Pythnet is Pyth's own blockchain — a Solana-fork appchain whose only job is to host the price aggregation. Publishers connect to Pythnet directly, post their quotes there, and the aggregate prices are computed there at high frequency. Other chains do not host any of this; they only host a verifier that accepts signed updates pulled from Hermes.
Why a separate chain
Aggregation needs to be fast and cheap. Doing it on a high-traffic L1 would pay for that work at whatever the going gas rate is, and the speed would be capped by the L1's block time. A dedicated chain lets the aggregation run at sub-second frequencies and at near-zero cost per update — the chain is operated by Pyth's stakeholders for this single workload.
How updates leave Pythnet
Pythnet doesn't talk to consumer chains directly. Instead, it signs aggregate prices on a schedule and submits them to Wormhole, the cross-chain messaging protocol. Wormhole's guardian set attests the message. Anyone — typically Pyth or a third-party relayer — can then fetch the attested update from Hermes and submit it to any chain that has a Pyth verifier deployed.
What lives on Pythnet
- Publisher accounts: the keys publishers sign their submissions with
- Price account state: the latest aggregate price and confidence interval for every feed
- Product metadata: the human-readable info (symbol, asset class, description) for each feed
What this means for Pythscan
When Pythscan classifies a feed as Trading / Halted / Inactive, that classification comes from the on-chain status field on Pythnet's price account. Pythscan reads Pythnet directly for canonical state and reads Hermes for the latest signed updates.