The emergence of EigenDA aims to address the shortcomings of Ethereum’s Data Availability (DA) capabilities and provide a more reliable DA option for chains that adhere to Ethereum’s DA orthodoxy. This article is sourced from Haotian’s tweet and is organized and written by PANews.
Summary:
Biteye | 2024 Outlook for 7 race tracks: BTC ecology, modular blockchain, MEME memes, DePIN…
Background:
Decomposing the “Data Availability Layer”: The Ignored Lego Blocks of Modular Future
Table of Contents:
Restaking is just a superficial “nested doll”
Providing Ethereum DA orthodoxy
EigenDA stands at the forefront of safeguarding Ethereum DA
What is EigenLayer doing? If we only focus on the Restaking aspect, it seems insufficient because Restaking appears to exacerbate the “nested doll” situation, putting Ethereum DeFi’s composable Lego tower at risk of “consensus overload”.
However, the situation is different when it comes to the strategic logic of the third-party DA invasion defense and the overflow of overall chain liquidity. Why? Next, I will analyze my understanding of Eigenlayer.
If within a single DeFi ecosystem, staking LSD generates LP certificates, which are then staked and used to issue governance tokens in the name of locked liquidity, in order to enhance the expected value of Restaking through secondary market speculation, this is nesting dolls.
Because using secondary markets to enhance primary miners overdraws the market’s expectations for a token and does not lead to real value growth.
Eigenlayer throws away the concept of shared Ethereum security. After these LP certificates are staked, they will be used to support validators on Ethereum, allowing Ethereum validators to break through the Ethereum wall and participate in the verification work of multiple blockchain networks, thus seeking additional income opportunities from other multi-chain environments.
From this perspective, Restaking only reflects the working mechanism of Eigenlayer. It sounds like nesting dolls, but its economic model logic actually breaks the “nesting dolls” concept.
The goal of Eigenlayer is to provide partial Ethereum-level security consensus for other heterogeneous chains. With the mature and scaled Ethereum DeFi industry, Ethereum has accumulated a large number of DeFi “real estate” projects, such as Lending-MakerDAO, Dex-Uniswap, etc. These DeFi projects have brought solid security consensus to Ethereum.
For some new heterogeneous chains, such as middle-layer chains and rollup chains, there are two options for building a secure consensus system:
1. Independently build nodes and gradually achieve trust consensus through stable execution over a long time.
2. Directly involve some Ethereum validators in network governance to immediately obtain Ethereum-level trust consensus.
Clearly, the second option is more popular in terms of cost, time, and return on investment. For example, the shared Sequencer provider EspressoSys attempts to provide a feasible decentralized Sequencer solution in this way.
However, it should be noted that allowing some nodes to participate in network governance does not mean Ethereum’s global security consensus. Ethereum’s global consensus comes from the large number of validators, their decentralized locations, and the stable block production mechanism of the POS operation. These are not possessed by other heterogeneous chains.
If other chains claim to have Ethereum-level security consensus based on only a few nodes and then bribe these nodes for malicious purposes, the negative impact should not be ignored. Therefore, the biggest challenge for heterogeneous chains is actually the design of the slash punishment mechanism. But once a node is slashed, the LSD providers who stake LP on it will also be affected.
Therefore, Restaking can indeed extend Ethereum’s security consensus, but this process needs to balance user staking income, heterogeneous chain punishment mechanisms, and node malicious tendencies, among other issues.
If we regard the way of releasing liquidity externally based on Restaking as a process of discharging Ethereum’s consensus overload, we need to pay attention to strengthening the embankment to prevent collapse.
However, overall, the positive significance is greater because it does release some of Ethereum’s nesting doll attributes. Moreover, in the trend of overall modularity, Eigenlayer can indeed make Ethereum’s security consensus become a “module layer” that extends to other heterogeneous chains, thereby allowing Ethereum, an old chain, to flourish in the emerging chain era.
DA capability is the absolute line of defense that Ethereum must guard. Vitalik’s previous call for Plasma and the “shouting” ENS are all strategic considerations in this regard. As part of the Eigenlayer ecosystem, the goal of EigenDA is to supplement or enhance Ethereum’s DA capabilities.
This is in stark contrast to Celestia DA, which focuses on building modular independent chains. Celestia’s DA aims to infiltrate the Ethereum ecosystem and have layer2 chains and middle chains adopt Celestia’s DA solution. Its advantage lies in its low cost, combined with its open-source strategy such as OP Stack for one-click chain launch. Celestia, the foreign monk, has indeed performed well. EigenDA, on the other hand, relies more on Ethereum’s infrastructure and services and is a true homegrown solution.
In simple terms, EigenDA mobilizes the upgraded Blob block data after the Cancun upgrade and the KZG commitment. The Rollup chain can generate the KZG commitment by correcting the Blob data and then release it to the EigenDA contract. The nodes of EigenDA will guarantee the subsequent chain’s DA capabilities (storage or verification), effectively enhancing Ethereum’s DA capability.
Because the Blob block has a one-month expiration period, the DA demand of the Rollup chain can be significantly extended through KZG commitment and other decentralized storage or node local storage methods.
The key is that the entire process of EigenDA revolves around the existing Ethereum infrastructure such as Blob and KZG. The node verification work is also participated by Ethereum validators. Obviously, the cost of this operation is not as cheap as Celestia, but compared to the Blob method with an expiration period, it is indeed more attractive for ecology applications with a high demand for DA capabilities.
Therefore, the emergence of EigenDA is to address the shortcomings of Ethereum’s DA capabilities and provide a more reliable DA option for chains that adhere to Ethereum’s DA orthodoxy.
To some extent, it can resist the invasion of Celestia’s DA, but for some chains that aim for modularity and low cost, they may still choose the low-cost option.
However, with the arrival of the Cancun upgrade, the issue of DA orthodoxy will become fundamental in differentiating chain underlying properties. Pursuing cost-effectiveness and pursuing ultimate branding are not contradictory. Let these chains define their boundaries, differentiate their levels, isn’t that great?
Related Reports:
Restaking Protocol EigenLayer’s flagship product EigenDA: What is it?
IOSG Ventures: Analyzing EigenLayer’s Reshaping of Restaking Model and Revenue
Another Ethereum Killer? Modular Blockchain Celestia: Threat or Help to ETH