What is PulseVM?

PulseVM is an execution environment for Metal Blockchain delivered as a plugin for its node software (metalgo). It implements the Antelope execution model — the account, permission, and resource system proven over years of production on XPR Network (Antelope 5.0.3) — and runs it as a subnet with modern consensus: sub-second blocks and instant, irreversible finality.

It is the base layer for A-Chain, the future of XPR Network — and equally a kit for any institution or consortium to deploy its own network with its own validators and its own rules.

The mental model

Think of PulseVM as an operating environment, not "a blockchain you join":

• Accounts are named (acme.treasury, not 0x7f3a…) and carry hierarchical permission trees.
• Permissions express real authorization structures: role keys, weighted multisig thresholds, delegation between accounts, instant key rotation.
• Contracts are WebAssembly, written in TypeScript, Rust, or C++, with typed ABIs and human-readable actions.
• Resources (CPU, NET, RAM) are staked and provisioned by the operator or institution — end users never buy gas.
• Finality is instant: the head block is the last irreversible block. There is no reorg case.
• The rules are yours: account creation policy, fee models, asset-level controls — all live in system contracts the deploying organization owns.

Where it comes from

PulseVM stands on two proven foundations, named plainly:

• Execution: Antelope (formerly EOSIO). The account, permission, contract, and resource semantics are a direct lineage from the Antelope protocol — the model behind XPR Network, WAX, Telos, and EOS — including core components (the chainbase state database, the libfc crypto/serialization layer) carried over directly from the reference implementation.
• Consensus: Avalanche's Snowman protocol, as implemented by Metal Blockchain (metalgo). Repeated randomized sampling of the validator set yields fast, metastable, instantly-final agreement — equally suited to small accountable consortium sets and larger public ones.

PulseVM is open source (MetalBlockchain/pulsevm), created by Metallicus CTO Glenn Mariën (@MlennGarien).

Where to go next

• Accounts & Permissions — the feature institutions care about most
• Native Multisig — dual control as infrastructure
• For Banks & Fintechs — the economic argument
• TypeScript Quickstart — contract in minutes