Weekly Rollup #73
Avail Hits Mainnet! | Caldera Unveils Its Metalayer | Introducing Abstract Chain, A Home for Pudgy’s | Gravity, w/ Celestia underneath | 1st Arb chain w/ Nuffle Labs| Week Ending July 26th
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This week’s issue covers:
Avail Hits Mainnet! ✨
Caldera Raises $15M to Build The Metalayer 🟧
Introducing Abstract Chain, A Home for Pudgy’s 🐧
Gravity Chain Announces Celestia Integration 👾
Millicent Labs: The First Arbitrum Chain to Use Nuffle’s Modular Suite 🧇
New Celestia Improvement Proposal Hub 📕
More News & Announcements 🚨
Discourse & Education 📚
We’d like to thank our sponsors for today’s post, AltLayer.
AltLayer is a decentralized protocol that facilitates the launch of native and restaked rollups with both optimistic and zk rollup stacks.
Visit their official website to learn more.
📣 News & Announcements
Avail Hits Mainnet! ✨
The big news last week was of course, Avail’s mainnet launch, along with the launch of their native token, AVAIL.
As a reminder, Avail is building an all in one unification layer, consisting of three core products:
AvailDA
Avail Nexus: Decentralized sequencing & aggregation layer
Avail Fusion: Shared security
Last week, Avail went to market with AvailDA, and is expected to release the remaining two products sometime later on.
We published this “Hitchikers’s Guide to Avail” last week following this announcement, for anyone who’d like to learn all about AvailDA. Or for those who’d like to learn how to get started on the network (compatible wallets, how to stake, etc.).
Caldera Raises $15M to Build The Metalayer 🟧
Last week, Caldera introduced its Metalayer, their new mechanism meant to unify all the various rollups, or “Caldera Chains”, that deploy using the RaaS provider. This announcement followed the team's $15M raise.
As a reminder, Caldera is one of the biggest rollup-as-a-service (RaaS) providers, having helped chains like Apechain, Rari Chain, Manta, and several others, get to market.
For those unaware, a RaaS provider enables users to build and deploy a customized rollup in a matter of a few clicks & minutes.
So if you thought we’ve been seeing a lot of rollup launches lately (& we have, don’t get me wrong), we’re still at the tip of the iceberg. As we’ve said plenty of times, your favorite dapps will all launch their own rollup one day.
Anyways, RaaS providers aren’t specific to one certain rollup framework. Looking at Caldera, they’ve already integrated all the top frameworks - OP Stsack, Arbitrum Orbit, Polygon CDK, and the ZK Stack.
You can have a Polygon CDK chain that uses Celestia DA & Astria (shared sequencer), or an Arbitrum Orbit chain that uses AvailDA and Espresso (shared sequencer).
How are these rollups, using different rollup stacks, going to communicate with each other? How will the user experience not suffer tremendously?
That is where the Metalayer comes in.
What is the Metalayer
Caldera describes the Metalayer as “the omnichain, all-purpose abstraction layer for Ethereum rollups”.
I think the bet here for Caldera is that Polygon’s agglayer won’t be able to connect OP Stack chains, or Optimism Superchain won’t be able to connect Arbitrum Orbit chains.
So Caldera’s Metalayer is like their own universal chain aggregation layer.
Benefits:
There are two types of fragmentations:
For developers: As a developer, you often face the struggle of building in siloes, unable to leverage other ecosystem applications for novel cross-rollup use cases - Metalayer fixes this. can build novel cross-rollup dapps
For end-users: As an end-user, this means no shifting through different wallets or networks.
How to test the Metalayer for yourself:
Caldera has released an NFT mint, running from now until Wednesday, to showcase the potential of the Metalayer. This NFT was launched across all of Caldera’s connected networks (Polygon, Optimsims, Arbitrum, zkSync), but as a user, you dont have to worry about any of this.
Sign once, and mint on any chain.
As of today, there isn't much more info about the technical details behind the Metalayer, so make sure to follow the team on X to follow along with any new announcements.
Introducing Abstract Chain, A Home for Pudgy’s 🐧
This past week, we received new details about Abstract Chain, a new consumer app rollup dedicated for the Pudgy Penguins NFT community, that was first announced in late June. The reason many in the space are excited about this chain is because it is basically the Pudgy Penguins chain, which is home to one of the most successful NFT communities in al of web3, and led by a proven team of founders.
