Pharos

About Pharos (PROS)

What Is Pharos (PROS)?

Pharos is a Layer 1 blockchain that its documentation describes as a modular and full stack parallel network, meaning it applies parallelism to consensus, execution and storage together rather than to execution alone. It is EVM compatible, so Solidity contracts and standard Ethereum tooling work on it, and it targets real world finance workloads such as tokenised assets, payments and high frequency trading style applications. PROS is the native token and the gas token of the Pharos Pacific mainnet, which runs with chain ID 1672. The network went live with its mainnet and token in the second quarter of 2026 after a testnet phase.

Official resources:

• Website: https://www.pharos.xyz/
• Documentation: https://docs.pharos.xyz/
• Block explorer: https://www.pharosscan.xyz
• Public RPC endpoint: https://rpc.pharos.xyz
• Gas and onboarding portal: https://port.pharos.xyz/get-pros
• GitHub organisation: https://github.com/PharosNetwork

Who Founded Pharos? (History)

Pharos announced an eight million dollar seed round on 8 November 2024, co led by Lightspeed Faction and Hack VC, with SNZ Capital as a strategic anchor investor and participation from Reforge, Dispersion Capital, Hash Global, Generative Ventures, Legend Star, MH Ventures, Zion and Chorus One Ventures. The company's own announcement names Alex Zhang as chief executive and describes a strategic partnership with ZAN, the Web3 brand of Ant Digital Technologies, covering node services, security and hardware acceleration.

Analyst profiles and press coverage additionally identify Wish Wu as co founder and describe both founders as former members of Ant Group's blockchain organisation, with Zhang previously leading ZAN and AntChain engineering. The Pharos documentation itself does not publish a team page, so that background should be read as reported rather than as a project statement. Later coverage reports a Series A that brought total funding to roughly fifty two million dollars. The Atlantic testnet preceded the Pacific mainnet, and both remain listed in the docs as the two supported environments.

How Pharos Works

The documentation splits the network into three layers. L1-Base provides data availability and hardware acceleration. L1-Core is the distributed node network that produces blocks and is described as delivering high throughput with sub second finality. L1-Extension sits on top and lets the network grow sideways through Special Processing Networks, native restaking and cross network interoperation.

Execution is parallel rather than sequential, and the docs pair that with a Multi Concurrent Proposer model in which several proposers can contribute to a single block. This has a visible consequence in the fee system: because transactions do not settle one after another, priority fees cannot be credited per transaction in real time and are instead accumulated and paid to validators in a batch at epoch boundaries. Consensus is described in the project's encyclopedia material as a scalable BFT design. The documentation also argues at length that parallel execution alone is insufficient, and that storage, merklisation and input output paths have to be redesigned too, which is the reasoning behind the full stack framing.

Key Ecosystem Components

Special Processing Networks, or SPNs, are the headline extension mechanism. An SPN is an application specific network with its own execution environment, fee logic and governance that can run a blockchain, a sidechain, or a non blockchain workload such as high frequency trading, zero knowledge machine learning or AI inference, while inheriting security from the Pharos mainnet.

Native restaking supports SPN creation, shared security, staking rewards and slashing, and lets validators put spare capacity to work. An Adaptive Restaking Interaction Protocol integrates external restaking systems, with Babylon and EigenLayer named in the docs. Other named components include a dual virtual machine design combining EVM and WASM, the Pharos DTVM, a modular open sourced stack for SPNs and Pharos Layer 2 and Layer 3 systems, and cross chain infrastructure integrations with Chainlink CCIP, Circle CCTP and LayerZero. Oracle coverage comes from Chainlink and Supra, and indexing from Goldsky.

PROS Token Utility

PROS is the gas token of the Pacific mainnet, required in a wallet before sending a transaction or deploying a contract. The fee model follows EIP-1559 with a base fee and a priority fee. Opcode pricing is aligned with the Ethereum gas table, the base fee is burned outright, and the priority fee is credited to the validator that produced the block. The base fee is dynamic and recalculated per epoch. Validator rewards are tied to consensus participation, so validators that stay online and vote correctly are the ones eligible to propose blocks and collect the associated fees. The docs also describe PROS in the context of native restaking, where staked capital underwrites SPN security.

What Makes Pharos Unique?

