Weekly Rollup #46
Restaked Rollups & Mangata Testnet | Astria & Gelato announce RaaS | Avail 🤝 Starknet rollups | Celestia 🤝 Arbitrum Orbit | Inscription madness | Eth base layer execution | Week ending Dec. 22nd
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This week’s issue covers:
New EigenLayer Developments: Restaked Rollups & Mangata Testnet Launch
Astria Announces RaaS
Gelato Announces RaaS
Avail 🤝 Starknet rollups
Arbitrum Orbit becomes the latest rollup framework to adopt Celestia
More News & Announcements
Inscription madness
Ethereum base layer execution
More Education & Discourse
📣 News & Announcements
New EigenLayer Developments: Restaked Rollups & Mangata Testnet Launch
It was a big week for the EigenLayer community, as they saw two new developments unfold: (1) Restaked rollups via AltLayer’s RaaS solution, and (2) the testnet launch of Mangata, a zk-enabled appchain built on EigenLayer & StarkWare technology.
Restaked Rollups
As a reminder, AltLayer is a RaaS solution that anyone can use to quickly deploy their own rollup, using one of the integrated rollup frameworks, including OP Stack, Polygon CDK, Arbitrum Orbit, and now a restaked rollup framework, via EigenLayer.
The idea behind this restaked rollup framework is that anyone would be able to head to AltLayer’s RaaS platform and in a couple of clicks have their own rollup deployed, with three out-of-the-box components provided by EigenLayer’s restaking protocol.
More specifically, restaked rollups consist of “three vertically integrated Actively Validated Services (AVSs) created on demand for a given rollup”, with each AVS providing a different service (3 modular components included in every restaked rollup via AltLayer):
Watcher network: every restaked rollup will be leveraging this watcher network, which is a set of (permissionless) entities that check for the rollups correctness at all times. In other words, it’s a network of people who submit fraud proofs when necessary, for any of these restaked rollups.
Fast Finality: Rather than waiting ~13 minutes for hard finality on Ethereum, restaked rollups can use soft finality provided by this AVS, which again, has economic backing provided by EigenLayer.
Decentralized sequencing: restaked rollups will also leverage decentralized sequencing provided by EigenLayer, offering low latency censorship resistance and improved composability.
In summary:
anyone will be able to launch their own rollup with out-of-the-box components (AVSs) provided by EigenLayer’s restaking protocol.
anyone will be able to sign up as an operator to help provide the economic security for these three different AVSs
You can learn about all the details by reading the full announcement, here.
Mangata Testnet Launch
This past week, we saw the first version launch of Mangata’s omnichain zk-rollup, which means yet another AVS for EigenLayer operators to opt into.
What is Mangata?
As mentioned, Mangata is a zk appchain that is built with EigenLayer and StarkWare technology, with a mission “to make cross-chain atomic swaps as easy as calling smart contracts on Ethereum”.
Features offered include:
Proof of liquidity consensus
Gas free swaps
Substrate based
Master Rollup & Rolldowns
The idea is that users will be able to trade any token from any chain, using a single exchange (Mangata). To accomplish this, Mangata uses two concepts:
Master Rollup: Mangata (the L2 zk-appchain) is considered the Master Rollup, which other L1s will be able to connect to in order to leverage this “atomic composability”. This master rollup is simultaneously sequencing for multiple L1s in parallel.
Rolldowns: The Master Rollup has to be sure everything happening across the connected L2s is correct, thus “rolldowns”. Rather than the L2 rolling up to the L1, it’s now the connected L1s that rolldown to the L2.
Validity proofs will be generated to prove the correct execution of swaps, with these proofs being validated by the EigenLayer AVS.
You can learn more about Mangat by reading the full announcement, or you can also check out this great in-depth thread written by @zerokn0wledge_.
Astria Announces RaaS
This past Thursday, Astria announced the launch of their own RaaS solution, becoming the easiest way for users to deploy their own rollup on the shared sequencing network.
What does this mean?
This means anyone can go to Astria’s deployment portal, choose a few parameters, and have their own rollup up & running in no time. Each one of these rollups will leverage Astria’s shared sequencer for block production, with Celestia underneath for data publication.
Aside from these two out of the box integrations, Astria rollups will also come with the following:
Rollup full-node
Faucet
Block Explorer
Celestia light node
Altogether, you can have your own EVM rollup up & running in just a couple of minutes:
@0xRainandCoffee shares the benefit of a RaaS based on a shared sequencer network:
This unveiling comes after an array of announcements, including:
Dusknet-2 testnet launch
Astria EVM launch, which is live on Dusknet. We spoke more about this here.
Hyperlane bridge, between Astria EVM and Sepolia Ethereum, enabling bridging to & from these two networks
Congrats to Astria team on all the accomplishments! Make sure to read the full announcement to learn more about Astria RaaS.
Gelato Announces RaaS
Just a couple of hours after Astria’s announcement, Gelato also unveiled their own RaaS solution, as they complete their transition to a no-code rollup deployment platform.
