Data Availability War: Background, Ecology and Outlook Analysis

Overview

Data availability ( DA ) projects are emerging rapidly, among which competitive ones include Celestia, EigenLayer, Avail, NearDA, and Covalent.

According to the analysis, the core of DA is not complex. The simplest solution can be implemented on a single machine, while the most complex, like Celestia, uses a sampling model to achieve decentralization. The essence of DA is storage, which is expensive. If Ethereum-level security is not required, choosing a DA solution is a trade-off between cost and security.

The key principle of using the DA layer is: the higher the value of the service, the more secure the DA should be.

This report analyzes the background, ecology, and prospects of the DA track, including V God’s views on DA, and a review of major DA projects. Based on a comprehensive analysis, the future DA may be decentralized, and 7-8 major DA providers in the market may be sufficient.

1. The Emergence of Data Availability Issues

1.1 What is DA

Data availability refers to the practice of block producers publishing all transaction data of a block to the network, allowing validators to download it. If the block producer publishes the complete data and allows validators to download it, the data is available; if part of the data is concealed, preventing validators from downloading the complete data, then the data is unavailable.

Two key points of the DA issue: security and cost.

DA includes two aspects:

First, ensure that the verification mechanism is secure; second, reduce the cost of data publishing.

• Ensure the issues of secure verification mechanisms are addressed.

To ensure verification security, L2 sequencers typically publish L2 state data and transaction data on the more secure Ethereum, relying on Ethereum for settlement and obtaining data availability.

The data availability layer is actually where L2 publishes transaction data, and mainstream L2s use Ethereum as the data availability layer.

• Reducing the cost of data release issues

L2 puts both data availability and settlement on Ethereum, which is secure but comes at a huge cost. This is the second issue L2 faces, which is how to reduce the cost of publishing data.

2. Cost Structure and Directions for Cost Reduction and Efficiency Improvement in DA

One important issue that DA is concerned about is how to reduce costs.

To make L2 overall cheaper, it is necessary to reduce the cost of publishing data. There are mainly two methods:

• Reduce the cost of publishing data on L1, such as Ethereum's upcoming EIP-4844 upgrade.

• Similar to Rollup, transaction execution is decoupled from L1, and data availability can also be decoupled from L1 to reduce costs, meaning that Ethereum is not used as a data availability layer.

Currently, all parties are working to reduce costs. From the existing DA solutions, NearDA has the lowest cost, about $0.0016/block. Next are Celestia, EigenLayer, EIP4844, and others.

3. DA in Vitalik's Eyes

3.1 A solution that does not use Ethereum DA is not a true Layer 2.

After the popularity of Celestia, Vitalik Buterin hinted that "Ethereum layer 2 projects must use data availability on ETH." Members of the Ethereum Foundation also stated that anything not using ETH as a DA layer is neither a Rollup nor an Ethereum Layer 2.

This means that Arbitrum Nova and Mantle are to be "delisted" from the Layer 2 list because they only disclose transaction data outside of ETH.

Solutions like Plasmas and state channels that do not require on-chain DA to ensure security are still considered Layer 2, but Validium is not considered Layer 2.

3.2 Using non-Ethereum as DA, then it is Ethereum Validium

Subsequently, Vitalik stated, "Using validium is the right choice for many applications, and employing a good distributed DA to ensure the system can be a good way to enhance the actual security of validium."

He believes that the core of rollup is unconditional security guarantees: even if everyone is against you, you can withdraw your assets. If DA relies on external systems, such guarantees cannot be obtained.

3.3 About ENS and Data availability

Vitalik wants to consolidate the control of DA through ENS. The ENS domain service will define a set of interaction logic, allowing users to automatically connect to the corresponding long address of the ENS smart contract by simply entering a short domain name, addressing the pain point of complex and hard-to-remember EOA addresses that are not easily recognizable.

Vitalik Buterin believes that if the ENS domain resolution solution cannot cover layer 2 and remains at the Ethereum mainnet level, it will be difficult to open up the imagination space. Vitalik stated the importance of ENS, "it needs to be affordable!". ENS will naturally consider providing a complete set of data resolution solutions aimed at layer 2, allowing users to directly resolve domain names and search for data on layer 2, reducing dependence on the respective layer 2 semi-centralized gateways.

In order for users to normally use ENS domains on layer2, it is necessary to call and verify global data on the Ethereum mainnet. This means that to enjoy ENS services, it is essential to adopt the authentic Ethereum DA capability. Layer2 solutions that take shortcuts by building chains based on OP Stack and placing DA on third-party DA platforms like Celestia will not be compatible with ENS. What Vitalik truly means is to establish a set of interoperability standards for layer2 platforms using ENS while consolidating DA control.

3.4 V God Discusses the Return of Plasma

1. Vitalik's article states that Ethereum's Layer 2 scalability solutions originally included various options such as Plasma, Rollup, Validium, and Parallel. Vitalik hopes that the direction of scalability should develop in a balanced manner, adapting to various scenarios for diversified Layer 2 construction. However, the reality of the market landscape is that the Rollup solution dominates and is increasingly competitive.

2. Plasma is equivalent to a sidechain solution that periodically synchronizes the Merkle state data with the mainnet. It is a scaling solution that relies on the mainnet for data and computation. Layer 2 can be implemented in a very centralized manner, and the ledger model is designed to be very complex for efficient scaling, while also reusing the capabilities of the mainnet validator system. Vitalik's new article brings up Plasma again, guiding the ZK+Plasma scaling solution, clearly another instance of flag-waving regarding layer 2 politics.

