What is Hemera protocol?

Here we propose the Hemera Protocol, a decentralized account-centric programmable indexing network that is designed to serve as a public goods data infrastructure to simplify and standardize on-chain data interoperability for developers, enabling them to leverage web3 data networks at scale.

In the protocol, a key design principle is what we call “account-centric indexing”. The idea is conceptually simple: account-centric indexing aggregates account-specific blockchain data, and pre-computes features for instant access, which differs from “application-specific” data aggregations in subgraphs [7]. It gives developers real-time access to the cross-chain full transaction history of each account, no matter how many applications and blockchains it interacts with. On top of the raw transaction history, a layer of user-defined functions (UDFs) are then supported to enable instant access to various account-specific features. Some of the examples include cross-chain token balances, inscription token balances, social connections etc. Then AI models, e.g. on-chain identity & reputations, risk scores, can leverage features from UDFs directly and instantly. Our vision is to make the Hemera fully open-access and programmable, allowing data experts from both web2 and web3 to expand its capabilities. This will allow applications developers to create web2-like personalized experiences for their users, and many other AI applications with ease [see Figure 1].

Figure 1: The Hemera Protocol is mainly composed of three layers: 1. Account-centric indexing layer, providing extensible data coverage across public blockchains; 2. Computational layer, including UDFs and AI models; 3. Application layer, a series of built-in applications that are open source and supported directly out of the box.

This rest of the article mainly explores account-centric indexing, a key concept proposed by Hemera Protocol, including its design, comparison with other solutions, use cases thus enabled by Hemera and our view on community building and interest alignment. For a more detailed discussion of the Hemera Protocol, please refer to the upcoming Hemera whitepaper.