Weekly Rollup #43
Introducing Initia: an ecosystem of Celestia rollups | Squad Staking goes live | Axiom V2 | UniDex Pivots to Celestia | Celestia Launches Ethereum Fallback Mechanism | Week Ending December 1st
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This week’s issue covers:
Introducing Initia: an ecosystem of Celestia rollups
Squad Staking goes live: Obol Labs launches public mainnet
Axiom V2
UniDex Pivots to Celestia to enable lower costs for users
Celestia Launches Ethereum Fallback Mechanism
More News & Announcements
Changing monolithic state
Sequencing tradeoffs
Are there good wallets?
More Education & Discourse
📣 News & Announcements
Introducing Initia: an ecosystem of Celestia rollups
New project alert - Initia, “a unified ecosystem of VM-agnostic modular chains”, all leveraging Celestia underneath. Sound confusing? Let’s break it down 📝
There are two terms to keep in mind:
Initia: an L1 blockchain
Minitia: a rollup (an L2) deployed on top of Initia
Teams can build their own VM-agnostic apps (with their preferred VM, whether EVM, Wasm, Move, etc.), using Initia’s own rollup framework - OPinit. As Mustafa puts it, a rollup framework is “software used to build rollups” (OP Stack, Rollkit, Sovereign SDK, etc.).
Celestia Underneath
As mentioned, Initia is building an ecosystem of rollups (”minitias”). All of these minitias will be utilizing Celestia’s data publication network underneath (all minitias will be posting their data directly to Celestia). Initia’s L1 validator set will be running Celestia light nodes, “to verify data across every Minitia without needing to download entire blocks”. They refer to this as “Omnitia Shared Security”.
Check out the full post to learn all about Initia.
Squad Staking goes live: Obol Labs launches public mainnet
Obol Labs has opened up its platform to the public, meaning now anyone can “access the Distributed Validator Launchpad to set up a DV cluster on mainnet”. A quick breakdown of what this means below 👇
This is exactly as the name suggests: an Ethereum validator split and run by more than one node.
Traditionally, to run a validator on Ethereum you need to run the appropriate software on your device, along with providing 32 $ETH worth of stake (if you act malicious your stake is slashed). With the Distributed Validator Launchpad, you and your “squad”, consisting of 4-10 people, can set up your own validator cluster and start contributing to Ethereum’s security.
Upsides:
don’t have to have all of 32 $ETH (split among your cluster - if you get 10 people, it's 3.2 $ETH each).
don’t run the risk of getting slashed if your device goes down - as long as the rest of your squad is up, you should be okay.
But I’m just a delegator, why should I care?
DVT is very exciting, and a big push for decentralization - that said, most people will still probably just delegate their $ETH on Rocket Pool, Lido, or any other staking platform - so why should these people care?
Today on Lido, for example, we delegate our ETH to someone else who runs the validator node. The risk to depositors is that if the validator you delegate your stake to was to get slashed, then that means you potentially lose your deposit as well (your deposit adds to the validator’s stake). With DVT however, the validator is split between different nodes (could all be from different places around the world), meaning depositors are ultimately putting their deposit at the hands of 4-10 individuals, rather than just one, ultimately increasing security for the end-user deposits.
New Upcoming Tools:
Obol Splits: squads will also be able to manage cluster configurations themselves - meaning decide how you want rewards to be distributed amongst your cluster, when you want rewards to go out to appropriate wallets, etc.
Obol SDK: the Obol Labs team is also expected to launch an SDK soon, which will be meant “to create an ecosystem of DV-backed staking products”.
Two action items coming on the 6th (today):
Community Call: ask your questions & learn more about DVT
Obol Techne Credential Program: complete DV-related tasks & activities to earn a non-transferrable NFT
Axiom V2
Axiom just announced the testnet launch of its new V2.
“Axiom v2 allows smart contract developers to perform zk-verified compute over it”. Here are the three new features of V2:
You can learn more about each of these new features, along with everything else about Axiom V2, here. Axiom V2 is live on testnet, and expected to reach mainnet after completing security audits.
We wrote a small deep dive all about Axiom a couple of months ago, for anyone new to the project entirely. Make sure to check it out to learn how they’re introducing a new, trustless way for developers to access on-chain data and compute on Ethereum.
UniDex Pivots to Celestia to enable lower costs for users
UniDex, which is building a defi-based, OP Stack chain (Molten), will be pivoting from Ethereum to Celestia for data publication.
For anyone new to the company, UniDex has two products under its belt - a Swap App, and a Perpetual Trading platform.
This pivot was done so that costs to end users on both of these apps, along with any other protocols that launch on this L2 in the future, are lowered. Of course, this is a benefit to protocols themselves as well, as according to the UniDex team, oracle networks like Chainlink can deploy on Molten and update price feeds “at 1/100 of the cost as the same transaction on Arbitrum”.
