EigenDA has emerged to address the limitations 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, based on Haotian’s tweet, is compiled and written by PANews.
Restaking is just the surface of “nesting dolls”. It provides Ethereum with DA orthodoxy. EigenDA stands at the forefront of safeguarding Ethereum’s DA.
What is EigenLayer doing? If we only look at the surface of Restaking, it seems to exacerbate the “nesting dolls” and put Ethereum DeFi, like a LEGO tower, at risk of “consensus overload”.
However, the situation is different when based on the strategic logic of the third-party DA invasion defense and the strategic overflow of liquidity across the chain. Why? Next, I will analyze my understanding of EigenLayer.
If within a single DeFi ecosystem, pledging LSD generates LP certificates, and then pledging those certificates, and then issuing governance tokens in the name of locked liquidity, which are expected to increase the value of Restaking through secondary market speculation, this is nesting dolls.
Because using secondary markets to support primary miners overdrafts the market’s expectations of a token and does not result in real value growth.
EigenLayer throws out the concept of sharing Ethereum security. After these LP certificates are pledged, they are 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, thereby seeking additional income 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.
EigenLayer aims to provide Ethereum-level security consensus for other heterogeneous chains. With the maturity and scale of the Ethereum DeFi industry, Ethereum has accumulated a large number of financial bottom-building projects, such as Lending-MakerDAO and Dex-Uniswap. These DeFi “real estate” projects have brought consolidated security consensus to Ethereum.
For some new heterogeneous chains, such as Middle Layer and Rollup chains, there are two options to build a secure consensus: independently build nodes to participate in network governance and gradually achieve trusted consensus through stable execution over a long period of time, or directly allow a portion of Ethereum validators to participate in network governance and immediately obtain Ethereum-level trusted consensus.
Clearly, the second option is more popular in terms of cost, time, and return on investment. For example, the shared Sequencer supplier 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 location, and the stable block generation mechanism of the POS operation mechanism, which other heterogeneous chains do not possess.
If other chains claim to have Ethereum-level security consensus based on only a few nodes and then bribe those nodes to do evil, the negative effects cannot be ignored. Therefore, the greater challenge for heterogeneous chains is actually the design of the slash punishment mechanism. However, once a node is slashed, the providers who pledge LP on it will also be affected.
Therefore, Restaking can indeed extend Ethereum’s security consensus, but this process needs to balance user staking rewards, the punishment mechanism of heterogeneous chains, and the tendency of nodes to do evil.
If the way to release liquidity based on Restaking is regarded as a process of discharging the flood after Ethereum’s consensus overload, then we must pay attention to strengthening the embankment to prevent hidden dangers of collapse.
However, overall, the positive significance is greater because it does release some nesting doll attributes of Ethereum, and in the trend of overall modularization, EigenLayer can indeed extend Ethereum’s security consensus to a “modular layer” to other heterogeneous chains. In the current era of emerging chains, it can bring forth new shoots for Ethereum, the old chain.
DA capability is the absolute defense line that Ethereum must guard. Vitalik previously called for Plasma and “shouting” ENS, which are all strategic considerations. 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 aims to penetrate the Ethereum ecosystem continuously and enable Layer 2 chains and intermediate chains to adopt Celestia’s DA solution. Its advantage is low cost, combined with the open-source strategy of one-click chain launching, Celestia has truly recited a good scripture as an outsider. EigenDA, on the other hand, relies more on Ethereum’s infrastructure and services and is a true brother.
In short, EigenDA mobilizes the Blob block data and KZG commitments after the Cancun upgrade. The Rollup chain can generate KZG commitments by verifying and deleting Blob data, and then release them to the EigenDA contract. The nodes of EigenDA provide subsequent chain DA capabilities (storage or verification) guarantee, which enhances Ethereum’s DA capabilities.
Because the Blob block has a lifespan of one month, and through KZG commitments and other decentralized storage or node local storage, the DA demand of the Rollup chain can be greatly extended.
The key is that the entire process of EigenDA revolves around the existing Ethereum infrastructure such as Blob and KZG, and the node validation work is also carried out by Ethereum’s validators. Obviously, the cost of this operation is not as cheap as Celestia, but compared to Blob with an expiration date, it is indeed more attractive to applications with high DA capability requirements.
Therefore, the emergence of EigenDA is to make up for 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 low-cost options.
However, the issue of DA orthodoxy will become fundamental with the arrival of the Cancun upgrade, and the pursuit of cost-effectiveness and the pursuit of ultimate branding are not contradictory. Let these chains clarify their boundaries, differentiate their levels, and isn’t that a good thing?
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