From Tortle Ninja to AutoLayer: the rebrand and V1 numbers

What changed: a name and a focus

AutoLayer is the new name of Tortle Ninja. This is a rebrand, not a new protocol: the product we build on has been live on Arbitrum since August 2023, and it is the same team.

The change of name came with a change of subject. Tortle Ninja offered access to a wide set of assets, liquidity pools, farms and vault strategies. AutoLayer keeps that plumbing but points it at one theme: liquid restaking tokens (LRTs), liquid staking tokens (LSTs), the services that restaked assets secure, and the operators that run them. If those terms are new, start with how it works.

Here is what the earlier, broader product covered:

Item	Count
Assets reachable	around 800
Liquidity pools	around 400
Farms	around 50
Vaults and strategies	over 100

These are our counts for the Tortle Ninja era. The product page describes what AutoLayer offers today.

Who is behind it

AutoLayer is a spin-out of Glue Digital, a software company that Javier Blanco Thomas founded in 2010. Glue Digital has worked on security, cryptography, e-commerce and mobile projects, and counts design awards and large corporate clients among its credentials.

The leadership team:

• Javier B. Thomas, CEO.
• Anxo Soto, CTO.
• Diana Diaz Reinoso, CDO.
• Katrina Reyes Abad, CMO.

We are a team of 14: 6 developers, 2 in strategy and operations, and 6 in marketing and design.

V1 activity before and after the rebrand

AutoLayer had only just launched when this was written, so our metrics are still limited. Here is what Tortle Ninja had done, and what the rebrand has produced so far.

Tortle Ninja era:

• About 11,000 transactions between October and January.
• Over 40,000 embedded transactions.
• About 13,500 website visitors since launch as Tortle Ninja.

Since the rebrand:

• A daily trading volume of roughly $20,000 since launch.
• A rebrand announcement on Twitter that drew over 8,600 impressions, and daily posts averaging over 1,000 impressions.

The two Dune Analytics charts below show the transaction history. The first is a counter showing 10,897 total transactions. The second plots transactions per day from mid-January to mid-February 2024.

These are transaction counts, not value locked, and they reflect an early product: a handful of busy days and several quiet ones. They show where V1 started, and we will report progress as it grows.

Why we track volume, not TVL

At present we do not track total value locked (TVL). Our primary metric is transaction volume, because AutoLayer routes funds through other protocols instead of holding them itself. TVL is the usual yardstick for vault or lending protocols, but it does not describe a routing layer well. The intent-based routing guide explains why this design leads to a volume metric.

Security and audit history

1. The earlier product, as Tortle Ninja, was audited by PeckShield, and the report is public.
2. New AutoLayer contracts were deployed in March 2024 (1 March and 12 March for different contract versions). Audits are underway, with at least two more scheduled in the coming months.
3. No security incidents have occurred to date.

An audit of one contract set does not cover a later one, so the new contracts will be covered by their own audits. See the security page for audit reports and the risk disclosure for the general hazards.

The V2 roadmap

V2 centres on a native token and four new features:

• Native token. Launch is planned for around 25 April 2024. See the LAY3R token page for the current position.
• V2 features. AVS scoring, LRT scoring, compounding and liquification, and slashing bounties.

Each V2 feature has its own article: AVS scoring, LRT rehypothecation risk, compounding and liquifying rewards and slashing bounties and Virtual Operators. Check the product page for what is available now.

Why the rebrand matters

A rename in crypto can mean a fresh start or an attempt to leave a record behind. We chose the opposite: the old audit stays linked, the old transaction history is reported under the old name, and this is the same team and product. The Tortle Ninja history is part of AutoLayer’s track record.

If you are evaluating us, a short checklist:

1. Look at the V1 figures above as a starting point rather than a trend.
2. Note that the new contracts are still being audited.
3. Separate V1 features from the V2 roadmap.

Related pages: How AutoLayer works, Product, Security and Risk disclosure.