Introducing WAVS: The Next-Gen AVS Builder

Build superintelligent protocols, without limits. The future of AVS infra begins in WAVS.

Layer is proud to launch WAVS—the next-generation AVS platform that makes it easy to create, manage, and operate high-performance Autonomous Verifiable Services. Today, building an AVS can be more difficult than launching a new L1 from scratch. Developers spend the bulk of their time scaffolding infrastructure, writing custom contracts, and coordinating operator sets rather than building the actual logic of their service.

Now, there is an easier way: WAVS provides a base layer of AVS infrastructure so that you can focus solely on creating the core logic of your service. Your code compiles to WASM and is deployed as lightweight, modular components inside the WAVS runtime. This turns the process of building an AVS from several months into just a few minutes. 

Using WASI (WebAssembly System Interface), WAVS allows AVSs to do anything – run LLMs, make network calls, stream data, and deploy complex services. WAVS solves the trust problem in off-chain compute by separating services from the operators who run them. Builders create their components, and operators run them in WAVS runtime at near-native speed. Then, operators sign the results of the off-chain computation and place them on-chain. Boom: off-chain compute with on-chain verifiability is born. 

Secured by restaking through EigenLayer, WAVS is built to support a decentralized mesh of smart, interacting services. It’s a service-of-services, where components can be composed dynamically into intelligent protocols. WAVS redefines the AVS paradigm—making them easier to build, cheaper to run, and capable of powering the next generation of decentralized infrastructure.

Why WAVS?

Dynamic and Cost-Effective Service Management

WAVS makes service management flexible. Developers can add, update, or modify components on the fly without coordinating changes across an entire operator set. AVSs are lightweight and modular, running multiple services in a single runtime. WASI-based components boot in milliseconds, skipping the OS-layer bloat of Docker and keeping infrastructure costs low. This makes WAVS ideal for dynamic, cost-efficient AVS deployment at scale.

Simplified Development

WAVS ships with templates and built-in tooling for parsing events, aggregating signatures, and handling coordination logic—letting developers skip the boilerplate and focus on what matters: the logic of their service.

Multichain Ready

Design from the ground up for cross-chain deployment. Whether you're securing an AVS across Ethereum L2s, EigenLayer, or a future cross-chain app, WAVS ensures consistent execution, validator incentives, and verifiable security.

Superintelligent Protocols & Composability

Build smarter apps. WAVS enables composable protocols that act like Web2 APIs—modular services that plug into each other, respond to events, and enable asynchronous, verifiable execution flows. These protocols can blend on-chain governance with off-chain intelligence to power radically new classes of applications.

How WAVS Stacks Up Against Competition

While most "decentralized compute" systems rely on single-node execution (what we might call "trust us, bro" oracles), WAVS is built for genuinely decentralized compute. It runs the same code across multiple, independent operators, aggregates their signed results, and (optionally) enforces rewards and slashing for honest or dishonest behavior. The result is a trustless, verifiable execution layer that actually holds up under scrutiny.

Unlike systems built on full Linux VMs or Docker containers, WAVS is powered by WASM and WASI—a faster, lighter, safer way to run compute. Linux-based systems carry significant performance overhead, large attack surfaces, slow startup times, and take up more disk space. WASI modules start in milliseconds, weigh just a few kilobytes, and run with near-native speed.

This isn’t just a performance win, it’s an economic one: since WAVS services don’t need persistent infrastructure running at all times, operators can spin up and tear down services on-demand, serving many AVSs with the same infrastructure. That means lower costs, more flexibility, and better margins for operators.

What Can You Build With WAVS?

WAVS is built to power the next wave of full-stack decentralized applications. Think big: verifiable AI agents that act autonomously under DAO governance. Real-time oracles streaming live data directly into smart contracts. Modular ZK provers and aggregation layers that plug into broader systems. Secure bridges between chains, triggered by both on and off-chain events. Messaging protocols, intent-based flows, indexing services, and even cyber-physical systems that interact with real-world devices.

WAVS invites us to flip our assumptions about blockchain architecture to embrace a multi-chain world. With WAVS, we’re enabling a new kind of computational engine that operates both on-chain and off-chain simultaneously, that can read from any blockchain, execute transactions across networks, and maintain its own verifiable state—all secured by restaking mechanisms and cryptographic guarantees. Not just dApps, but superintelligent protocols that think, respond, and evolve.

Start Building

WAVS services consist of three main parts: a trigger (like an on-chain event), a service component (your core logic written in Rust and compiled to WASI), and submission logic (how the output gets written on-chain). When a trigger fires, operators run the service off-chain, sign the results, and submit them on-chain—creating a verifiable, decentralized execution flow across chains. Write in Rust (with more languages coming soon), use prebuilt templates, and focus solely on your service logic.

If you’re a builder excited about building an AVS in days rather than months or who’s felt constrained by current blockchain architectures, we want to work with you. Join our developer community, start building with WAVS, and help shape the future of decentralized computation. 

Come be part of it:

• Explore the docs: docs.wavs.xyz
• Join us on Telegram: t.me/layer_xyz
• Visit the WAVS official website: wavs.xyz

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