---
id: rosetta-introduction
title: Introduction to Rosetta
keywords:
  - rosetta
  - middleware
  - exchanges
  - zilliqa
  - Rosetta
  - Introduction
description: Introduction to Rosetta
---

---

!["Network sharding"](../../../assets/img/exchanges/rosetta.png)

Rosetta is an open-source initiaitve by Coinbase. Today, one of the main issues
for software developers is the ever increasing number of blockchains with
different node and wallet APIs. The goal of Rosetta is to
[standardize](https://github.com/coinbase/rosetta-specifications) how to
interact with blockchains, making it easy for anyone to build on top of a
blockchain for a variety of different use cases.

For developers of new blockchain projects, the Rosetta interface makes it easier
to ensure compatibility with exchanges that use Rosetta, and can dramatically
speed up the time it takes exchanges to integrate with new blockchains and
protect customer funds by ensuring specific security conditions are met.

For the broader community of crypto developers, Rosetta makes it easier to build
cross-blockchain applications such as block explorers, wallets and dapps.
Instead of writing custom parsing for every supported blockchain, applications
can use a blockchain project’s Rosetta implementation to read on-chain data and
construct transactions in a standard format; minimizing code and simplifying
maintenance.

## Zilliqa Rosetta

Zilliqa Rosetta is reference implementation of the Rosetta specification for
Zilliqa blockchain platform. Data and construction API has been implemented.

Latest release of Zilliqa Rosetta can be found at
[https://github.com/Zilliqa/zilliqa-rosetta](https://github.com/Zilliqa/zilliqa-rosetta)

### Running Zilliqa Rosetta with Zilliqa seed node

To run Zilliqa Rosetta, please refer to
["Setting up Zilliqa Rosetta with Seed node"](rosetta-setting-up-seed-node.md)
section on instruction on how to set it up. You can choose to either run a seed
node together Rosetta or connect Rosetta to our public endpoing,
`api.zilliqa.com`.

!!! info

    For running a seed node option, whitelisting will be required and whitelisting is only given on a case by case basis.

### Running Zilliqa Rosetta without Zilliqa seed node

To run Zilliqa Rosetta connecting to Zilliqa public API endpoint, please refer
to
["Setting up Zilliqa Rosetta connecting to public API endpoint"](rosetta-setting-up-no-seed-node.md)
section.

### Interacting with Zilliqa Rosetta

You can refer to the Zilliqa Rosetta APIs for the list of supported restful
APIs. If need you need a SDK, the Rosetta project has provided a
[Golang Rosetta SDK](https://github.com/coinbase/rosetta-sdk-go).