Key Takeaways

• – Caldera (ERA) simplifies the deployment of customized Ethereum Layer-2 Rollup, allowing developers to easily launch high-performance dApps.

• – ERA tokens are the native utility and governance asset of the Caldera ecosystem, with a total supply of 1 billion, and are planned to be distributed through retroactive airdrops.

• – Users can obtain ERA through the ERA/USDT pre-market OTC trading pair on exchanges such as XT.com, or by participating in Caldera community events.

• – Although the Rollup-as-a-Service market is highly competitive, Caldera’s multi-virtual machine support and built-in Metalayer interoperability are particularly outstanding, while attention should be paid to technical and regulatory risks.

In the fast-paced race of blockchain expansion, Caldera (ERA) stands out with its Rollup-as-a-Service platform, allowing project parties to effortlessly launch their own Ethereum Layer-2 chain.

The Caldera ecosystem is powered by the ERA token, which supports transaction fee payments, staking rewards, and decentralized governance. If you have ever wondered “What is Caldera?” or “What is the ERA token?”, this article will answer your questions.

We will take a deep dive into Caldera’s vision, ERA token economics, core dApp applications, and how to participate in the ERA/USDT pre-market OTC trading pair. Whether you are following ERA’s price trend today or preparing to enter the market, there are practical guides to help you navigate.

Table of contents

Caldera (ERA) Project Overview

ERA Token Economics, Distribution and Burning

Caldera Core dApp Applications

How to participate and get ERA tokens

Caldera Competitive Landscape

ERA Token Risks and Precautions

Caldera (ERA) Future Outlook

Caldera (ERA) Overview

Caldera is revolutionizing Ethereum scaling through a true "one-click deployment" Rollup-as-a-Service platform, allowing developers to launch customized Layer-2 chains with just a few clicks. Teams no longer need to worry about node operations, security audits, and cross-chain bridging, and can focus on core applications - whether it is an NFT market, DeFi protocol, gaming environment, or real-world asset platform, they can be launched quickly.

Caldera is unique in its modular flexibility: each Rollup chain can choose its own runtime environment (EVM or SolanaVM), preferred data availability layer (Ethereum mainnet, Celestia or NEAR), and even specify native ERC-20 or ETH as a fee payment token. This high degree of customization means that projects can optimize transaction speed, cost efficiency and security parameters according to their own needs.

Image Credit: Caldera Homepage

At the bottom level, Caldera has three key features:

• – Metalayer Interoperability: All Caldera networks come pre-installed with cross-chain messaging and liquidity pools, allowing assets to flow seamlessly between any Caldera Rollup or mainstream L1/L2.

• – Multi-virtual machine support: As the first RaaS platform that supports both EVM and SolanaVM, Caldera meets the habits and needs of developers in different ecosystems.

• – Rollup Engine API: An AWS-like interface allows operators to dynamically scale resources, upgrade protocol modules, or switch data availability options at any time with zero downtime.

Image Credit: Caldera Dashboard

Backed by top investment institutions such as Founders Fund, Sequoia, and Dragonfly, Caldera has hosted more than 30 live Rollup chains, including RARI Chain focusing on NFT, Injective's inEVM, and Clearpool Ozean for real assets, with a cumulative TVL of over $600 million and more than 10 million independent wallets. As the demand for customized L2 continues to soar, Caldera is becoming the one-stop preferred platform for modern dApp teams pursuing speed, security, and simplicity.

Image Credit: Caldera Portal

ERA Token Economics, Distribution and Burning

Image Credit: Caldera Mirror.xyz

The ERA token is the native utility and governance asset of the Caldera ecosystem, designed to provide benefits incentives for builders, users, and community members. The total supply is fixed at 1 billion, almost all of which will be unlocked at the Token Generation Event (TGE), but the team and investor shares will be gradually released according to a multi-year unlocking plan to ensure long-term commitment.

Token Allocation:

• – Backdated airdrop (≈ 30%): rewards early Caldera testnet users, developers, and active community contributors.

• – Team and Advisors (≈ 20%): Shares will be unlocked regularly over two to four years to ensure continued investment from core members.

• – Investors and reserves (≈ 30%): Support ecosystem expansion, strategic collaboration, and project funds.

• – Ecosystem incentives (≈ 20%): used for liquidity mining, developer bounties, and governance rewards to encourage continued community participation.

Image Credit: CryptoRank ( Caldera Funding Insights )

Main uses of ERA

• – Transaction Fees: Users can use ERA to pay transaction fees on any Caldera Rollup chain, not just ETH.

