Rome Protocol

Rome Protocol lets apps written for Ethereum run on Solana. It does this with an EVM, the engine that runs Ethereum smart contracts, built as one program inside Solana. Developers deploy their Solidity code to a Rome chain without changes. The code then runs on Solana and settles there.

There is no bridge between the two sides. A Rome contract can call a Solana program in the same transaction. A token on Solana and its Ethereum-style (ERC-20) form are the same account.

Rome's mainnet chain, Rubicon, is live and charges gas in USDC. Halborn has audited the program three times. In October 2026 Rome announced a ROME gas token, with no supply or launch date yet.

How Rome's EVM runs inside Solana

Rome's EVM is a Solana program that reads and runs Ethereum contract code. When you send an Ethereum-style transaction, a service called the Rome Proxy wraps it in a Solana transaction. The Rome EVM program then runs the Solidity code on Solana. Rome's docs sum up the design in one line: EVM state is Solana state.

Three pieces do the work, according to Rome's architecture page:

• The Rome EVM program executes contracts and maps each Ethereum address to a Solana account.
• The Rome Proxy is a standard Ethereum JSON-RPC server, so Hardhat, Foundry, viem and MetaMask connect to it as they would to any EVM chain.
• Hercules is an indexer that watches the program and rebuilds Ethereum-style blocks for explorers and wallets.

Solidity reaches Solana programs through a special contract address called the CPI precompile. CPI, or cross-program invocation, is how one Solana program calls another. A lending contract on Rome could, for example, swap through a Solana exchange and credit the result in one atomic transaction. Either everything happens or nothing does.

You can use Rome apps with either kind of wallet. MetaMask users sign normal EVM transactions. Phantom users sign with their Solana key and need no separate EVM address.

Solana caps how much computing one transaction can use, at about 1.4 million compute units. Rome runs small EVM transactions atomically inside that cap. Larger ones run in "iterative" mode, split across several Solana transactions with the accounts locked in between.

Because Rome transactions are Solana transactions, they become final when Solana's do. After Solana's Alpenglow upgrade went live, Rome said on 21 October 2026 that Rubicon inherits finality of about 150 milliseconds.

Each Rome chain picks its own gas token, which can be any SPL token. Rome prices gas by reading a Meteora MET$0.299-6.9% pool that pairs the gas token with SOL. Rubicon and the Hadrian testnet both use USDC for gas.

Is Rome Protocol on mainnet? Rubicon, Hadrian and Ostia networks

Yes. Rome's EVM program is live on Solana mainnet at the address RomePq9X3iAoTr813HR7uRarafFDUJty6GdiEceYpzX, per the rome-evm repository. Rome announced "Mainnet is live" on 3 October 2026, when it opened its code on GitHub.

Rubicon is the public mainnet chain that runs on that program. Rome's docs listed three public networks in late October 2026:

Rubicon's RPC endpoint is https://rubicon.mainnet.romeprotocol.xyz/, per its network page. There is no faucet, so every transaction costs real USDC. The docs measured Rubicon gas at roughly ten times Hadrian's price.

Hadrian is where Rome tests its reference apps before wider release. You can get test USDC from Circle's faucet and bridge it in. Martius, an earlier testnet, no longer appears in Rome's network list.

Rome apps: Portus, Rome Bridge, Rome DEX and Oracle Gateway

Portus is the first Rome app on mainnet. Rome launched it on 9 October 2026 for Base users and added Polygon on 12 October. It lets you lend USDC on Solana without leaving either network. You sign on Base or Polygon, and Circle's CCTP transfer service carries your USDC and instructions to a contract on Rome. That contract deposits into Kamino Finance KMNO$0.032-1.8%'s Main lending market. Withdrawals return USDC to the same address, according to Rome.

Rome Bridge is also live on mainnet. Rome's apps page says it supports seven EVM chains and Solana, using CCTP and Wormhole.

Oracle Gateway presents Pyth Network PYTH$0.064+4.4% and Switchboard price feeds through the Chainlink interface that Solidity contracts already expect. Rome said on 14 October that it is live on mainnet and testnet. The apps page still lists it under Hadrian.

The other apps run on test networks, per Rome's docs:

• Rome DEX is one Solana pool that users trade and provide liquidity to from both Solana and EVM addresses.
• Aerarium is a Compound v3 lending market that EVM and Solana wallets share. An Aave v3 demo also runs on Hadrian. Neither the Compound nor the Aave governing body has approved a production deployment, crypto.news reported.
• Cardo lets an EVM account use Solana DeFi apps such as Jupiter perps. Appia lets EVM users open Solana positions and manage them across chains.
• Privacy DEX offers private swaps, a USDC vault and limit orders on Solana devnet. It is built on Helius Privacy, which is in beta. Amounts are encrypted, but your address stays visible.
• Bloom is a permissioned system for issuing real-world assets on Rome chains.

Launching your own EVM chain on Solana with App Sovereignty

App Sovereignty is Rome's product for teams that want their own EVM chain on Solana. Each chain gets its own chain ID and its own gas token, and the gas fees go to the app's treasury instead of a shared pool. Rome's App Sovereignty page says the Rome team provisions and operates the chain after you apply through its Sovereign Portal. The docs list no price for the service.

