Author:Zeke& Ac-Core, YBB Capital Research, Web3Caff Research
The impossible triangle dilemma of blockchain (i.e., the difficulty in balancing security, scalability, and decentralization) has always been an insurmountable gap in the industry in the past. With the comprehensive upgrade of Ethereum's expansion around the Rollup solution, the triangle dilemma problem has been effectively solved at the moment. When everyone thought that the public chain war was about to end and turn to the Layer2 war, Celestia turned out. This project, which was accidentally promoted by Vitalik Buterin in the conception of Ethereum's overall modularization solution, has become the new "Ethereum killer", and the modularization standard it defines will force Ethereum into a new dispute.
This research report will start from the beginning of the data availability layer (DA), the modular interpretation as the entry point, deconstruct the four major solutions recognized by the DA track market, EigenDA, Celestia, NearDA, Avail and Ethereum native DA comparative analysis, and comprehensively interpret the rise and development of the DA track.
Contents
The birth of modular blockchain originated from two white papers. In 2018, Mustafa Albasan and Vitalik Buterin co-authored a paper titled "Data Availability Sampling and Fraud Proofs". This paper describes a system that allows light clients to receive and verify fraud proofs from full nodes, as well as the design of a data availability sampling protocol, which reduces the trade-off between on-chain capacity and security, thereby solving the scalability of blockchain without sacrificing security and decentralization. Then in 2019, Mustafa Albasan wrote the "Lazy Ledger" white paper, detailing a new architecture in which the blockchain is only used to sort and guarantee the availability of transaction data, but not responsible for the execution and verification of transactions. The purpose of this architecture is to solve the scalability problem of existing blockchain systems. At that time, he called this a "smart contract client." The execution of smart contracts is executed on this client through another execution layer, which is the prototype of Celestia (the first modular DA layer project). The emergence of Rollup made this concept more deterministic, and its logic is to execute smart contracts off-chain, and then aggregate the results into proofs and upload them to the execution layer of the "client". By reflecting on the architecture of blockchain and new expansion technologies, Celestia was born and defined a new paradigm for blockchain, which is now called "Modular Blockchain".
Modular blockchain aims to solve the blockchain impossible triangle problem that has puzzled the industry for many years by abstracting, stripping and recombining. Simply put, it is a Lego-style expansion solution that decouples the main functions of a single chain into multiple layers and focuses on implementing a single or partial functional layer. In a broad sense, the most basic functions of a single chain can be abstracted into at least the following four functional layers:
Data-availability Layer: The data availability layer (hereinafter referred to as DA layer) is responsible for ensuring that data in the network can be accessed and verified in the modular blockchain. It usually includes functions such as data storage, transmission and verification to ensure the transparency and trust of the blockchain network. In the modular architecture, it is responsible for the storage, verification and confirmation of all original transactions of the execution layer. At present, the most representative DA projects include Celestia, Avail, EigenDA, etc. In addition, various single public chains such as Ethereum and Solana can also carry DA needs (Bitcoin is a passive bearer. Due to its non-Turing completeness, there is currently no good solution verification for traditional Rollup, but the mining of BTC's expansion capacity is progressing very rapidly);
Consensus Layer: Responsible for the agreement between nodes to achieve consistency of data and transactions in the network. It verifies transactions and creates new blocks through specific consensus algorithms, such as proof of work (PoW) or proof of stake (PoS). Like public chains, most DA projects must also have their own consensus layer. In the absence of considering the execution of transactions, the design logic of their consensus is often based on the light node method with extremely low hardware requirements and simple verification;
Execution Layer: The execution layer is mainly responsible for processing transactions and executing smart contracts. It includes transaction verification, execution, and status updates. The Layer2 (also known as Rollup, but for projects using the main chain DA, the Ethereum community generally calls it Layer2, which carries some orthodoxy) projects we are familiar with, such as Arbitrum, Optimism, and ZKsync, are all modular blockchains that only have execution layer functions. They are essentially centralized blockchains, but they can inherit the security of the main chain by verifying the correctness of transactions through the main chain; Settlement Layer: Responsible for completing the final settlement of transactions, ensuring that the transfer and record of assets are permanently stored on the blockchain, and determining the final state of the blockchain. The modular settlement layer, whose main function is to verify the validity proof and status data of Rollup, is a relatively well-known project in the settlement layer, including Dymension and Cevmos. In fact, according to this definition, in the early history of blockchain, there were also "modular pioneer solutions" such as Lightning Network and Sidechain that were born around Bitcoin. However, due to the non-Turing completeness of Bitcoin, the progress of these expansion plans is either extremely slow or has various defects and has not been widely adopted. Therefore, the early blockchain has always been to make drastic innovations by completely reconstructing the underlying framework, from Bitcoin to Ethereum, and then from Ethereum to various "Ethereum Killers", but it has never been able to solve the trilemma of the public chain. The first two are heavy, slow, and stupid, and as the two core public chains of the blockchain, any major upgrade needs to consider how to maintain orthodoxy and security. And the Ethereum killers, no matter how they improve, are limited to the triangle.