• – Staking and Security: A staking module will be launched in the future, allowing holders to use ERA to support fraud proof systems or data availability commitments.

• – Governance rights: ERA holders can participate in voting decisions on Metalayer upgrades, fee parameter settings, and ecosystem fund allocations.

There is no automatic destruction mechanism at present, but Caldera's governance framework allows the community to propose and vote on a fee destruction model in the future to balance supply and demand. Such a transparent, community-centric token design is an important basis for evaluating ERA's current price and long-term value.

Caldera Core dApp Applications

Caldera’s modular Rollup-as-a-Service framework has spawned a diverse ecosystem of real blockchains, each with its own targeted use cases. Here are five highlights:

RARI Chain (NFT Market)

Built on the Caldera Engine and Arbitrum Orbit, RARI Chain has built-in royalty enforcement and near-zero transaction fees (usually less than $0.01). It seamlessly connects with mainstream wallets (MetaMask, Rainbow) and NFT indexers (The Graph, OpenSea), making it the preferred platform for creators and collectors to conduct low-cost minting, trading, and royalty distribution.

Image Credit: RARI Chain Explorer

inEVM (Injective)

inEVM uses Caldera to deploy an EVM-compatible zone on Injective's Cosmos network. Celestia provides data availability support, and Hyperlane and LayerZero ensure the secure delivery of cross-chain messages. This architecture allows decentralized aggregation and cross-chain arbitrage to be carried out at high speed, and traders can obtain liquidity between Ethereum, Cosmos, and Solana ecosystems without having to build their own bridges.

Image Credit: Injective Blog

Ozean by Clearpool (real assets)

Ozean is an Optimism-based Layer-2 designed for credit pools and corporate debt instruments. With Caldera tools, it has a compliant permission layer for institutional users. After the mainnet is launched, Ozean will launch ERA staking incentives to reward liquidity providers and closely integrate on-chain security with real-world asset workflows.

Image Credit: Diadata

XPLA zkXPLA (Gaming Rollup)

Deployed on the zkSync Era stack via Caldera, zkXPLA focuses on blockchain gaming scenarios, with sub-second confirmations and throughput of thousands of transactions per second. Its native cross-chain bridge connects Polkadot's XPLA network with Ethereum, bringing convenience to cross-ecological transfers for gaming economies and NFT assets.

Image Credit: XPLA Medium

Kinto Network (modular decentralized exchange)

Kinto uses Caldera’s Rollup to support the coexistence of on-chain order books and AMM pools. Low fees and customizable order types attract retail investors and developers who are looking for advanced trading features and don’t want to worry about fees.

Image Credit: Kinto Docs

How to participate and get ERA tokens

If you are watching the ERA price or planning to trade the ERA/USDT spot trading pair, here are four easy ways to get started:

Community Airdrop

Participate in Caldera testnet tasks: register a ".era" domain, complete a testnet transaction, or participate in a developer bounty event. You will receive points for subsequent backdated airdrops. Please continue to follow the Caldera official blog and Twitter/X for updated eligibility information.

Exchange List

XT.com has provided ERA/USDT pre-market OTC trading pairs. As liquidity reaches the target, mainstream exchanges such as Binance and KuCoin are also expected to list ERA.

XT.com ERA/USDT pre-market OTC trading pair

Liquidity Mining & Staking

After the sale, Caldera ecosystem applications (such as Ozean) may launch ERA farming activities. Subsequent staking functions will reward holders who make commitments for fraud proofs or data availability.

Secondary Market

When spot trading pairs such as ERA/USDT are officially launched, just connect your wallet (MetaMask, Ledger, etc.) to buy and sell ERA as easily as other ERC-20 tokens.

Caldera Competitive Landscape

As the demand for one-stop Layer-2 solutions grows, many platforms have entered the Rollup-as-a-Service (RaaS) track. Here is a comparison between Caldera and its main competitors:

Conduit (Gelato)

Conduit can deploy Rollup on OP Stack and Arbitrum Orbit without writing code, and provide additional services with the help of Gelato's automated infrastructure (account abstraction, VRF, etc.). Although the experience is smooth, Caldera's multi-virtual machine support allows developers to freely choose EVM, SolanaVM and other environments on the same platform, which has more obvious advantages.

AltLayer (Turbo)

AltLayer provides a shared validator network and a self-developed Turbo OP compatible stack, emphasizing decentralization through a distributed sorter. In contrast, Caldera focuses on custom functions for each chain and has a built-in Metalayer, allowing newly deployed Rollups to automatically have cross-chain messages and liquidity pools without additional configuration.