As we’ve mentioned many times before, the modular thesis is about separating the tasks of a blockchain into different layers, thereby each specializing in its specific area of focus. In this way, teams can “build whatever”. In the case of UniDex with their Molten network, they can keep relying on Ethereum for settlement, while utilizing Celestia for data publication.
UniDex’s L2 is now on testnet. You can learn how to connect your wallet to the testnet and get started on the network, here.
Celestia Launches Ethereum Fallback Mechanism
This past week, Celestia announced the launch of an “Ethereum Fallback Mechanism”. Here’s a quick rundown of what this Fallback Mechanism means:
Celestia’s launch of Blobstream, which we spoke about here, has paved the road for the launch of Celestia rollups on Ethereum.
Traditionally: The Ethereum settled rollup posts its data to Ethereum itself
With Celestia: The Ethereum settled rollup posts its data to Celestia, lowering operational costs (validiums).
But what if Celestia for some reason goes down or stops responding? This is what the fallback mechanism aims to address.
If for some reason Celestia goes down, then the L2 can shift to start posting its data to Ethereum, “or another DA layer”. Once Celestia is back up & running, then the L2 can shift to continue operating as before - posting its data to Celestia again.
Overall, "this mechanism ensures users can continue to transact securely and seamlessly, preventing disruptions and helping to ensure user funds do not get stuck in the L2's bridge on Ethereum".
Check out this docs page to learn all about this new mechanism.
More News & Announcements
Check out these 10 Dymension RollApps, from a DEX, to “NFT magic”, and a Pokemon like “gaming center”.
@ayyyeandy, from The Rollup team, shows the difference in the time it takes bridging from L2 <> L2 (1 second), vs. L1 <> L2 (4 seconds), using the Across bridge.
Check out this article written by @0x_emperor, which goes over how Eigen Layer can play a role in “smart defi”. Here’s a summary of the article, written by EL founder himself, Sreeram, & here’s the ELI5.
Range & Noble collaborated to build USDC Trail, providing users with a real-time view of USDC transactions across Ehereum, L2s, and Cosmos. This launch comes in anticipation of the 300M USDC expected to hit DYDX (now on Cosmos) soon.
Missed this initially, but looks like a Celestia + OP Stack rollup coming - “Last L2”. No details about the project yet, but sounds like it came soon after the Blast launch. This may be a good time to remind you all that nothing here is an endorsement - just a neutral source of news across the modular space.
The Rari Foundation just announced Rari Chain, an Arbitrum-based rollup integrated with Rarible, that is meant to provide creators with royalties “embedded on the node level”. Rollup is being built with Caldera’s RaaS solution.
Caldera integrates Layer Zero protocol, enabling “omnichain interoperability between Caldera rollups and any of the 40+ LayerZero-supported networks”.
AltLayer has integrated Near’s data publication network, providing devs with another DP option when building their rollup with the RaaS solution. Speaking of AltLayer, for anyone who missed AltLayer’s “Rollup Frontier Day” this past weekend, here are all the video recordings from the event.
Catch up with all the latest happenings of this past month from the Hyperlane team, including the v3 launch, $TIA bridge, & more. & yes, we covered a lot of these early on.
For those who missed the recent “Modular Day” event in Istanbul, you can watch the entire recording here. Shout out to Hyperlane for the time stamps 🙏
Missed this one last week, but looks like Taiko (zkEVM) has become the next chain to integrate with Omni’s L2 interop protocol.
Check out Celenium, a new explorer for Celestia, providing users with a clear look at different metrics.
While it may be too late to catch Avail’s 1st “Flash Challenge”, which was to make one balance transfer a day for seven days straight, there’s still plenty of time to catch any upcoming Flash Challenges - follow them on X so you don’t miss a single one. Here’s more new challenges.
Avail’s work so far in their development of an Ethereum <> Avail bridge using Succinct’s ZK protocol.
Ether.fi is already at 500 validators natively restaked on Eigen Layer 👀
Manta Network announces the “Manta Takeover Campaign”, a new Galxe initiative running from now until December 14th.
Mantle announces their Moonshot Campaign: “Embark on 4 week-long missions to win mystery boxes where access to 19k CoM NFT add-on traits & protocol token rewards await”. Runs until January 30th. You can listen to this Space to learn all about the campaign.
Here’s everything that happened across the Scroll ecosystem this past week, this week focusing on Scroll-related events (Hackathon recap, Japan meetup).
Fuel’s Q1 grants program is now live: “10 projects will get up to $50K to build new web3 use-cases on Ethereum, powered by the FuelVM”.
Collect 1/5 music NFTs on Coinbase and earn $OP.
Here’s the latest across the zkSync ecosystem, including a new onchain analytics platform, a new perp exchange, & several other app deployments on the zkEVM.