3.5 Summary

V's various operations can be summarized as:

The demand for DA is strong, but we don't want to give the market to Celestia. First, talking about security, we brought up ENS, but found that the market is not buying it; there are still many people using third-party DA. Simply put, using Validium counts as well. A few days later, we dug up Plasma, intending to guide the market to explore ZK+Plasma. The original intention is to constantly pull the DA market towards Ethereum.

4. DA Solutions and Overview of Various DA Projects

4.1 DA Solution

There are many DA layer solutions. Broadly, they can be divided into on-chain and off-chain parts.

• On-chain solutions

L2 will still use Ethereum as the DA layer and rely on Ethereum to reduce data availability costs. This means that Ethereum will serve as a real-time bulletin board in the future, where the data will be announced for a period of time and then deleted, and L2 must store all data backups on its own.

• Off-chain solutions

No longer treating Ethereum as a DA layer, looking for more economical ways to obtain data availability. Depending on the differences in decentralization and security, it can be divided into: Validium, Data Availability Committee ( DAC ), Volition, and general DA solutions.

4.2 Celestia

Celestia is the pioneer of modular blockchains, developed based on the Cosmos SDK, focusing on data availability. It is a competitive DA leader project that has already launched its mainnet.

Technical Features

• Data Availability Sampling ( DAS )

DAS allows light nodes to verify data availability without downloading the entire block. Celestia employs a two-dimensional RS erasure coding scheme to re-encode block data for light node DAS. Light nodes perform multiple rounds of random sampling on a small portion of block data, increasing confidence in data availability through more sampling. When the predetermined confidence level ( is reached, such as 99% ), the data is considered available.

• Namespace Merkle Tree ( NMT )

NMT enables the execution layer and settlement layer on Celestia to download only relevant transactions. Celestia partitions block data into multiple namespaces, each corresponding to applications such as rollups built on Celestia, allowing each application to download only the relevant data to improve network efficiency.

• Celestia primarily generates revenue from applications in two ways:

• Pay blob space fees: Rollup uses $TIA to pay for posting data to Celestia's blob space.

• Pay gas fees: Developers use $TIA as the gas token for the Rollup, similar to ETH for Ethereum-based Rollups.

Development Potential

• The project has been launched, and the technology maturity is relatively high.

• Potential rich airdrops from $TIA staking, such as Dymension and Altlayer selecting $TIA stakers as airdrop recipients. In the future, more Ethereum Layer 2 projects, modular public chains, and Cosmos ecosystem projects may follow a similar airdrop route.

• Ecological richness: Collaborate with cross-chain bridges, settlement layer solutions, DeFi projects, games, sorters, etc.

• The number of DA collaboration project parties is constantly increasing, including Manta, Eclipse, Caldera, Snapchain. At the same time, integrated with Arbitrum Orbit, integrated with Polygon CDK, integrated with the Aevo derivatives trading platform, etc.

4.3 EigenDA

EigenLayer is a re-staking protocol based on Ethereum that allows users to re-stake ETH, lsdETH, and LP Tokens on other side chains, oracles, middleware, etc., to act as nodes and earn validation rewards. Third-party projects can enjoy the security of the ETH mainnet, while ETH stakers can also earn more profits, achieving a win-win situation.

EigenDA is a decentralized DA service built on Ethereum utilizing EigenLayer Restaking, and it is the first active validation service on EigenLayer (AVS). Unlike Celestia or Avail, EigenDA does not require the onboarding of a new validator set; Ethereum validators can choose to join freely.

Technical Features

• Enhance Ethereum DA capability: Blob block data + KZG commitment

After the EigenDA mobilization and upgrade in Cancun, Blob block data + KZG commitment, the Rollup chain can generate KZG commitments for Blob Data through erasure coding and then publish it to the EigenDA contract, guaranteeing the subsequent chain's DA capability by EigenDA nodes, which effectively enhances Ethereum's DA capability. The key point is that the entire process of EigenDA revolves around existing Ethereum infrastructure such as Blob and KZG, and the node verification work is also participated by Ethereum Validators.

• No autonomous consensus and P2P network

EigenDA nodes must re-stake ETH( or ETH derivatives ) in the EigenLayer contract on Ethereum L1. EigenDA nodes are a subset of Ethereum validators. Subsequently, DA buyers ( such as rollups, also known as dispersers ), receive the data blob, encode it with erasure coding, generate KZG commitments, and publish and distribute them for node confirmation. Afterwards, the dispersers collect these signatures, generate an aggregated signature, and publish it to the EigenDA smart contract, where the EigenDA smart contract verifies the signatures.

• Use a custodial proof method

EigenDA does not use data availability sampling to verify whether nodes actually store data, but instead implements a custodial proof method. Anyone can submit proofs to the EigenDA smart contract, which verifies them. If the verification is successful, the lazy validators will be slashed.

Development Potential

• Multiple cooperation partners competing with Celestia: has integrated several L2 projects such as Celo, Mantle, Fluent, Offshore, OP stack, etc;

• Backed by the diverse ecosystem of Eigenlayer, including sequencers, cross-chain bridges, oracles, etc.

4.4 Other DA Projects

4.4.1 Avail

Avail can efficiently sort and record transactions, providing data storage and data feasibility verification, supporting EVM-compatible blockchains, allowing Rollups to publish data directly to Avail, and its lightweight client network verification mechanism enables Rollups on Avail to validate states through the lightweight client network without relying on smart contracts and the underlying layer. Due to its modular nature, developers can store data in Avail.