Eclipse

Eclipse focuses on high-throughput SolanaVM Rollup (up to 100,000 TPS), which is suitable for games and high-frequency scenarios. While supporting SolanaVM, Caldera also covers EVM and zkSync, so developers do not need to switch between multiple platforms.

Sovereign SDK & Dymension

Both offer custom application chains or sovereign zone toolkits, but often require deep integration. Caldera’s one-click deployment allows similar flexibility while significantly reducing development costs.

Caldera Advantages

• – Metalayer: A natural “one-click interoperability” cross-chain layer that most competitors do not have a built-in bridge framework.

• – Rollup Engine API: AWS-like programmatic expansion and protocol upgrades with zero downtime.

• – Multi-framework support: Support EVM, zkSync, Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon CDK and SolanaVM on the same platform.

In the highly competitive RaaS field, Caldera stands out with its multi-VM flexibility and strong out-of-the-box interoperability, making it an ideal choice for teams pursuing fast iteration and high composability.

ERA Token Risks and Precautions

Before participating in ERA/USDT trading or staking, please understand the following five risk factors:

• – Technical complexity: Caldera’s modular architecture includes multiple Rollup engines, Metalayer cross-chain bridges, and multiple data availability options, which increases the attack surface. Once a node is misconfigured or a smart contract has a vulnerability, it may affect multiple chains.

• – Price volatility and lock-up risk: ERA’s current price may fluctuate drastically after launch. If the team and investors’ unlocking plan is not transparent enough, a large-scale sell-off will put downward pressure on the price.

• – Competitive pressure: The RaaS market is highly competitive, with Conduit, AltLayer, Eclipse, etc. all competing. If Caldera’s roadmap is poorly executed or competitors have stronger features, the project’s appeal may weaken.

• – Regulatory uncertainty: Cross-chain bridges and customized Layer-2s face changing compliance requirements. Some regulators may consider ERA as a security, thereby restricting trading or staking.

• – Ecosystem dependence: The long-term value of ERA depends on continued developer activity. If large projects move to other platforms, the network effect may weaken and the demand for tokens may decline.

Investors are advised to regularly review Caldera’s security audit reports, pay attention to token unlocking dynamics, and track various on-chain indicators to assess the health of the ecosystem.

Caldera (ERA) Future Outlook

Caldera has quickly grown into a leader in Rollup infrastructure, managing dozens of live chains with hundreds of millions of dollars in TVL. The upcoming ERA token launch and the launch of the ERA/USDT pre-market OTC trading pair mark the project's entry into the "token-driven" phase. The next step of execution is critical: Caldera needs to deliver on the promise of Metalayer interoperability, attract high-quality dApps, and launch attractive staking or application incentives to increase ERA demand.

Favorable factors include: continued support from top venture capital, unique multi-virtual machine flexibility, and technical advantages of built-in cross-chain bridges, all of which help ERA gain a place in the rapidly growing Rollup ecosystem. On the other hand, fierce market competition and increasingly stringent regulation may also slow down project progress or affect market sentiment. Investors should pay close attention to changes in on-chain TVL, new chain launches, community governance proposals, and price movements of the ERA/USDT spot trading pair. If Caldera continues to deliver powerful tools and an active developer community, ERA is expected to become a governance asset worth paying attention to in the Layer-2 field.

Caldera (ERA) FAQ

Q1: What is Caldera?

Caldera is a platform that allows developers to deploy Ethereum Layer-2 chain (Rollup) with one click in minutes. It automatically handles security, cross-chain and node operation and maintenance, allowing you to focus on application development.

Q2: What is the use of ERA tokens?

ERA is Caldera’s native utility and governance token, which can be used to pay for custom Rollup fees, stake for network security, and vote on protocol upgrades through Metalayer.

Q3: Where can I check the current price of ERA?

You can check ERA prices and volumes on market aggregators such as CoinMarketCap and Coingecko; if you want to trade the ERA/USDT pre-market pair, please go to exchanges that support early trading such as XT.com .

Q4: How to participate in the ERA/USDT pre-market OTC trading pair?

Register an account on XT.com (or other exchanges that have listed ERA), deposit USDT, and then enter the pre-market OTC trading section to find and trade ERA/USDT .

Q 5: Where can I follow Caldera’s latest news and community?

Follow Caldera on Twitter/X and Telegram , join the official Discord group , and subscribe to the Caldera blog for timely airdrop announcements, developer meetings, and roadmap updates.