Gelato is a platform that aims to facilitate transaction execution at a set time. According to the whitepaper, the network operates as a decentralized automation protocol. The forum comprises smart contracts developed on Ethereum and executor infrastructure services to help users automate transactions. The platform aims to solve the lack of sophistication, reliability, and centralization around the DApps that seek to offer automated smart contract executions on a user’s behalf.

Automation is absent in decentralized finance (DeFi) applications running on public blockchains like Ethereum. This is due to the lack of automation within the Ethereum Virtual Machine, where programs run only for a few milliseconds at a time. Hence, the smart contract programs can only store two things: state and logic. Further, rather than an internal mechanism, autonomous transactions occur via external organizations that run specialized bots in the background. Another concern is the need for a decentralized and reliable network of bots, as relying on centralized parties to execute users’ transactions reduces the benefits of trustlessness and censorship resistance.

The Gelato platform therefore creates an underlying infrastructure that provides developers a robust decentralized network of bots that can be instructed to monitor the state of protocols off-chain and implement arbitrary transactions on their behalf, meeting the pre-specified conditions.

The network seeks to become the backbone of all automated smart contract execution on each smart contract platform, offering decentralization, developer friendliness, and reliability. The platform aims to offer certain features:

The platform’s whitepaper was released in September 2021. IThe token was launched on September 13, 2021.

Hilmar Orth and Luis Schliesske are the platform’s cofounders. They have also cofounded another blockchain startup that focused on facilitating companies in Europe in using smart contracts to find new business models. They later developed the Gelato platform to help them build automated DApps. They both are finance graduates and have worked with several startups.

Other core members of the team include Matthieu Marie Joseph, Ari Rodriguez, Yahya, Jun Gong, and Pedro Cruz.