Here’s what we know about Abstract, so far:
Abstract is an L2 designed for consumer facing dapps across defi, social, NFTs, and more. Their plans are to be the dominant consumer chain, and help onboard tons of new users and liquidity to the entire ecosystem.
To help builders reach mass distribution, Abstract will offer builders: Marketing support, User & builder incentives, Connections, & Tech assistance.
As far as its architecture goes, Abstract will be built using the ZK Stack, by zkSync, and will use EigenDA.
They’ve also announced that they will build a Abstract Builder Incubator, but no further details given yet.
A couple days after revealing these details, the team released their testnet. This testnet is meant for developers who want to test their dapps on the network before mainnet launch, which is scheduled for later this year.
The rest of us can start joining their community Discord to level up your role and become an early user, or join their Telegram channel to hear of any new & upcoming announcements.
Some handy links:
Add Abstract testnet chain to your wallet
2 ways to access testnet tokens to try the chain out: (you’ll need Sepolia ETH)
Abstract’s direct faucet, Triangle
Use a Sepolia faucet to access testnet ETH, then bridge to Abstract testnet using their native bridge
View the explorer page
Gravity Chain Announces Celestia Integration 👾
Gravity Chain, home to one of the biggest dapps in all of web3, has just announced that they will be using Celestia DA.
Gravity will be the native chain of Galxe, the omnichain distribution platform (it’s where apps go to launch their user campaigns/quests).
Galxe, along with any other dapp that launches on Gravity, will be able to use Gravity as a settlement layer for intents across any chain.
So what does this mean? Let’s look at Galxe as an example.
As you may know, Galxe is a platform where projects can go to setup & launch their own quests/challenges, to bootstrap early users of their network.
Now say i’m a user who likes to farm Galxe for daily quests & rewards. One day I can go to the site and see a new Optimism quest, and the next there could be a new Movement, or Initia quest - the point is, Galxe isn’t exclusive to one network.
For a setup like this, the Galxe team needs to make sure all the complicated stuff (wallet management, etc.) is abstracted away from end-users - Gravity enables this chain abstracted setup through:
Balance abstraction with yield: Gravity consolidates user balances across chains.
Intent based transactions: As a user, you don’t have to worry about the tech behind each chain. Just state what you want and it gets done by a network of solvers in the background. These intent transactions will ultimately settle onchain (on Gravity Chain), and verified using zk-proofs.
Gas abstraction: No managing gas tokens across chains. Just use the dapp.
So as an end-user, Gravity enables a more seamless user experience, which is important for a dapp that may end up being the first point of entry for your new rollup. & as a builder, Gravity will enable your project/dapp to access a vast user base.
In regards to the Gravity’s architecture, it'll be an Arbitrum Orbit chain, built using Conduit (RaaS), and with Celestia underneath.
Gravity is a chain that had to be done on an alternative DA solution, as opposed to directly on Ethereum.
Why?
According to the team, there are already 20M users across Galxe, with “Gravity estimated to have over 60 million transactions per month — two times that of Ethereum”.
A dapp of this magnitude would be to expensive to be done on Ethereum - specially if they intent to cover all user gas fees.
Official mainnet is expected to come in Q2 2025. Follow them on X to follow along their journey.
Millicent Labs: The First Arbitrum Chain to Use Nuffle’s Modular Suite 🧇
Millicent Labs announced as the first Arbitrum rollup to leverage Nuffle Labs’ (perviously NEAR) modular product suite.
Millicent Labs is building a chain for compliant defi & RWAs. They intent to use both of Nuffle’s modular products:
NEAR DA: Using NEAR DA will allow the defi chain to offer its users gas free transactions
NFFL: The Near Fast Finality Layer are pre-confirmations done by EigenLayer operators (NFFL is an AVS), offering connected chains 3-4 second finality times, regardless of rollup stack. NFFL enables fast finality, stronger security, and cross-chain interoperability, ultimately creating a better user experience for end-users.
To learn more about Millicent Labs, you can check out their full post, here.
New Celestia Improvement Proposal Hub 📕
Josh Stein just built this really awesome site for the Celestia community, covering every Celestia Improvement Proposal.