In order to solve this problem, the solution around Rollup improvement was put on the agenda by Vitalik Buterin. Thanks to the increasing maturity of fraud proofs and zero-knowledge proofs (validity proofs), continuing the ideas of lightning networks and side chains, the Lego-style construction method of building the execution layer on Ethereum has gradually become a reality, and Ethereum has also determined its final outcome as two horizontal and vertical expansion paths around Rollup upgrades. So can the upgrade method with Rollup as the core really surpass the past expansion and become the endgame of the public chain war?
Before the advent of modularization, we experienced public chain wars. Ethereum has become the leader of the dominant blockchain with its undoubted innovation advantage in the ecosystem. When many people thought that the era of public chains would be ended by Ethereum-dominated Rollup again, Solana relied on its smooth integrated experience and highly cohesive community to go against the tide again. So which one is stronger, monopoly or modularization?
First of all, my personal conclusion is that modularization will win, but modularization also has many defects. We are thinking about two points here: 1. Large-scale adoption; 2. Comparison of security and fluency.
Let us first imagine what an ideal public chain that meets large-scale adoption would look like, providing high TPS, ultra-low Gas, and smooth commercial-grade services to millions or even hundreds of millions of users in a decentralized manner. This is impossible to achieve under a single chain architecture, even for some of the most powerful public chains today. This is because the blockchain is essentially a replicated deterministic state machine. Whenever the network status is updated, it needs to be synchronized by all nodes, copying and processing the same data to ensure the consistency of the distributed system in order to achieve decentralization and security. This framework is obviously not suitable for large-scale adoption for four reasons:
low performance, the performance of the blockchain is equivalent to the level of a single node;
a large amount of network activity will cause extremely high Gas Fee;
a huge amount of data will cause state explosion, resulting in higher node hardware requirements, especially the need for permanent disk space records, which is contrary to the premise of decentralization;
the upgrade and improvement of the public chain is extremely difficult under this framework.
Modular public chains, especially in the case of crazy Lego stacking of Rollup (L2, L3, L4...), can be infinitely close to centralized servers in terms of performance and cost. Therefore, considering that blockchain needs to go mainstream, modularization is the only way out at present. In addition, in terms of composability, Rollup can also build different architectures to adapt to different virtual machines, including Move VM, SVM, and even the upgraded version of ICP (i.e. AR's hyperparallel computer AO). From the current penetration of modularization into Infra, most developers also make the same choice for the future.
From the user's perspective
From the perspective of performance, cost and composability, it is indeed a huge victory for modularization. But from the perspectives of security and fluency, modularization is actually far inferior to high-performance public chains such as Solana. This conclusion may be a bit confusing. Why is Rollup not smooth when it has extremely high performance? If Rollup is built on Ethereum, which is second only to Bitcoin in terms of security and decentralization, why is it not safe? This actually involves the issue of asset transfer and the fragility of modularity. First of all, in a large modular system, there may be thousands of modular combinations. There are currently hundreds of Rollups, and there are also many options for DA. The same is true for the settlement layer. After refinement, there are more subdivided modular functional layers such as liquidity layer and computing power layer. In the future, fragmentation will continue to intensify. However, problems in any layer may lead to the collapse of the entire "Lego Tower". [1]
On the other hand, in the modular system, the transmission of assets and information requires the use of bridges. First of all, bridges are very fragile and centralized. Users need to transfer assets through various third-party bridges before operating between chains. In addition to long waiting times, there may be major security risks. There may even be problems such as Gas is not a token (although ETH is currently used by default, there will inevitably be projects that do not use ETH as Gas Fee in the future), and the target chain has very poor liquidity and can enter but not exit. These situations will never occur on high-performance public chains. The entire system flow of monolithic chains, especially parallelized public chains, is extremely smooth and far safer than frequent cross-chain. The only problem criticized is often that it is not decentralized enough.
