Why the outcome of Celestia’s invasion of Ethereum layer 2 will be a “win-win”

Author: Haotian, independent researcher Source: X, @tmel0211

How to understand @CelestiaOrg The threat to Ethereum, is it really the Ethereum killer? In my opinion, Celestia’s invasion war will continue in the layer 2 field. However, the result of this war is not death or death, but a “win-win” situation.

Essentially, this is the inevitable result of the high modularity of the layer 2 market. Why? Next, let me tell you my opinion.

We disassemble the Ethereum blockchain system, and there are two cores:

1) Data Avaliability, data availability; 2) interoperability, interoperability. As for other EVM execution layers and POS consensus layers, although they are also important, when talking about Rollup layer 2, we value more DA and interoperability

DA corresponds to Ethernet If Ethereum participates in DA and the state transition process submitted by layer 2, the main network Validators have the ability to perform verification to ensure security. If Ethereum DA is separated, the main network calldata and Blob blocks will be It has become a state transition bulletin board for layer 2, and its validity is determined by the third-party DA consensus. Even if a premeditated "bad debt" is submitted to the main network, the main network cannot make judgments and intervene.

Interoperability corresponds to the communication and interaction capabilities of Ethereum and other chains, mainly involving the security of asset settlement communication between chains, and effective solutions for common liquidity. At present, there are mainly Restaking projects such as @eigenlayer and some middle layer projects for liquidity management.

This kind of liquidity management solution can not only stabilize Ethereum’s status as the asset settlement layer, but also release Ethereum’s overloaded consensus to the multi-chain environment. The key is that it can also export the security consensus capabilities of Ethereum Validators to other chains, opening up a new territory for the Ethereum DeFi brand foundation.

Celestia is one of the originators of modular public chains. It stands to reason that it should regard Cosmos IBC involving public chains as its main target. After all, it is based on Cosmos IBC Most chains focus on lightweighting, and the DA layer is built based on Celestia, which is a perfect fit.

However, Celestia has taken an unusual path and launched Blobstream for the Ethereum ecosystem as a "foreign threat" to continuously penetrate into Ethereum, combined with the Ethereum layer2 OP Stack The "internal disaster" caused by one-click chain issuance. With this, Celestia almost conquered the city and continued to invade the territory of Ethereum layer 2.

As a layer2 developer, what lies ahead is nothing more than the tradeoff of DA legitimacy and chaining cost.

DA legitimacy is relatively passive in the commercial market. It is suitable for some comprehensive layer 2 projects that are more concerned about security consensus issues and have a certain brand heritage and market foundation. Some new and small layer2 players, especially layer2 chains based on OP Stack’s one-click chain publishing, will try their best to squeeze costs to a minimum.

Therefore, third-party DAs such as Celesitia are naturally a better choice. Although EigenDA also provides Ethereum DA service issues, it cannot reduce the actual cost of developing layer 2 for the project side.

For developers who choose to take shortcuts to operate and maintain layer 2, cost will inevitably be the first consideration. The largest cost of layer 2 is the DA cost of Ethereum. Choose Third-party DA uses low cost to offset the market revenue pressure of early operations, which may be the preferred choice of most small developers at the tail end.

So, the key to whether Celestia will endanger Ethereum lies in the future development situation of Ethereum layer 2. If layer2 will gradually narrow to a comprehensive layer2 headed by the four kings, then DA legitimacy will be the main theme. If layer2 will spring up with various layer2 solutions, then cost considerations will always be the last word.

Although there is still a variable of Cancun upgrade, the trend of Ethereum layer 2 is already obvious, and there will definitely be a large number of layer 2 solutions emerging. The reasons are not difficult to understand:

Arbitrum, Optimism, Starkent, zkSync and other four kings are not developing as expected, Sequencer decentralization problem, 7-day challenge problem is not implemented, The hardware acceleration problem of the Prover system, the EVM competiable equivalence problem, the asset cross-chain escape hatch problem, the Token economic model's inability to empower governance tokens, the difficulty of native DeFi development, and so on.

It is no exaggeration to say that the development of layer2 has left a lot of problems. If any problem is raised and matched with the Stack framework and Celestia DA, it may become a problem. A powerful development direction for the imaginary space of capital narrative.

I also said in my previous article that the chaos in layer 2 will really begin after Cancun is upgraded, and the layer 2 market will become "diversified" Prosperity. Moreover, OP Stack and ZK Stack are still building a more open and inclusive layer3 application chain era. By then, the traditional Ethereum layer2 framework will be more blurred, and third-party DAs such as Celestia will become a modular DA layer and become a necessity.

This is the inevitable trend of commercial expansion of the layer2 track, and it is also the fundamental reason for Celestia’s continued evil intentions towards the Ethereum layer2 ecosystem.

However, this is not just a threat to Ethereum. When more and more layer2 adopt third-party DA solutions such as Celestia, while Celestia’s market position is highlighted, It will also promote changes in Ethereum layer 2:

1) The comprehensive layer 2 platform will become the foundation, and its liquidity, user volume, application ecology, etc. will occupy the commanding heights of the brand. DA legitimacy will become the core difference to ensure their solid position;

2) The personalized cutting-edge layer2 platform will become an extension, innovation, diverse gameplay, market Anticipated opportunities will attract groups of people to explore the Nuggets. Flexibility and freedom are their trump cards.

Based on this idea, the core layer 2 of Ethereum will become increasingly stable, and the position of Ethereum DA will not be shaken. However, some more flexible layer 2 or layer 3, although DA is not on Ethereum, but don’t forget, as long as they are built on Ethereum based on the Stack stack, it is difficult for them to escape the control of Interoperability.

At that time, Ethereum, as the asset settlement layer and the source of liquidity, will form softer liquidity control for these flexible layer 2.

If you don’t understand what I mean, just look at the few pitiful transactions running on Celestia, whose price has been so high, Celestia While invading Ethereum, it will gradually lose the attribute of a "comprehensive chain" (which it was not originally) and become a modular DA layer of the Ethereum ecosystem. So what if so many Ethereum layer 2s use Celestia's DA? As long as the frameworks of Stack and Rollup remain unchanged, these layer 2s will have to continue to "pay taxes" to Ethereum.

Compared with the loss of DA legitimacy and the rise of diversified and prosperous layer2 and layer3 markets, Ethereum will always be the biggest beneficiary.