How Hyperlane Ensured Uninterrupted Performance for the HYPER Airdrop with Tenderly Node RPC

Hyperlane is an interoperability protocol that facilitates cross-chain communication for networks, applications, and end users. As an open-source framework, it allows users to deploy connections and token bridges to new chains themselves and build cross-chain applications on top of the Hyperlane protocol. However, it also offers a managed deployment that lies at the core of the Hyperlane-connected chains and enables users to plug into the existing infrastructure.

Since Hyperlane supports more than 150 chains, it provides a middle ground between them, abstracting away the complex differences between ecosystems. For instance, Hyperlane users can send a message from Optimism to Cosmos or Solana, without dealing with technical complexities.

Recently, Hyperlane launched the HYPER token on five chains. As a part of the airdrop event, the Hyperlane core contributors had to prepare for a potential surge in traffic and cross-chain messages due to possibly thousands of users claiming and bridging the HYPER token. 

To ensure uninterrupted performance and stability on the five chains, Hyperlane turned to Tenderly for technical support as one of its core infrastructure partners. They relied on high-performance Tenderly Node RPC which they use for 23 other Hyperlane networks. 

Hyperlane's RPC infrastructure setup

The entire process and goal of Hyperlane is to abstract certain problems and complexities away from its users. This way, the Hyperlane core contributors eliminate the need for their users to deal with challenges such as a chain experiencing issues with a public RPC or dealing with multiple endpoints.

To achieve this, the Hyperlane protocol infrastructure relies on two main types of agents and several steps:

• The first step entails validators who sign and attest to every message sent from a chain. For validators, Hyperlane looks at the safety, soundness, and correctness of their node infrastructure. If multiple RPCs are configured for a validator, Hyperlane checks for quorum among them. 
• Once the message is fully attested to and ready to be delivered to the destination chain, the relayers take over. If a relayer has three different RPCs, the protocol uses one by one for tasks such as estimating gas or doing view calls.
• In the last step, the protocol sends a transaction across different RPC endpoints by doing a multicast.

Reliable RPC infrastructure across chains

As a protocol deployed on 150 chains, Hyperlane has multiple node RPC providers to ensure extensive network coverage. Based on network support, historical data, and performance metrics such as uptime and successful transaction landing, the team shortlisted the top RPC providers. 

This led the Hyperlane core contributors to Tenderly Node RPC, which they now use across all their agents for 23 networks, relying on: 

• High-performance and scalability even during high-throughput loads
• Uncompromised latency and stability thanks to advanced auto-scaling 
• As low as 0.1% error rate and high request consistency across chains 
• Automated distribution of large data sets without the need for manual adjustments

Ensuring high RPC performance for the airdrop with Tenderly's support

For the HYPER launch, the Hyperlane core contributors performed extensive load testing to ensure uninterrupted stability. They reached out to Tenderly to increase their rate limits to prepare for a potential traffic surge on the five chains: Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, and BNB. 

Throughout the launch, the Tenderly team was there to support the Hyperlane engineers, ensuring high RPC performance across the required chains. 

The Tenderly team was on hand to respond quickly and keep an eye on performance. That was really reassuring. Having reliable, stable RPC and timely communication is important to us. – Paul Balaji, backend engineer at Hyperlane

Overall, the HYPER launch went smoothly, with their RPC infrastructure remaining stable and steady with:

• 50K+ HYPER bridge transactions delivered in the first 4 hours with no downtime
• Correct and consistent validator message signing 
• Reliable performance as traffic and message throughput increased

Everything was stable as we reached our metrics because Tenderly and the rest of the team were behind the scenes, making sure everything ran smoothly. This was an important milestone, both for Hyperlane and our infrastructure. – Paul Balaji

Expanding the Hyperlane ecosystem with Tenderly

Aside from relying on Tenderly Node RPC, the Hyperlane core contributors use its essential dev tools, including Tenderly Debugger, Simulator, and Explorer, with plans to explore cross-chain message testing on Virtual TestNets.

Additionally, with Tenderly’s extensive network coverage, Hyperlane can easily reach out to the Tenderly team to expand network support.

I reached out to Tenderly and asked for access to an RSK node. The team enabled the RPC endpoint within minutes, and we still use it today. – Paul Balaji

With a growing number of rollups, including high-performance chains, a stable, reliable, and performant infrastructure will play a crucial role in shaping and supporting the multichain ecosystem. With Tenderly, Hyperlane has an infrastructure partner to work together on meeting the new demands of high-performance chains.