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Commonware is an anti-framework blockchain primitive library offering modular components such as consensus, P2P communication, cryptography, and storage. It does not force developers to use specific protocols or data formats, but instead allows free composition and replacement of these primitives to build customized blockchain applications. Developers can select modules as needed, such as using Simplex consensus or custom broadcast mechanisms, avoiding lock-in to a single framework.
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About commonware
Commonware is a Rust-based blockchain framework that provides a set of modular, composable primitives for building decentralized applications. Unlike monolithic frameworks that impose a fixed architecture, Commonware follows an "anti-framework" philosophy, allowing developers to select only the components they need, such as consensus, networking, cryptography, and storage, and freely combine them with custom logic.
Its core primitives include p2p::authenticated for encrypted node communication, cryptography::bls12381 for BLS signatures and distributed key generation, consensus::simplex for Byzantine fault-tolerant agreement, and storage modules for persistent data management. These building blocks are designed to be independent and interchangeable, giving developers maximum flexibility without being locked into a full-stack solution.
The primary market pain point Commonware addresses is the rigidity of existing blockchain frameworks, which often force developers to adopt predefined designs for consensus, execution, or network layers, limiting customization and innovation. By offering granular primitives, Commonware enables teams to build tailored chains or applications while retaining control over critical components.
In the past six months (2026-03 to 2026-09), Commonware released consensus::simplex, a BFT consensus primitive supporting asynchronous, leaderless operation, validated through deterministic simulation testing with high coverage. Additional updates included improvements to storage and stream primitives. However, many primitives remain at ALPHA or BETA stability levels, meaning APIs may change without migration paths, and the ecosystem is still in early adoption stages.
Commonware, founded by Patrick O'Grady (former VP of Engineering at Ava Labs), is a Rust-based blockchain framework. Its core philosophy is the 'anti-framework': instead of a one-size-fits-all stack, it offers modular, standalone primitives across networking, storage, and consensus that developers can freely remix.
Key milestones:
2024: Early primitive releases – Launched p2p::authenticated (encrypted peer communication), cryptography::bls12381 (with DKG support), runtime::deterministic (reproducible testing), and consensus::simplex (BFT consensus with 2-hop block time and 3-hop finality). These established the library's foundation.
December 2024: $9M seed round – Led by Haun Ventures and Dragonfly Capital, with participation from notable crypto builders. This validated the modular approach and funded further development.
2025: $25M strategic investment – Led by Tempo (a payments-focused blockchain), which also became a core contributor. This marked a shift from infrastructure-only to real-world deployment, enabling telemetry collection and iterative improvement.
These milestones reflect Commonware's long-term vision: enabling specialized blockchain applications through modular primitives, rather than forcing developers into rigid frameworks.
Over the past six months, Commonware has made significant progress. In March 2026, it announced Route 66, a joint initiative with Coinbase to standardize blockchain integration layers, reducing the cost and complexity of connecting new chains. This was followed by the release of Constantinople, a payments-focused blockchain built on Commonware primitives, demonstrating ~70k TPS with 50 validators across global regions, featuring QMDB storage and trustless state sync.
In May 2026, Commonware introduced marshal::coding, an erasure-coded block dissemination protocol that improves throughput and latency for consensus networks. Benchmarks showed 14-17 Mb/s throughput with view latencies under 500ms on global deployments. The v2026.5.0 release also brought glue::stateful, a reusable base layer for stateful applications, and QMDB batch APIs for efficient state tree management.
Looking ahead, Commonware's roadmap focuses on three pillars: (1) standardizing integration through Route 66 to enable seamless chain connectivity, (2) scaling performance through erasure coding and optimized storage, and (3) expanding the developer ecosystem with composable primitives like marshal::coding and glue::stateful. The team is also exploring asynchronous DKG protocols and advanced cryptographic primitives for future releases.
Patrick O'Grady (Founder). Former VP of Engineering at Ava Labs, creator of Rosetta (now Coinbase Mesh API), previously at Coinbase. Founded Commonware to build modular blockchain primitives.
Commonware, a Rust-based blockchain framework, has recently welcomed a new team member.\n\nLeonardo Yvens Schwarzstein joined in July 2026 as a Software Engineer. He previously served as a software engineer at Edge & Node and The Graph, with experience in blockchain data platforms and stream processing, including work on Amp, a blockchain-native data platform. His addition is expected to strengthen Commonware's capabilities in data engineering and blockchain infrastructure.