So on the whole, modularization is not perfect, but it is indeed the only way out at the current stage. Finally, to summarize briefly, modularization is very likely to be the only way for all public chains in the future. As for this, it is not difficult to understand as long as you recall the various freezes of Solana caused by the grand occasion of STEPN. It is still difficult for the performance of a single chain to carry complex applications and large-scale applications. In the future, it is more likely that the needs of large asset transactions, pledges, and NFT carrying will be placed on the main chain. Rollup is used when higher performance is required, and the inherent insecurity and lack of interoperability of modularization will be compensated by full-chain protocols such as Layerero and Wormhole (this is why VCs have to bet on this track under the pressure of billions of valuations). Finally, when Infra is well built, it will truly enter Web3.
The dilemma of application chains and long-tail chains
Today, Layer2 projects have blossomed on Ethereum, and the concept of modular execution layer has penetrated into many corners of the blockchain. The demand for DA from a large number of Rollups is naturally growing. Especially for the upcoming full-chain games and application chains such as AI and DeFi, the throughput and cost provided by the DA layer are the real "performance bottlenecks". In addition to application chains, the long-tail chains at the end cannot afford the high costs, but because Ethereum's horizontal sharding expansion needs to be completed in three major upgrades (the current Cancun upgrade has completed the first step), and the progress is slow, these two aspects cannot meet the needs of this type of Rollup, so escaping from Ethereum and finding a DA solution that truly meets the needs will become an inevitable trend.
When it comes to cost reduction, the current non-main-chain low-cost DA solutions can be mainly divided into three categories: modular DA, placing verification on Ethereum L2 to become L3 and inheriting orthodoxy, and off-chain verification (Validium, Plasma). However, since L3 is not yet mature and the risk will double with each addition of Lego blocks, off-chain verification has been rejected by the Ethereum community and criticized for centralization issues, and is currently a niche choice. Modular DA projects reconstructed with DA as the core concept have lower costs, easier to update and more targeted architectures, and higher throughput, and are often the mainstream choice for non-main-chain DA solutions. Take the most representative Celestia as an example. Before the Cancun upgrade, its throughput was about 44.6-67 times that of Ethereum Calldata. According to the Gas Fee data calculated by Manta Network from December 23 to February 24, the cost of use is about 2 million US dollars (data source: Celestia Labs CRO interview in March this year). After the Cancun upgrade, Ethereum reduced the overall DA fee by more than 10 times through Blob Space. Many people believe that the threat of Celestia no longer exists. In fact, according to the calculation data of Datalenses, there is still a fee gap of more than 100 times between the two. So before Ethereum completes the entire sharding upgrade, modular DA can still seize this part of the market, and in addition to modular DA, many public chains and related projects are joining this rental market.
In fact, the ultimate goal of Ethereum can also be clichédly called "Wanda of Blockchain". After all, being a landlady is much easier than self-operation. While retaining some boutique self-operation, most of the "commercial spaces" can be rented out. As the rest of the execution layer, the functional layer that Ethereum needs to provide is actually similar to modular DA, and in most cases it also provides DA and consensus functions. From this perspective, the ultimate goals of the two are actually the same. DA projects such as Celestia have great advantages in other aspects except that the moat is not deep. This will undoubtedly touch the big cake of Ethereum's monopoly on DA. It is precisely because of this that the core of the Ethereum community always emphasizes the orthodoxy of the chain to exclude L2 projects of non-main chain DA, so even Celestia, which comes from the same family, will be expelled from the Ethereum community.
However, the interesting thing is that the development of the DA market has not been affected by the Ethereum community. Judging from the current situation of the entire DA market, there are more and more DA projects that are born out of demand. In the future, in addition to modular DA, Rollup can also be carried by BTC, which is more decentralized and is being explored for verification and expansion, AR, which has more advantages in storage and verification, and NEAR DA, which is cheaper in price. Modularization, the expansion narrative originated from Ethereum, is being eroded by other projects. The past public chain war will evolve into a multi-level and multi-faceted modular war.
As mentioned above, data availability refers to the ability of all nodes in the blockchain network to access and obtain all historical data generated by the system. In the process, in order to ensure that the transaction is correctly verified by all validators, all nodes must be able to obtain complete data.
