The Agglayer Visualizer: an Interactive Guide to Agglayer’s Unified Bridge

Web3 doesn’t feel like the Internet. 

Hundreds of chains splinter liquidity and isolate users because there’s no standard for cross-chain communication. Intermediaries and 3rd party bridges introduce new security assumptions, while native bridging can have week-long withdrawal delays.

Agglayer is built to fix this. Its goal is simple: unify web3 and give crypto the feel of the Internet. With core features to be powered by POL stakers, Agglayer unifies liquidity, users, and state to create a new standard for settlement and interop. 

But understanding how Agglayer actually works can feel opaque.

With that in mind, we built the Agglayer Visualizer, a 3D tool that lets users, app builders, and protocol devs interactively explore Agglayer’s infrastructure. 

The Agglayer enforces safety at scale with a number of complex concepts, including Sparse Merkle Trees (SMT), cross-chain balance roots, and pessimistic proofs. But complexity creates a challenge: how do you see it?

That’s why the visualizer matters: it’s about making a complex system architecture explorable. The visualizer lets developers trace each design decision back to verifiable system behavior. Zoom in on transactions, zoom out to data flows, pivot between different points of view. 

You’ll see how Agglayer handles cross-chain data, how proofs are generated and verified, and what a multichain system looks like in aggregate.

Take a spin on the Agglayer Visualizer, here!

Play with the Visualizer to see how cross-chain interop works

The visualizer is a live, interactive model of Agglayer’s Unified Bridge, rendered using React Three Fiber and simplified dummy data. 

At a high-level, the visualizer creates an interactive tool that helps anyone better understand how Agglayer works. 

Zip around Agglayer’s cross-chain transactions, pivoting between a wallet view, a bridge view, and an L1 view. Learn about and explore a core set of features:

• How Sparse Merkle Trees (SMTs) encode state
• The role of Local Exit Trees and Mainnet Exit Roots
• The logic of bridging tokens between chains
• How hash data is propagated and verified

Every interaction shows the mechanics underneath the hood: What gets included, what gets hashed, and what settles to L1.

Embedded in the visualizer are interactive explainers that unpack core concepts. These include:

01. Making a transaction

What it shows:

• Source chain, sender, receiver, token, amount
• Hash generation from transaction data
• Merkle leaf inclusion

Why it matters:
Every transaction on the Agglayer begins as raw data: sender, receiver, amount, origin chain, and more. 

That data is hashed into a single, unique identifier, a digital fingerprint that represents the transaction’s identity inside the Agglayer system.

This is the atomic unit of state. In the visualizer, that hash becomes a dynamic object. The hash is animated as a dynamic object, showing its origin, structure, and movement across chains.

02. Local Exit Tree 🌳

What it shows:

• How a transaction hash is added to a Local Exit Tree
• One Local Exit Tree per chain
• Connection to the Mainnet Exit Root on Ethereum

Why it matters:
Once a transaction is hashed, that hash becomes part of the chain’s Local Exit Tree, a snapshot of withdrawal activity. Each chain connected to the Agglayer has its own version, and each new transaction hash is inserted into the next available leaf. The Local Exit Tree is a real-time record of all finalized exits from a given chain.

The visualizer shows this step in motion. Hashes become leaves and trees evolve. Over time, each Local Exit Tree contributes to the Mainnet Exit Root on Ethereum, which acts as a global reference point for all connected chains.

03. The Structure of the Tree 🧠

What it shows:

• 32-layer Sparse Merkle Trees (SMT)
• Root hash, 30 layers of branches, over 2 billion leaves
• Merkle inclusion proof paths

Why it matters:

Each Local Exit Tree is deep by design: 32 layers, with a single root, thirty intermediate layers, and over 2^31 leaves. 

That allows Agglayer to maintain per-chain exit logs that are both high-throughput and ZK-verifiable. The visualizer lays this out in full: where each hash lands, how paths are constructed, and what needs to be proven to verify membership. 

This module makes their architecture visible and shows why they're fundamental to cross-chain composability

04. From local to global: data propagation

What it shows:

• Hash movement from Local Exit Tree → Global Exit Root
• Merkle proof generation and verification paths
• Nullifier Tree updates to prevent replay

Why it matters:
Agglayer’s Unified Bridge creates a settlement and interop standard. 

Every bridge action requires multiple state updates: local hash inclusion, global root update, and nullifier registration. Each component is shown in real time to clarify how safety is enforced without mutual chain trust.

Cross-chain safety with pessimistic proof

Not shown in the visualizer is the pessimistic proof, already live and on mainnet, a special ZK proof that enables any chain to securely connect to the Agglayer. In the future, we’ll use this educational framework to describe other protocol aspects and how to attach a chain to Agglayer. 

In short, pessimistic logic is a cryptographic check that treats every chain as untrusted until proven valid. No bridge withdrawal can occur unless:

1. The source chain’s token state is proven on Ethereum.
2. The destination chain proves it hasn’t double-claimed.
3. The global root accepts the update.

Ready to explore? Launch the Agglayer Visualizer to learn more, now.