Child Chains

Child chains are secondary blockchains linked to a mainchain (or parent chain), designed to offload transactions and improve scalability. Each child chain can operate independently with its own consensus mechanism and token economy, yet still interacts with the parent chain for security or finality. They are commonly used in architectures like Plasma, where child chains periodically submit summaries or checkpoints to the mainchain. This setup enables high-throughput dApps and financial systems while maintaining a degree of trust anchored in the base layer.