Data Availability in blockchain refers to ensuring that data in the blockchain is accessible and verifiable when needed. The data availability issue is a key challenge in blockchain scalability, especially in sharding and Layer 2 solutions. There are two main solutions: on-chain solutions and off-chain solutions. They each have their own advantages and disadvantages.
On-chain solutions mean that all data is stored on the blockchain, ensuring the availability and integrity of the data. The main features and advantages and disadvantages of this approach are as follows:
Features:
Data storage on the blockchain: All transaction data is stored directly in the blockchain;
Node verification: All nodes can access and verify the data;
High security: Since all data is on the blockchain, any node can verify the integrity and validity of the data.
Advantages:
High transparency: All data is publicly visible and easy to audit;
Decentralization: All nodes can access complete data, ensuring the decentralization and security of the system.
Disadvantages:
Poor scalability: The large amount of data leads to a heavy storage and processing burden on the blockchain, affecting performance and scalability;
High cost: The cost of storing and transmitting large amounts of data is high, especially in the case of high transaction volume.
Off-chain solutions ensure data availability by storing most of the data off-chain and only storing necessary verification data (such as hash values) on the blockchain. Common off-chain solutions include data availability layers (such as Data Availability Layer), data availability committees, etc.
Features:
Data storage off-chain: Most transaction data is stored off-chain, and only verification data is stored on-chain;
Light node verification: Light nodes only need to verify the data on the chain (such as hash values) without storing complete data.
Advantages:
Good scalability: Reduces the amount of data on the chain, improves the system's processing power and scalability;
Low cost: Reduces the cost of data storage and transmission, suitable for large-scale applications.
Disadvantages:
Security depends on off-chain storage: the integrity and availability of data depend on the security and credibility of off-chain storage;
High complexity: additional mechanisms are required to ensure the availability and verifiability of off-chain data, which increases the complexity of the system.
In general, the choice of on-chain solutions and off-chain solutions for Data Availability depends on the needs of specific applications. On-chain solutions (data is directly stored on the blockchain): more suitable for application scenarios that require extremely high security and decentralization, but are not so focused on scalability. Off-chain solutions (transferring data storage and verification from the blockchain to the off-chain, such as side chains, state channels, zero-knowledge proofs, data availability proofs, etc.): more suitable for large-scale applications that require high scalability and low cost, but require a certain trade-off between security and complexity. Modern blockchain technology often combines the two approaches, balancing security, decentralization, and scalability through a hybrid model (such as sharding technology combined with data availability committees in Ethereum 2.0).
EigenDA aims to provide an innovative DA solution for Rollups, improving security by connecting Ethereum stakers and validators, achieving the goal of increasing throughput and reducing costs. EigenLayer's shared security system will adopt a multi-node approach to ensure the degree of decentralization.
It provides an efficient, low-cost and secure data storage and verification solution for Rollup by providing a decentralized data availability (DA) service. Specifically, EigenDA serves Rollup data availability in the following ways:
1. Utilizing the restaking function
EigenDA is built on EigenLayer and utilizes EigenLayer's restaking function. Restaking allows Ethereum stakers to entrust their staked ETH to EigenDA to provide collateral for data availability services. This mechanism not only increases the flexibility of staking, but also enhances the security of the system through the participation of stakers.
2. Data publishing and storage
Rollup can publish its transaction data to EigenDA instead of storing it directly on the Ethereum main chain. EigenDA ensures that this data is available and verifiable through distributed storage and verification mechanisms. This approach reduces the storage and computing burden of the main chain and reduces transaction fees.
3. Node Verification
In the EigenDA system, node operators are responsible for performing data verification tasks. Pledgers entrust their pledges to these node operators, and node operators receive service fees by participating in data verification. Node operators verify and store the data submitted by Rollup to ensure the integrity and availability of the data.
4. Active Verification Service (AVS)
As the first active verification service (AVS) on EigenLayer, EigenDA actively participates in the verification and maintenance of data. Through this mechanism, EigenDA provides an efficient data availability service that allows Rollup to efficiently store and verify its data.
5. Enhanced security and throughput
With the increase in the amount of staked on EigenDA and the development of participating nodes and protocols, the overall security and transaction throughput of the system will be further improved. The participation of stakers and node operators not only improves the security of data, but also improves the scalability and processing power of the system through distributed storage and verification mechanisms.