As of today, Gelato’s RaaS has integrated two different rollup frameworks, Optimism’s OP Stack & Polygon CDK, and one data publication network, Celestia. That being said, their website does show integrations with Arbtrum Orbit (rollup framework), and Avail (data publication).
For those that have been in the crypto world for a while now, you may have already eard of Gelato, which was previously a defi app on Ethereum. During this time, they’ve been able to integrate several tools, which are now all options for teams launching their own rollup with Gelato. These services include:
Some other takeaways:
Gelato rollups will be fully managed, with “24/7 support”
Users can build private rollups with Gelato RaaS
Gelato rollups announced so far:
Astar, a Polygon CDK chain, which we wrote a deep dive about here.
& Lisk, which just announced their migration from an L1, to an L2. Lisk will be an OP Stack rollup that will focus on RWAs, and DePIN.
Avail reaches Starknet rollups
Last week, Avail and StarkWare announced the launch of a data publication interface, allowing for Avail integration across Madara-based appchains.
Here’s some quick notes from this development:
Madara is a decentralized sequencer used to launch custom L3s on Starknet. These L3s first settle on Starknet’s L2 network, before ultimately reaching hard finality on the L1 (Ethereum).
“Madara will provide devs with the option to utilize Avail for DA”
According to the team, Avail can be used to launch Madara-based: (1) rollups, (2) validiums, or (3) volitions
Validium mode: L3s can use Avail instead of the Data Availability Committee that is typically employed.
Rollup mode: “state verification and DA verification could be done, providing soft confirms before settling on the L1”
Volition: end users decide on each transaction whether they want to use the validium option or rollup.
You can read the full post to learn more about this partnership.
Arbitrum Orbit becomes the latest rollup framework to adopt Celestia
Celestia finds its way toward a new Ethereum ecosystem, as Arbitrum Orbit becomes the next rollup framework to add support for Celestia’s data publication network.
Here’s a brief rundown of the announcement:
Anyone will now be able to launch their own custom, dedicated Arbitrum Orbit chain with Celestia underneath
This means Arbitrum developers can now choose between either Arbitrum AnyTrust or Celestia for data publication
This makes Celestia the first modular DP solution integrated with the Arbitrum stack, and also “marks the first external contribution to the Arbtrum Orbit protocol layer”
This is only available on testnet today, however, we should be expecting this integration to hit mainnet in early 24’.
Following this announcement, there were a couple teams who already mentioned their upcoming integration of Celestia, including:
Kinto, a defi-based rollup
Syndr, an L3 DEX.
Alpha Dune Network, a gamefi based Arbitrum rollup
Deri Protocol, a derivatives-based rollup
To learn more about the technicals behind this integration, you can check out this thread written by the person who led this integration, @dferrersan.
More News & Announcements
“Introducing Tendermint X: the first open-source, performant ZK Tendermint light client for the EVM, built with Succinct”
@NumiaData shares an initial report & simulator showcasing significant cost reductions for Ethereum L2s that leverage Celestia. You can check out the simulator to check for yourself.
Hokum launched on mainnet, becoming the first Base L3, with Celestia underneath. Users can start interacting with their “2048” onchain game.
Ocelot Labs launched Mezcal testnet, an OP Stack chain with Celestia underneath, getting Celo one step closer to their L2 mainnet launch.
Dymension completes their latest upgrade, which “includes an embedded AMM in the Dymension Hub.”
Check out some of the finalists, of teams that built their project with Stackr during ETHIndia.
Build on Bitcoin (BOB) becomes “the first Bitcoin rollup stack with EVM compatibility running on a public testnet”
ZKFair hits mainnet. We spoke in more depth about this “fair launch rollup”, here.
Sovereign Labs announces Solana mainnet’s first SPV client.
Offchain Labs & Espresso unveil their joint roadmap for Timeboost, which is set to bring decentralized sequencing to Arbitrum Orbit chains.
Users can now bridge between Astria EVM, which we talked about last week, and Ethereum Sepolia, thanks to the recent Hyperlane integration.
Manta officially becomes the first EVM rollup to hit mainnet with Celestia underneath, and it looks like Celestia is saving $7 a day.
LightLink announces their upcoming Celestia integration (an optimistic rollup meant for enterprises).
Eigen Layer TVL hits +$1B shortly after raising their cap.
Obol Labs announces “that the first Obol Distributed Validators with Native Restaking on Eigenlayer have been deployed and are live on Goerli Testnet”
Check out Ethos, bringing staking security, via Eigenlayer, to the Cosmos consumer chains.
Here’s everything you missed across the Optimism ecosystem over this past week.
Reya announces their own Polygon CDK chain. “Reya is a new breed of “Ce-DeFi” exchange. This combines the best in off-chain speed, throughput & user experience, with on-chain execution, clearing & settlement“.