📚 Discourse & Education
Changing monolithic state
Apoorv from Karnot suggests that one global state machine won’t be sufficient for the world’s onchain execution needs, even if that one global state machine had unlimited TPS.
Here are three of his key points:
Ossification. The more valuable chains get, the harder they are to change. If your institution has billions of dollars locked in or is dependent on a chain, you probably won’t want weekly softwares upgrades. Every upgrade carries the potential to introduce new bugs. This will be especially challenging when a given upgrade is meant to help a completely separate organization or use case from yours. Over time the social pressure and risk potential leads to ossification and innovation slows.
Tech debt. This is a common concept in software engineering. Adding ever more features optimized for ever more use cases will likely carry baggage, where the system gets harder to evolve and maintain.
Experimentation. When all experimentation must be sequential, progress gets rate limited. Monolithic chains simply cannot support the level of parallel experimentation possible in modular systems. Using Apoorv’s example, a blockchain cannot simultaneously have two different block times or transaction limits.
The cool thing is many of these problems have already been solved in the cloud infrastructure / microservices world. Learning from the best of web2 is a sign of industry maturity.
Sequencing tradeoffs
Patrick from Offchain Labs suggests that sequencer discussions are missing the mark.
Underlying his take is the assumption that there’s no “right” sequencer design. Leaning too much into narratives or oversimplications like “committee bad shared sequencer good” is not that useful.
Instead, rollup and app teams should maintain a “jobs to be done” mindset and first identify the properties that matter most to their users.
What you’ll find is there’s a reasonably large design space for sequencing (as well as other modular components). To understand where your project should fall in this design space, you’ll need a deep understanding of the audience you’re trying to serve.
Another thing to note is that the right sequencer design for your project might change over time. If your rollup is brand new and there isn’t much economic activity on it, users might not flinch at centralized sequencing. Once your rollup builds a bustling ecosystem of valuable state and competing applications, users might want better censorship resistance guarantees.
Regardless of which sequencer design is right for you, Patrick’s point applies. The north star should be properties most important to your users.
Are there good wallets?
Proto from Ethereum Foundation challenges the wallet landscape 👀
He presents a laundry list of critiques and desired functionality, though admittedly optimizing for a developer focused product rather than a “user-onboarding focused” product.
What do you think - is the industry missing the boat on good crypto wallets? Let us know your ideal wallet features and properties. We’d love to surface new and innovative solutions.
More Education & Discourse
Empire discusses the role of VMs, the future of data availability and the Celestia x Movement collaboration with Celestia, Movement and Aptos 🎙️
@0x_emperor deep dives into coprocessors and how “offchain compute is all you need” ✍️
@barnabemonnot explores the semantics of staking and liquid staking mechanisms ✍️🔥
@0xtaetaehoho and @_weidai explore DA bottlenecks using a rollup x DA model 📊🧠
Nethermind and Flashbots explores a PBS proposal for based rollups ✍️🧠
Sprk and @chainyoda discuss new execution layers for DeFi on Ethereum with Fuel, Polygon and Compolabs 🎙️
Espresso discusses liquidity fragmentation and rollup interop with Omni and Caldera 🎙️
Zero Knowledge Podcast discusses ZK toolkits, intents, data availability and EigenLayer with Sreeram from EigenLayer and Tarun from Gauntlet 🎙️🔥
L2Beat explores the problem of tracking transaction finality for rollups ✍️
Umbra Research explores proposals for enshrining PBS ✍️
@accelxr analyzes and compares decentralized social protocols, from web1 to web3 ✍️💎
@Nogoodtwts breaks down the wallet-as-a-service (WaaS) landscape ✍️
@KAndrewHuang explains how rollup escape hatches / forced withdrawals work 💬💎
Bankless discusses how Flashbots is the answer to crypto’s biggest centralization threats with Phil from Flashbots 🎙️
Beacon Podcast discusses the founding story of EigenLayer and how Sreeram transitioned from academia to blockchain 🎙️
@0xCygaar explains why it takes a week to withdraw from an optimistic rollup 💬
@yuxiao_deng explores infrastructural frontiers for a multi-rollup world ✍️
Bankless discusses NEAR’s new solutions for the modular Ethereum stack with Illia from NEAR 🎙️
Composable Finance explores cross-chain MEV and whether it can surpass CEX-DEX arbitrage MEV ✍️
EZKL explains their integration with Ingonyama and broader strategies for ZKML hardware acceleration ✍️
@zerokn0wledge_ explains how OP, Polygon and zkSync are all competing for Celo, the EigenLayer powered L2 💬
@vidkersic explains zero-knowledge machine learning (zkML) in simple terms ✍️
@adrianbrink highlights stats for Celestia’s P2P network topology 📊
@alexhooketh explores why the Ethereum community picked rollups over sharding and vertical integration ✍️
That's all for this week! Thanks for reading 🧱🎬