Here’s what you can expect on the site 👇
Anyone can visit the site and see a list of every single Celestia Improvement Proposal (CIP) to date - literally all of them.
& if you click on any of the CIPs, you’ll be presented with a complete breakdown of what the CIP entails - here, we can see details for CIP-10.
Really awesome site, and recommend bookmarking for anyone interested in keeping up with all things Celestia!
More News & Announcements
Run a Celestia light node! - Read
Eclipse, an SVM-based rollup on Ethereum, announces that they will launch on mainnet this week! - Read - This came just a couple of days after the team announced a rebrand, featuring a new logo, mascot, and website design. - Check it out
Five new chains are now compatible with Particle Network’s universal accounts (chain abstraction): Base, Linea, Taiko, Kakarot, and Zircuit. This means users can start using testnet tokens to mint NFTs or perform other activities, across any of these chains, without having to deal with bridging or multiple wallets. - Read
Ethene Labs integrates with Scroll, bringing their USDe stablecoin token to the L2 ecosystem. Nuri exchange & Ambient will be the first apps to support USDe - potential to earn marks (points) by using the stablecoin on Scroll - Read
Safe (smart wallet) now supports Linea (zkEVM) mainnet - Read
Symbiotic (modular staking) core contracts are now live on GitHub, meaning anyone can start exploring the codebase - Explore
Ondo Finance’s USDY is now live on Cosmos, via Noble - Read
Stride releases a Status Page: Get real-time security updates for Stride-based LSTs, including stTIA. - View
Stride announces their “Rewards Share Program” - Read
Check out Pixel Realm, an upcoming omnichain gaming platform that’ll launch as its own chain, using Saga’s tech. Check out the full thread to learn more. - Read
The OKX team unveiled their “Explorer as a Service”. RaaS, like Lumoz, will be able to integrate EaaS, enabling out-of-the-box explorers for newly launched chains - Read
Nebra (verification layer for zk-proofs) integrates Risc Zero’s zkVM, reducing verification costs for Risc Zero generated proofs by 10x - Read
Camp L2 has integrated Nodekit’s shared sequencer, allowing any Nodekit-connected rollup to leverage the identity layer - Read
Check out this cool demo use case that showcases the ability of Aligned’s proof verification layer: earn an NFT by proving you know the answer to a quiz - Read
CheeseChain to be the first to leverage Hyperlane Yield Routes: Bridge USDC to CheeseChain, and earn yield in the background - Read
Across bridging is now supported across any rollup deployed using Gelato’s RaaS - Read
ALT token vesting change - Read
Scroll reaches the top TVL spot across all ZK rollups - View
Apply to become a MilkyWay validator! - Read
Apechain becomes the #1 chain on Arbitrum, just days after launch - View
📚 Discourse & Education
Check out this article the Stackr team wrote about the success of their first ephemeral rollup - Read
Blogs & Threads 📝
Bedlam Research published a paper breaking down the architecture of Babylon's Bitcoin Staking Protocol. - Read
Redacted Research published this data-driven report diving into the state of Ethereum L2s (activity, security, and more!) - Read
On Ethereum’s ETF day, Vitalik published a new paper going over circle STARKs - Read
Collider Ventures published an ecosystem map, exploring the different projects and companies building on Farcaster (web3 social). Over 100 projects listed today, but we can expect this page to be updated with new projects every so often - View
Audio & Podcasts 🎤
Learn all about Polygon’s timeline, for their upcoming MATIC —> POL token migration, happening on September 4th - Listen
Aligned Layer, Automota, Phala & others, break down the difference between ZK & TEEs - Listen
Nuffle Labs CEO & CTO, joined Nader on a recent episode of the Infinite Layers podcast - Watch
Scroll hosted a conversation with Ether.fi, and Danny Chong fromTranches to discuss the new structured ETH funds on Scroll (zkEVM) - Listen
Members from the Orderly Network team hosted a convo with Drew Pierson from Celestia, to discuss “Super Blob”. - Listen
Members from the Polygon team get together to break down Plonky3 (new proving system released last week) - Listen
We’d like to thank our other sponsor for today’s post, Fluent.
Fluent is the first blended execution network. Fluent blends Wasm, EVM and SVM apps into a unified execution environment.
Visit Fluent’s website to learn more.
That's all for this week! Thanks for reading 🧱🎬