6. Integration and interoperability
According to official public information, EigenDA has integrated a variety of Layer 2 solutions, including Celo (transitioning from L1 to Ethereum L2), Mantle and its supporting products of the BitDAO ecosystem, Fluent, which provides the zkWASM execution layer, Offshore, which provides the Move execution layer, and OP Stack in Optimism used in the EigenDA testnet. These integrations enhance EigenDA’s interoperability, enabling it to serve a variety of different Rollup solutions, further improving the system’s flexibility and applicability.
In terms of cooperation, EigenDA provides a dedicated decentralized data availability layer, which effectively relieves the burden of the Ethereum main chain, allowing the main chain to focus on other core functions. In addition, EigenDA leverages the re-staking function of EigenLayer to enhance the security and credibility of data availability with the resources of Ethereum stakers. This partnership not only leverages Ethereum’s existing security model, but also provides additional guarantees for EigenDA.
By integrating multiple Layer 2 solutions in the Ethereum ecosystem, such as Celo, Mantle, Fluent, Offshore, and Optimism's OP Stack, EigenDA promotes the development of the entire Ethereum ecosystem and provides better data availability services for the popularization and application of Layer 2 solutions. EigenDA's technical innovation in decentralized data availability can also be fed back to the Ethereum community to promote Ethereum's progress in data processing and storage technology.
However, there are also potential conflicts between EigenDA and Ethereum's native DA. First of all, the competition for staking resources may be a problem. EigenDA relies on the re-staking function of EigenLayer, which means that stakers may need to choose between Ethereum native staking and EigenDA staking. This resource dispersion may affect the operation of Ethereum's native staking mechanism. Secondly, the dispersion of development resources and attention may also lead to conflicts. Ethereum developers and the community may need to allocate limited resources and attention between the Ethereum native DA solution and EigenDA, which will definitely affect the development process of the Ethereum native DA.
In addition, market acceptance may also become a problem. Different projects and developers may choose between the Ethereum native DA solution and EigenDA. The market's acceptance and preference for these two solutions may affect their development direction and popularity. Finally, differences in governance mechanisms may also lead to conflicts. Ethereum native DA and EigenDA may have different governance mechanisms, and this difference may cause conflicts in the decision-making process, especially when it comes to issues involving protocol changes or resource allocation.
Overall, EigenDA and Ethereum native DA solutions have their own performance in cooperation and conflict. In terms of cooperation, EigenDA enhances the scalability and security of Ethereum through dedicated DA services and promotes the common development of the ecosystem. In terms of conflict, competition in staking resources, development resources, and market selection may have an impact on the development of both. How to balance and coordinate the relationship between the two will be an important topic for the continued development and optimization of the Ethereum ecosystem in the future.
Celestia's modular architecture allows the execution layer to exist independently on each blockchain, allowing optimization and specialization for specific use cases. Any developer building a decentralized application based on this architecture can enjoy higher security and scalability on top of the original blockchain execution layer. In addition, in Celestia's modular blockchain, data availability sampling can be implemented, allowing nodes to verify a block with a very small sample, and low-hardware configuration devices can also act as nodes (for related extended reading, see YBB Capital's previous article: Modular Blockchain: A New Perspective on Functional Layer Controversy and DA Economics).
In the past, deploying a blockchain required the chain to establish an independent consensus mechanism, verify the network and incentivize nodes, so the requirements for resources and costs were very high. Celestia provides complete consensus and security, allowing multiple chains to share the same data availability (DA) layer, thereby reducing the need for trust when bridging between chains, and combining the open ecosystem of Cosmos and the shared security of Ethereum, making multi-chain openness and shared security possible.
Modular architecture
Separation of consensus and execution layers:
Celestia separates the consensus layer and the execution layer, allowing developers to focus only on their application logic and smart contracts without having to deal with the underlying consensus mechanism. Consensus and data availability are provided by Celestia, which simplifies the development and deployment process of blockchains.
Dedicated Data Availability Layer
Data Availability Service:
Celestia provides a dedicated data availability layer that ensures all data is available and verifiable on-chain. New blockchains can leverage Celestia's service without having to build and maintain complex data availability mechanisms themselves. This reduces development time and costs, making it easier to launch independent blockchains.