The most distinctive element is the combination of a parallel Layer 1 with SPNs and native restaking in one design. Many high performance chains stop at parallel execution. Pharos treats the base chain as a security and coordination layer that specialised networks can rent from, including networks that are not blockchains at all. The dual VM approach, running EVM alongside WASM, is another differentiator, since it lets non Solidity workloads sit next to standard smart contracts. The stated orientation towards real world assets and regulated finance also shapes the ecosystem choices, with oracle and cross chain integrations from established providers rather than in house alternatives.

How Pharos Differs from Similar Projects

Against parallel EVM peers such as Monad and Sei, Pharos argues that execution level parallelism alone leaves bottlenecks in storage and merklisation, and it explicitly frames its design against those systems in its own documentation. Against modular ecosystems built on rollups, Pharos rejects the Layer 2 route on the grounds of state bloat in sequencers, long cross network message delays and liquidity fragmentation, and offers SPNs as the alternative. Against restaking platforms, Pharos is a base chain rather than a middleware layer, but it integrates with EigenLayer and Babylon instead of competing with them outright. One practical difference to weigh is decentralisation cost: the published validator specification is demanding, at 32 cores, 256 GB of memory and 5 TB of SSD storage, which sets a high bar for who can run one.

Use Cases of Pharos

The network targets tokenised real world assets and their distribution, payments at consumer scale, decentralised finance venues that need low latency, and compute heavy workloads that would not fit a general purpose chain, including high frequency trading engines, zero knowledge machine learning and AI model execution running as SPNs. Standard EVM use cases such as decentralised exchanges, lending markets and stablecoin issuance are supported through the same tooling developers already use on Ethereum.

How Pharos Is Secured

Block production is carried out by validators participating in the network's BFT style consensus, with rewards tied to uptime and correct voting. The documentation is candid that there is currently no automated slashing mechanism. Instead, three behaviours are defined as violations, prolonged unavailability, failure to propose blocks or submit votes when expected, and equivocation, meaning conflicting or duplicate votes in the same round. Validators that misbehave see their consensus participation degraded, have proposals rejected and lose eligibility for fee rewards, and governance procedures may be initiated to penalise them. SPNs inherit security from the mainnet through native restaking rather than bootstrapping their own validator sets from scratch.

Risks and Considerations

Pharos is a young network. Its mainnet launched in 2026, so it has a short operating record compared with established Layer 1s, and claimed performance figures should be judged against sustained production load rather than benchmarks. The absence of automated slashing means validator misbehaviour is handled by governance rather than by protocol enforcement, which is a meaningfully weaker guarantee. High validator hardware requirements can concentrate block production among well resourced operators. The SPN and restaking model adds surface area, since a fault in shared security or in cross network messaging can propagate. Cross chain integrations bring the usual bridge and messaging risk. Finally, competition among high performance EVM Layer 1s is intense, and developer adoption, not architecture, will decide the outcome.

Why Pharos Matters

Pharos is a concrete test of a specific thesis, that end to end parallelism plus rentable application specific networks beats both monolithic chains and rollup stacks for finance grade workloads. Its documentation makes the argument in unusually explicit engineering terms, naming the storage and merklisation bottlenecks it believes competitors have not solved. Whether the thesis holds, the network is a useful case study in how Layer 1 design is shifting from raw throughput claims towards whole pipeline efficiency and shared security.

Where Can You Buy Pharos (PROS)?

PROS trades on centralised exchanges, and listings have expanded since the token generation event, so check the current pairs on the venue you use. It can also be acquired directly on the network. The official Pharos Port page at port.pharos.xyz/get-pros lists three supported routes, a Halliday widget for crypto transfers or card and bank purchases, an Alchemy Pay checkout for fiat, and the TopNod app for users without an existing wallet. Withdrawing from an exchange requires selecting the Pharos network explicitly. After any transfer, confirm the balance on pharosscan.xyz rather than relying on a confirmation screen.

Storage Options After Purchase

Pharos is EVM compatible, so any standard Ethereum wallet works once the Pacific mainnet is added with chain ID 1672 and the RPC endpoint rpc.pharos.xyz. MetaMask and OKX Wallet are named in the documentation, and Safe multisig and Fordefi are listed among supported wallet infrastructure for teams. Hardware wallets from Ledger or Trezor can sign through those interfaces for larger holdings. Because PROS is the gas token, keep a working balance in a hot wallet for transactions and hold the remainder in cold storage. Only add the network using the parameters published in the official docs.

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