fills with optimistic execution before origin-chain finality is confirmed.

Key Features

Speed. Relay's median execution time across all chains is 2.7 seconds. Solvers execute optimistically, fronting liquidity before origin chain finality is confirmed — they absorb the finality risk and are compensated through the fee spread.

Chain coverage. Relay supports 85+ networks including major EVM chains (Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, Polygon, Avalanche, BNB Chain), non-EVM chains (Solana, Bitcoin, Tron), and newer ecosystems (Eclipse, Hyperliquid, Arc). New chains can be added as long as one solver is willing to operate there — no new contracts or consensus mechanisms are required on the target chain.

No wrapped assets. Because solvers deliver native assets from their own pre-positioned balances, users receive the actual token on the destination chain — not a bridge-wrapped representation. There is no synthetic asset exposure, no custodial issuer, and no depeg risk.

DEX meta-aggregation. For same-chain and cross-chain swaps, Relay aggregates pricing across multiple DEXes on 85+ chains, automatically routing through the best available liquidity. This makes Relay useful not just for bridging but for cross-chain token purchases in a single user action.

Developer integration. Relay exposes a REST API, a JavaScript/TypeScript SDK, React hooks, and RelayKit — a set of pre-built UI components for embedding bridge and swap flows into applications. Gasless execution and smart account compatibility (ERC-4337, EIP-7702) are also supported, enabling sponsored transaction experiences.

Fee efficiency. The protocol reports an 80%+ fee reduction compared to traditional bridges, driven by settlement on the low-cost Relay Chain and by solver competition keeping spreads tight.

Solana Integration

Relay supports Solana as both source and destination for bridging and swaps. Users can move SOL, USDC, and other Solana-native tokens to and from EVM chains in a single transaction. The protocol handles non-EVM complexity — Solana's different account model, transaction structure, and finality characteristics — transparently through the solver network and Oracle layer, which are designed to read and write across heterogeneous virtual machines.

Adoption and Volume

Since launching in 2024, Relay has processed over 60 million transactions for more than 6 million users, accumulating over $8.5 billion in total volume across 75+ chains. The protocol is used as embedded infrastructure by Phantom, MetaMask, OpenSea, Coinbase, Zora, and Aerodrome, among others. As of September 2026, Relay is live on Arc, enabling users to pay from any supported chain and settle on Arc in seconds with no pre-funding required.

Team and Funding

Relay Protocol is built by Uneven Labs, headquartered in Cocoa, Florida, and led by CEO Peter Watts. The company originally operated as Reservoir, one of the leading NFT trading infrastructure providers, before pivoting to cross-chain bridging infrastructure as market demand shifted. Reservoir served clients including Coinbase, OpenSea, Magic Eden, and MetaMask during its NFT-focused phase, building the systems integration experience that carries over to Relay.

Uneven Labs has raised $26 million across three rounds: a $2 million pre-seed led by Variant in 2021, a $10 million seed led by Archetype in 2022, and a $14 million Series A led by Union Square Ventures in early 2025, with participation from Framework Ventures, Variant, and Coinbase Ventures.

Security

The protocol's security model rests on Oracle attestation, Allocator authorization of withdrawals, and a Security Council — a multisig body responsible for governance and emergency recovery. Smart contracts are audited and Relay maintains a bug bounty program. The Depository contract design ensures user funds cannot be accessed by solvers directly; solvers only receive payment after verified fulfillment is confirmed on the Relay Chain. If a solver cannot complete a fill, they can instantly refund the user on the origin chain, with the refund processed through the same attestation mechanism.

Ecosystem Fit

Relay sits in the cross-chain infrastructure layer of Solana's ecosystem — not as a native Solana protocol, but as one of the most widely integrated bridges for moving liquidity into and out of Solana. Its intent-based model, multi-DEX aggregation, and developer SDK make it a practical choice for any Solana application that needs to accept or route tokens from other chains. The non-wrapped asset delivery is particularly relevant for Solana, where native SOL and SPL tokens are preferred over bridge-wrapped equivalents that carry depeg and custodial risk.