Overview
Saito presents one of the more intellectually interesting takes on blockchain design. Founded by David Lancashire, the project argues that existing blockchains suffer from fundamental economic problems: miners/stakers extract value from the network (through MEV, fees) without contributing to the infrastructure that makes the network useful (routing transactions, serving data, running interfaces).
Saito's solution is Proof of Routing — a consensus mechanism that rewards nodes for routing transactions through the network rather than for computing hashes (PoW) or holding stake (PoS). In Saito's model, the nodes that contribute most to transaction routing earn the right to produce blocks and collect fees. This theoretically aligns economic incentives with the actual infrastructure work needed to run a blockchain.
The project also introduces Automatic Transaction Rebroadcasting (ATR), a mechanism for managing blockchain bloat. Instead of growing the chain indefinitely, old transactions are periodically rebroadcast (at a cost), allowing the chain to prune historical data while maintaining security. This addresses the long-term scalability problem of ever-growing blockchain state.
Saito has been in development since 2018 and runs a functioning network, but adoption has been minimal. The project's academic approach and unconventional design have attracted intellectual interest but not developer or user traction.
Technology
Saito's technical design is genuinely novel:
- Proof of Routing: Consensus based on transaction routing contribution rather than computation or stake
- Automatic Transaction Rebroadcasting (ATR): Blockchain pruning mechanism that manages state growth
- Routing Work: Cryptographic proof that a node routed a transaction, used for block production rights
- Fee-driven Security: Security budget comes entirely from transaction fees, no inflation subsidies
The routing work mechanism creates a system where nodes that do more useful work (routing more transactions) earn more block production opportunities. This is economically elegant — it avoids the free-rider problem where miners/stakers extract value without contributing to network usability.
However, the consensus mechanism is complex and relatively unproven at scale. The security properties of Proof of Routing have been analyzed academically but not stress-tested under adversarial conditions with significant value at stake.
Security
Saito's security model is theoretically sound but practically unproven. The Proof of Routing mechanism creates costs for attackers — to dominate block production, an attacker would need to route more transactions than honest nodes, which requires actual network infrastructure.
The ATR mechanism creates additional security considerations around data availability and transaction permanence. The trade-offs between blockchain bloat reduction and data permanence are reasonable but introduce novel attack surfaces.
The minimal value secured on Saito's network means the security model has not been meaningfully tested by economically-motivated attackers.
Decentralization
Saito's design theoretically promotes decentralization by making routing infrastructure the basis of consensus rather than specialized hardware (PoW) or capital (PoS). Any node that routes transactions can participate in consensus proportional to its routing contribution.
In practice, the small network means decentralization is limited by the number of active nodes. The project's team retains significant influence over development and network direction. True decentralization will only be testable if the network achieves meaningful scale.
Ecosystem
The ecosystem is nearly empty. Saito has some basic applications running on its network (a web3 chat application, simple games, arcade), but no significant DeFi, NFT, or infrastructure projects have been built on it. Developer adoption is minimal.
The unconventional architecture means developers need to learn Saito-specific patterns rather than deploying existing Solidity or Rust code, which is a significant barrier to ecosystem growth.
Tokenomics
SAITO token is used for transaction fees and earned by routing nodes through block rewards. The fee-only security model (no inflation subsidy) is economically clean but requires sufficient transaction volume to sustain network security — a chicken-and-egg problem for a low-adoption network.
The token has minimal market cap and liquidity, reflecting the project's early stage and limited ecosystem.
Risk Factors
- Unproven consensus — Proof of Routing has not been tested at scale or under serious adversarial conditions.
- Near-zero ecosystem — no meaningful applications or developer community.
- Non-standard architecture — developers must learn new paradigms, limiting adoption.
- Academic rather than practical — interesting theory without demonstrated real-world utility.
- Low liquidity — thin trading with minimal exchange listings.
- Fee-only security — requires transaction volume that doesn't exist yet.
- Competition — established L1s with larger ecosystems offer proven alternatives.
Conclusion
Saito is one of crypto's most intellectually honest projects — a genuine attempt to solve fundamental blockchain economics problems rather than another EVM fork chasing TVL. The Proof of Routing concept and ATR mechanism represent real innovation in consensus design. However, innovation without adoption is just research. Saito has been building for years without attracting the developers or users needed to validate its design at scale. The 3.6 score reflects genuine technical innovation heavily discounted by the absence of ecosystem traction. Saito could be right about everything and still fail if nobody builds on it.