Lightweight Client Support
Data Availability Sampling (DAS):
Celestia allows light nodes to verify the availability of data through data availability sampling without downloading and storing the entire blockchain's data. This reduces the hardware requirements for node operation, making it easy for more developers to launch and maintain their own blockchains.
Enhanced Scalability
High Throughput and Low Cost:
By separating consensus and data availability, Celestia provides higher scalability. Developers can build high-throughput application chains that publish data on Celestia and enjoy its efficient data availability and consensus services, thereby achieving higher transaction throughput and lower transaction costs.
Shared Security
Shared Security Model:
Newly launched blockchains can share the security of Celestia and take advantage of its powerful consensus and data availability services. This shared security model reduces the burden on developers to establish independent security mechanisms for new chains, while improving the security and reliability of the overall system.
Flexible Development Tools
Development Tools and Documentation Support:
Celestia provides a range of development tools, SDKs, and detailed documentation to help developers quickly get started and create their own independent blockchains. These tools and resources simplify the development process, making it more intuitive and convenient to launch and deploy new chains.
Through modular architecture, dedicated data availability layer, lightweight client support, enhanced scalability, shared security, and rich development tools, Celestia greatly reduces the complexity of launching independent blockchains. Developers can focus on innovation and application development without worrying about the complex implementation of the underlying infrastructure.
According to the official NEAR Medium description [2], NEAR DA provides developers with an out-of-the-box solution that enables roll builders to easily make full use of NEAR's infrastructure - the reliability of this infrastructure has been verified for more than 3 years. The Pagoda engineering team has built three important open source components that can be integrated into any OP Stack, Polygon CDK or Arbitrum Nitro rollups at any time:
Blob storage contract: a contract that stores arbitrary data.
Light Client: A trustless off-chain client that can easily access transaction and receipt data.
RPC Client: A client that publishes data blobs to the NEAR Protocol.
Security: Inherits the security of the Near Network
The NEAR Protocol, through its unique design and technology, parallelizes the network into multiple shards, allowing for efficient scalability and performance.
Nightshade Sharding Design
Sharded Consensus:
The NEAR Protocol uses a sharding design called "Nightshade", where each shard maintains its own independent state and set of transactions. Shards share an overall blockchain structure, but transactions on each shard are logically processed independently. Each shard has its own block producer and validator to ensure parallel processing of transactions.
State Sharding:
The shards in Nightshade's design are state shards, which means that each shard only maintains its own part of the global state. This can spread the computing and storage burden of the entire network to each shard, avoiding a single node from becoming a performance bottleneck.
2. Dynamic Sharding
Dynamic Sharding Management:
NEAR Protocol supports dynamic sharding management, which means that the number of shards can be dynamically adjusted according to network needs. As the network load increases, more shards can be added to share the load, and vice versa. This dynamic adjustment capability ensures efficient operation of the network and rational use of resources.
3. Cross-Shard Communication
Asynchronous cross-shard communication:
NEAR uses an asynchronous cross-shard communication mechanism to allow efficient information exchange between shards. Each shard can interact with other shards through message passing while processing its own transactions. This design ensures that communication between shards does not become a bottleneck while maintaining the consistency of the entire network.
Data availability guarantee:
To ensure the security of cross-shard transactions and the availability of data, NEAR uses a mechanism called "Fishermen". These Fishermen nodes are responsible for monitoring and verifying the correctness of cross-shard communication and ensuring the integrity and reliability of data between shards.
4. The role of the validator
Shard validators:
In the Near network, each shard has its own validators, who are responsible for the verification and consensus of transactions within the shard. This design ensures the independence and parallel processing capabilities of the shards.
Random assignment and rotation:
Validators rotate between different shards through random assignment and regular rotation. This mechanism improves the security and anti-censorship capabilities of the network because it is difficult for attackers to predict and control the validators of a specific shard.
5. Shard Governance and Staking
Staking and Governance:
Near Protocol adopts a staking mechanism, where stakers participate in network governance and shard validation by locking tokens. Stakers are distributed among different shards to ensure that each shard has enough validators to participate in consensus. This distributed staking mechanism improves the security and stability of the network.
1. Avail DA (Data Availability)
Data Availability Layer:
Avail DA provides a dedicated data availability layer to ensure that all published data is available and verifiable on the chain. Rollup relies on this layer to ensure that the data required for state transfer and proof generation is available. Avail DA's data availability layer reduces the complexity of data storage and processing by reducing dependence on the Ethereum main chain, enabling Rollup to run more efficiently.
