EigenSettle explained: restaked fast settlement for rollups
Thread1,029 words
Explains EigenSettle, a proposed fast settlement layer secured by restaking nodes that gives rollups pre-confirmations stronger than sequencer promises and faster than L1 finality, while allowing less frequent costly L1 settlement. Notes it has no timeline or resources yet.
Key claims
Runs its own BFT consensus (HotStuff or Tendermint style) faster than Ethereum L1
Faults are slashed on Ethereum after a challenge window
EigenSettle has no assigned timeline or resources
0/ Soft finality guarantees provided by rollup sequencer let us enjoy fast tx confirmations & the L2 UX we love! 🚀
But with hard finality still coming from L1, there are security risks involved. EigenSettle on @eigencloud can fix this. ✨
So, WTF is EigenSettle? (0/30) 🧵👇
1/ There is a lot of hype around @eigencloud and its restaking mechanism.
Especially EigenDA, a data availability (DA) service secured by EigenLayer and one of the first EigenLayer products that we will see go live, has already been gaining traction.
2/ Among others, the high-profile modular L2 project @0xMantle is opting to use EigenDA for DA and thereby overcome the scalability limitations that DA on Ethereum L1s poses.
3/ Learn more about EigenDA in the thread below! 👇
x.com/zerokn0wledge_/status/1663213715486031873
4/ But only few are aware, that EigenLayer is highly versatile and will support/secure a much broader set of middleware services.
If you need a refresher on @eigencloud, check out my thread below! 👇
x.com/zerokn0wledge_/status/1601921935662731265
5/ One example of a protocol using @eigencloud's restaking node network in an innovative way, is the Rollup-as-a-Service (RaaS) provider @altlayer.
6/ As I have previously covered in my below thread, @altlayer uses restaking @eigencloud nodes to provide decentralized sequencing within its RaaS framework.
7/ For more on the @altlayer x @eigencloud integration, have a look at my thread here! 👇
x.com/zerokn0wledge_/status/1680997392370536448
8/ However, in this thread I want to cover another idea that is particularly cool in my opinion. The concept of EigenSettle.
9/ In a nutshell, EigenSettle is envisioned to be a fast settlement layer for L2 scaling solutions built on Ethereum.
10/ Remember, the fast (soft) confirmation you get on a rollup basically just the sequencer promising you that your transaction will be included in a block on L1 eventually.
11/ Hard finality is only reached once the transactions have actually been included in a L1 block that is confirmed through consensus.
12/ Hence, to fulfil its purpose, EigenSettle must provide rollups faster finality compared to Ethereum's time to finality (TTF), and provide better security guarantees than the sequencer's soft confirmations.
13/ EigenSettle is able to achieve that as it is secured by a set of @eigencloud nodes that are restaking Ethereum LSDs.
With a lot of (re)staked Ether among the participating nodes, this provides a strong economic security layer.
14/ So based on these strong crypto-economic security guarantees, EigenSettle is able to provide strong pre-confirmations and reduce the need to trust the sequencer.
But note that also here, ultimately the hard finality confirmation comes from Ethereum L1's consensus only.
15/ Aside the improved confidence users can have in this kind of confirmation compared to the sequencer's soft confirmation and the improved speed compared to L1 TTF, EigenSettle also makes sense from a cost perspective.
16/ When we talk about settlement layers in the context of L2s, we mean the layer where fraud proving mechanisms happen (OR case) or where zk proofs are verified in the smart contract (ZKR case), ultimately finalizing a rollup's state transition.
17/ This also comes with posting data (or at least attestations to the data being available somewhere else, if using off-chain DA) onto the settlement layer.
As you know if you have been reading my content in the past, this is quite expensive as rollups have to pay for calldata.
18/ If you need a refresher on calldata, check out my thread below! 👇
x.com/zerokn0wledge_/status/1661794274206445569
19/ Adding the cost of verification of a zk proof in the case of a validity rollup or fraud proving (if necessary) in the optimistic rollup case, it becomes clear that "settlement" (a.k.a. finalizing state) is a costly endeavour.
20/ However it is important that it happens, to ensure security of the L2 network.
When a rollup can use something like EigenSettle wit high crypto-economic security guarantees though, intervals between actual L1 settlements could be safely increased & L1 cost hence reduced.
21/ So what happens on EigenSettle?
Basically, any new tx that comes in (e.g. proof from a zk rollup, but could be anything) will be run in the corresponding VM and once it is signed on by the nodes securing the settlement layer, has reached a pre-confirmation stage of finality.
22/ The settlement layer runs its own BFT consensus which can be very fast (e.g. HotStuff or other Tendermint-based fast-finality consensus mechanisms) and is hence faster than Ethereum L1 in providing these confirmations.
23/ The commitment for blocks finalized on EigenSettle will be stored in the @eigencloud contracts on Ethereum, which opens a challenge window, where anyone can prove that validators of settlement layer have acted maliciously.
24/ In the case where there is an objectively attributable fault, the validator is slashed on #Ethereum later, hence providing the crypto-economic security guarantee we need to improve security compared to the sequencer's promise that the transaction will be included.
25/ So in conclusion, for rollups the benefits are the fast finality (at least based on economic incentives), which gives more sound guarantees than the soft confirmations the sequencer provides while being faster and cheaper than L1 settlement.
26/ Moreover, as a shared settlement layer for potentially many modular L2s, #EigenSettle can also serve as a coordination and synchronisation layer among L2s, simplifying cross-rollup use cases and interoperability (especially in conjunction with EigenDA).
27/ Pretty cool right? 👀
And why stop there? One could build a modular L2 that:
🔹 Uses @eigencloud nodes for decentralized sequencing
🔹 Builds a decentralized proving layer on top of @eigencloud
🔹 Dumps transaction data onto EigenDA
🔹 Gets fast finality from EigenSettle
28/ This would result in a highly scalable and decentralized network design with low fees, that at the end of the day is still secured by the underlying Ethereum L1's security model. 🤯
29/ EigenSettle however, is still work in progress and hasn't been assigned any specific timeline or resources.
The @eigencloud team is also encouraging other teams to build this component and will work closely alongside them to help build this fast settlement layer.
30/ I hope you've found this thread helpful! 🫡
Follow me @zerokn0wledge_ for more on modular scaling & rollups! 🚀
Like/Repost of the post quoted below is also highly appreciated! 🙏
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