EigenDA vs Celestia and Avail: how restaked DA differs from DA L1s
Thread937 words
Compares EigenDA, which has no consensus or P2P network and uses restaked ETH, KZG commitments and Proof of Custody, with Celestia and Avail, which are DA L1s using Tendermint consensus and data availability sampling.
Key claims
Celestia full nodes need 128 MB/s down and 12.5 MB/s up, with 1.4 MB/s target throughput at start
EigenDA nodes are a subset of Ethereum validators restaking ETH
Proof of Custody slashes lazy validators like a fraud proof
0/ data availability (DA) is the main scaling bottleneck
luckily, @CelestiaOrg, @AvailProject & @eigencloud will change the DA game and enable novel magnitudes of scalability
but how does it work & how is #EigenDA different from DA L1s like #Celestia & #Avail?
mega-🧵 (0/54)👇
1/ If you're not familiar with the data availability problem, check out my below thread where I have covered the data availability landscape in detail👇
x.com/expctchaos/status/1535698402939265025
2/ in summary, there is two main types of DA solutions
🔷 on-chain DA
🔷 off-chain DA
3/ while a "pure validium" means that DA can go off-chain with no guarantees, as off-chain data service providers can go offline at any time...
4/ ...#StarkEx, #zkPorter, and #Arbitrum Nova are examples of validium scenarios that rely on a DAC, a small group of well-known third parties to guarantee data availability
5/ #EigenDA, @CelestiaOrg and @AvailProject on the other hand are what we can refer to as general-purpose DA solutions
however, there are some distinctions between EigenDA and the other two solutions
6/ if you want to know how @CelestiaOrg works, check the thread linked below 👇
x.com/expctchaos/status/1535970188012572672
7/ I have also covered @AvailProject in the past, so for more info, check here 👇
x.com/expctchaos/status/1537459186421772288
8/ if you need a refresher on @eigencloud, check the below thread 👇
x.com/expctchaos/status/1601921935662731265
9/ so in today's thread, we want to focus on the comparison between @eigencloud's #EigenDA and DA L1 chains like @CelestiaOrg or @AvailProject
10/ let's assume a rollup that settles on #Ethereum and uses #Celestia for DA (a.k.a. Celestium)
so, the L2 Contract on Ethereum verifies validity proof or fraud proof as usual, while DA is provided by Celestia
11/ on @CelestiaOrg and @AvailProject, there are no smart contracts or computations
only the data is guaranteed to be available
12/ but let's have a closer look
on @CelestiaOrg, the tx data is published to #Celestia by the L2 sequencer and the Celestia validators sign the merkle root of DA attestation that is subsequently sent to the DA bridge contract on #Ethereum for verification & storage
13/ when compared to storing DA on-chain, this greatly reduces the cost of having strong DA guarantees, while also providing security guarantees from Celestia (instead of a centralized DAC)
14/ the cost reduction aspect will be a game-changer for the entire rollup space, as calldata cost arising from posting data to #Ethereum L1 accounts for +80-90% of rollup fees
for more info on calldata cost, check my thread below 👇
x.com/expctchaos/status/1661794274206445569
15/ but what exactly happens on #Celestia ?
the data blobs that rollups post to @CelestiaOrg (basically as raw data) are propagated through a P2P network, and consensus on bata blobs is reached using Tendermint consensus
16/ every #Celestia full node has to download the entire data blob. This is different for light nodes that can use data availability sampling (DAS) to ensure data availability
17/ for more info on DAS & light nodes, check my thread below 👇
x.com/expctchaos/status/1662141571666681856
18/ we will get back to DAS later in this thread as well, but the focus is on full nodes for now
so back to @CelestiaOrg, which continues to act in the manner L1, relying on broadcasting & consensus on data blobs
19/ hence, it places high demands on the network’s full nodes (128 MB/s download & 12.5 MB/s upload)
nevertheless, @CelestiaOrg aims for a moderate throughput at the start (1.4 MB/s), which seems low considering the full node requirements
20/ however, the network can scale throughput with increasing light node participation. The more data sampling light nodes there are, the larger the block size can be while ensuring security & decentralization
21/ @eigencloud on the other hand, employs a different architecture, with no consensus of its own and no peer-to-peer network
so how does this work?
to begin, EigenDA nodes must restake $ETH in the @eigencloud contract. #EigenDA nodes are hence a subset of #Ethereum validators
22/ subsequently, after the DA buyer (e.g. a rollup, also referred to as disperser) receives the data blob, it encodes it with erasure code and generates a KZG commitment...
23/ ...where proof size depends on the erasure code’s redundancy ratio, and publishes the KZG commitment to the #EigenDA smart contracts
24/ the encoded KZG commitment is then distributed to #EigenDA nodes by the disperser
after receiving the KZG commitment, these nodes compare it to the EigenDA smart contract’s KZG commitment and sign the attestation after confirming that it is correct
25/ after that, the disperser collects these signatures one by one, generates aggregated signatures, and publishes them to the #EigenDA smart contract, which verifies the signatures
26/ but if the #EigenDA node simply signs the attestation to claim that it stores the encoded data blob in this workflow and the EigenDA smart contract only validates the aggregated signature’s correctness, how can we be sure that the EigenDA nodes really store the data?
27/ #EigenDA uses the Proof of Custody method to achieve this
but let's take a step back and have a look at a scenario where this becomes important
28/ so let's assume are some lazy validators who do not complete the tasks assigned to them (such as making sure the data is available)
instead, they pretend to have completed the work and sign the final result (lying about data availability when it is not available)
29/ conceptually, Proof of Custody work just like fraud proofs:
anyone can submit a proof (that a validator is lazy) to the #EigenDA smart contract, which will be verified by the smart contract
29/ if the verification is successful, the lazy validator is slashed (as its an objectively attributable fault)
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