Data Sampling Technology:
It uses the GRANDPA + BABE consensus algorithm. Through data sampling technology (Data Availability Sampling, DAS), Avail DA allows light nodes to determine the availability of the entire data set by verifying a small number of data fragments. This approach improves the efficiency and reliability of data verification, allowing Rollup to quickly and securely access the required data. 2. Avail Nexus Modular Architecture: Avail Nexus is a modular framework designed to separate the data availability and execution layers. With this separation, using Avail DA as the root of trust, developers can build Rollup independently of the data layer, focusing on application logic and state transfer without worrying about underlying data availability issues. Nexus provides standardized interfaces and tools that enable seamless collaboration between different modules. Easy to integrate: Nexus provides easy-to-integrate development tools and APIs that enable developers to quickly integrate Avail DA's functionality into their Rollup solutions. In this way, the process of developing and deploying Rollup becomes more intuitive and efficient.
3. Avail Fusion
Cross-chain interoperability:
Avail Fusion provides cross-chain compatibility and supports interoperability with multiple blockchain platforms. This cross-chain capability allows developers to easily migrate and deploy their Rollups between different blockchains, improving the portability and application scope of Rollups.
Shared security:
Through Fusion, multiple Rollups can share the data availability layer provided by Avail, thereby using consensus and security mechanisms to reduce the need for each Rollup to build security mechanisms separately, but Fusion is still in the development stage.
Analysis and comparison of EigenDA, Celestia, NearDA and Avail
Looking ahead, Ethereum native data availability (DA) and major solutions will continue to innovate, break through technical bottlenecks, and bring unprecedented scalability and efficiency to the blockchain field. From a market and technical perspective, Ethereum native DA introduced Proto-Danksharding through the Cancun upgrade, which greatly improved data availability and scalability, reduced transaction fees, and gradually achieved modular architecture. EigenDA focuses on efficient zk-rollups, relies on the Ethereum mainnet, technically optimizes data processing, and reduces costs. Celestia is positioned in the market as an innovative modular blockchain, which enhances flexibility and scalability by separating the consensus and data availability layers. NearDA uses sharding technology to improve data processing efficiency and is suitable for high-performance applications. Avail provides a dedicated data availability layer to optimize data verification and storage and improve overall performance.
Modularity and data availability will have a profound impact on the future development of Ethereum, but many technical challenges still need to be solved before large-scale implementation. For example, cross-shard and cross-Rollup coordination, and the efficiency of data verification mechanisms need to be solved. In addition, ensuring data security and decentralization while scaling on a large scale remains key. How to seamlessly integrate with the existing Ethereum ecosystem, ensure the compatibility of smart contracts, dApps and infrastructure, and avoid fragmentation of the ecosystem due to technology upgrades are also important tasks for future development.
References
[1] Monolithic vs. Modular: Who is the future of blockchain? -TechFlow, https://www.techflowpost.com/article/detail_14160.html
[2] Why provide NEAR data? -Medium, https://medium.com/nearprotocol/why-near-data-availability-0403121e394d
Disclaimer: This report is prepared by Web3Caff Research. The information contained is for reference only and does not constitute any forecast or investment advice, proposal or offer. Investors should not rely on such information to buy, sell any securities, cryptocurrency or adopt any investment strategy. The terms used and opinions expressed in the report are intended to help understand industry trends and promote the responsible development of Web3, including the blockchain industry, and should not be interpreted as a clear legal opinion or the opinion of Web3Caff Research. The views in the report reflect only the personal opinions of the author as of the date stated, have nothing to do with the position of Web3Caff Research, and may change with subsequent circumstances. The information and opinions contained in this report are from proprietary and non-proprietary sources that Web3Caff Research believes to be reliable, and do not necessarily cover all data, nor guarantee their accuracy. Therefore, Web3Caff Research does not make any guarantee of its accuracy and reliability, and does not assume any responsibility for errors and omissions arising in any other way (including liability to any person due to negligence). This report may contain "forward-looking" information, which may include forecasts and predictions. This article does not constitute a guarantee of any forecast. Whether to rely on the information contained in this report is entirely up to the reader. This report is for reference only and does not constitute an investment advice, proposal or offer to buy or sell any securities, cryptocurrency or adopt any investment strategy. Please strictly abide by the relevant laws and regulations of your country or region.
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Cointelegraph