Fuse Network also announces the upcoming launch of their own Polygon CDK chain. Fuse is building“a prominent Layer-1 blockchain player focused on scaling Web3 payments“.
📚 Discourse & Education
Inscription madness
Over the past few weeks you’ve likely heard the term “inscriptions”. Let’s talk about what inscriptions are, what’s actually been happening on EVM chains.
To start, @0xCygaar had a great breakdown of what inscriptions are and why they are being spammed everywhere.
TLDR inscriptions started on Bitcoin with Ordinals. The reason for this is that Bitcoin doesn’t have smart contracts and cannot support NFTs. Ordinals were invented as an NFT workaround and now people are doing them on EVM chains via calldata.
But why is this happening? EVM chains support NFTs the regular way..
There are two main reasons for inscriptions:
Because inscriptions only post data onchain and rely on offchain computation for logic surrounding the NFTs, it’s cheaper. That said, it’s only cheaper because you aren’t using the functionality that makes smart contract platforms powerful in the first place: smart contracts.
Of course, EVM chains are permissionless systems, so people can do as they wish. However, everything comes with a cost. Since inscriptions are cheap, people have been spamming EVM chains network and clogging up networks, causing gas spikes for other apps and users.
Are there ways to solve this problem while maintaining permissionlessness?
It’s possible. There’s been a lot of buzz around parallel VMs and local fee markets, and maybe local fee markets and new DB designs help scale inscriptions while reducing gas spikes. However, it’s unlikely. Cleverly designed inscriptions will find a way to spam parallelized VM chains too.
So what happens next? Well, as much as inscription devs are clever, so are protocol devs. If there’s sustainable demand for inscriptions on smart contract platforms, solutions will surface.
Until then, we let degens degen and inscribers inscribe.
Ethereum base layer execution
By this point everyone is aware of the rollup-centric Ethereum rollup.
But @0xdoug prompts a good question: Even in a rollup-centric world, how much should Ethereum be prioritizing L1 execution? Should they strive for a baseline of quality end user UX, or do they take a strong stance that apps should all move to L2s?
One quality response worth highlighting is from @hasufl.
What if there’s so much demand for IBM computers that the market is ok with rebranded, repackaged versions? What if the repackaging is actually optimizing for different segments of the market? What if repackaged computer sales have already taken off!
This analogy is interesting but might not map perfectly. The computer market is different from the blockspace market. That said, there can still be productive takeaways.
Smart contract rollups and L2s still need to leverage Ethereum L1 execution to some degree, so it cannot become unusable. Not to mention, there will most likely be apps used directly on Ethereum L1 for the foreseeable future.
More Education & Discourse
💬 @13yearoldvc explains how EigenLayer works (in simple terms) and helps networks inherit 3 forms of Ethereum trust 🔥
✍️ Optimism Foundation explains how they view growth across the Superchain
✍️ Shoal Research breaks down Liquid Restaking Token providers in depth (LSTs) 🧠
💬 @ChainLinkGod explains the layers of risk associated with LSTs ⚠️
🎙️ @zen_llama discusses Solana, parallelization and SVM fee markets with Jon from DBA 🔥
🎙️ Bankless discusses Solana alts and the ETH/acc movement
✍️ Bankless VC breaks down intents into two sections: intent capture and execution
✍️ @ViktorBunin explores how the Ethereum endgame is transitioning from B2C to B2B 💎
🎙️ Bell Curve discusses the data availability wars
✍️ @0xConnolly dives into the state of zkEVMs for EOY 2023
💬 @arixoneth explores Base Booster Rollups (BBRs) and how they solve fragmentation 💎
✍️ Espresso analyzes BFT and proposer-promised preconfirmations 🧠
🎙️ Offchain Labs discusses decentralized timeboost and shared sequencing with Espresso
💬 @MeirBank explains the different types of economic security in EigenLayer
✍️ @MohamedFFouda dives into ZK, FHE and emerging Multiparty Computing (MPC) tech 🧠
📊 @mraltantutar highlights NEAR vs. Celestia data availability costs
🎙️ Celo discusses the role of a sequencer and why it’s so important with Ben from Espresso
🎙️ Starknet discusses why and how to build appchains with Karnot, Avail and Pragma
✍️ @iansagstette explores an approach for classifying Bitcoin L2s and their risks 💎
✍️ @franalgaba_ dives into an introduction to ZKML for blockchains
💬 @ayyyeandy explains how the Arbitrum Orbit <> Celestia integration works under the hood
💬 @zerokn0wledge_ breaks down Avail and its unique differentiation
🎙️ Everstake discusses Celestia modularity with Hyperlane and Leap
✍️ Figment Capital explores the Cosmos Hub’s approach to blockchain security, including the Replicated Security model
✍️ @doganeth_en explains how zkSync’s state diff model enables reduced calldata costs
💬 @0xtaetaehoho explains why zkSync’s Boojum update is game changing
That's all for this week! Thanks for reading 🧱🎬