Rome ZK EVM and Ostia: the newer rollup projects

Rome released two more designs in October 2026, and neither is ready for real funds.

Rome ZK EVM is a rollup that settles only on Solana. A rollup processes transactions off-chain and posts the results, with a mathematical proof, to a base chain. Here the transactions, state roots and proofs all land on Solana. The repository says it runs on devnet only, and that Rome can upgrade the devnet programs without notice.

Ostia is an EVM chain ordered by the Canton Network and proven with the ZisK zkVM. Its README says the code is not audited and warns: "Do not use Ostia for anything of value."

Who Rome Protocol is for

Rome Protocol is built for Solidity developers who want to reach Solana's markets without rewriting their code in Rust. It suits three groups best:

• Ethereum teams with audited Solidity code, such as a lending market, that want to call Solana programs.
• Solana teams that want EVM wallets to reach the programs they already run.
• Projects that want their own chain and gas token, and accept that Rome runs it for them.

Ordinary users have less to do so far. Portus is for Base and Polygon users who want to earn Solana lending rates on USDC. If your money is already in a Solana wallet, use Kamino directly. That skips one extra contract.

Contracts that depend on exact Ethereum gas behaviour are a poor fit, for reasons covered in the next section.

Is Rome Protocol safe? Halborn audits, upgrade keys and risks

Halborn reviewed the Rome EVM program three times, and Rome publishes the executive summaries in its audit folder. The audits cover the EVM program only. They do not cover the apps, Rome ZK EVM or Ostia.

In the third review, 21 lower-severity findings were marked risk accepted and 37 acknowledged. Rome says Halborn rebuilt the program on 29 September 2026 and confirmed it matches the mainnet deployment. Anyone can repeat that check with a script in the repository.

The risks that remain are mostly about control and compatibility:

• The mainnet program can be upgraded. Rome's README names a Squads multisig (DML4U1jMpWCu3uFiVxQTtXLzor1wtSRLRaEczXKqEz4n), a wallet that needs several people to sign, as the upgrade authority. It does not say how many signers there are or who they are.
• Each chain has one operator. Rome's known limitations page says each Rome deployment is run by a single entity and that "there is no decentralized operator set".
• Rome's EVM differs from Ethereum's. It does not meter gas per operation and has no 2,300-gas stipend, so contracts that rely on the stipend to block reentrancy need their own guards. SELFDESTRUCT is unsupported, and the modexp precompile is disabled.
• App contracts are a separate risk. With Portus, a Rome contract holds and tracks your lending position. Rome's launch posts cite no separate audit of that contract.
• The EVM program is source-available, with a licence that makes commercial use subject to Rome's written permission.

Rome Protocol vs Neon EVM for running Solidity on Solana

Rome Protocol and Neon EVM both run the EVM as a Solana program, but only Rome is still being developed. Neon's team announced a wind-down: development and support ended on 1 October 2026, and users have until 31 December 2026 to migrate or withdraw.

Rome differs from Neon in two ways that matter to builders. Rome lets each chain choose its gas token, and it lets Solana wallets sign for EVM contracts directly. The trade-off is maturity. Rome's mainnet program and Rubicon chain are only weeks old as of late October 2026, and most of its apps still run on testnet.

The other route is to skip the EVM and rewrite the app as a native Solana program. That costs more engineering time but removes the operator and the compatibility layer.

Rome Protocol token (ROME), airdrop and Imperia NFTs

Rome announced its ROME token in an X article titled "Introducing $ROME" on 12 October 2026. According to ChainCatcher's report of the announcement:

• ROME will pay for gas on Rome's own mainnet chain.
• Half of all fees will be kept in ROME, or used to buy ROME, and locked in a reserve that is never sold.
• It is not a token sale. Rome gave no price, supply, dates or exchange, and will share them once it picks where ROME trades.

In late October 2026, Rubicon's network page still lists USDC for gas. Rome has announced no ROME airdrop. Other tokens use the ROME ticker too, so check any token address against Rome's own channels first.

Rome has run community campaigns before. In October 2025 it minted Imperia, a 10,000-item NFT collection on Solana sold through Magic Eden, according to a press release. Rome described the NFTs as "digital citizenships" with early access to campaigns and partner rewards. It also runs quests on Galxe. Neither comes with a promise of tokens.

Rome Protocol founders, funding and history

Anil Kumar and Sattvik Kansal founded Rome Protocol in 2023. The company raised a $9 million seed round in July 2024, CoinDesk reported. Hack VC, P2 Ventures, HashKey, Portal Ventures and Bankless Ventures led the round. Angel backers included Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, Austin Federa and Nick White.

Rome's pitch has changed since then. In 2024 it called itself a shared sequencer: a service that would use Solana to order transactions for Ethereum layer-2 networks. Its docs now lead with the EVM inside Solana. The names Rhea, Remus and Romulus now label three transaction types. Rhea is a single EVM transaction, Remus spans several Rome chains, and Romulus mixes EVM and Solana steps.