What are the differences in storage location for Layer2 transaction records? An introduction to off-chain data availability (DA) development.
Where should the transaction information generated by Layer2 be placed? There are various solutions.
The differences and advantages of mainstream Data Availability (DA) technical architectures from the past to the present are gradually becoming more competitive, and what impact will the upgrade of Cancun (Dencun) have?
This article is compiled and translated by Chain News. If you have any questions, please refer to the original article.
Table of Contents
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On-chain Solutions: Proto-Danksharding
Off-chain Solutions
Plasma
Validium
Data Availability Committee (DAC)
Volition
General DA Solutions
Technological changes quickly in response to environmental changes and interests.
Fully relying on Ethereum on-chain solutions means that Layer2 still uses Ethereum as the data availability layer, reducing the cost of protecting data availability through the Ethereum Cancun upgrade.
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(Ethereum 2024 highly anticipated: Dencun Cancun upgrade, target deployment on testnet in January)
The Cancun upgrade will introduce Proto-Danksharding (EIP-4844), which is Ethereum’s solution to reduce data storage costs. It will introduce a new transaction format called Blob. The transaction data uploaded on Layer2 will be temporarily stored in the form of Blob on the Ethereum consensus layer, bringing cheaper data availability to Layer2 and deleting it after a certain period of time.
In the future, Ethereum will serve as a real-time bulletin board, where data posted on the board will be deleted after a certain period of time. If Layer2 requires it, it must find a way to store backups of all data by itself.
The Ethereum Foundation hopes to reduce the data storage costs of Layer2 through this method, so that it does not have to use other off-chain solutions. However, things don’t seem to be going so smoothly.
Off-chain solutions no longer consider Ethereum as the DA layer and are looking for more cost-effective ways to obtain data availability. Based on the trade-off between decentralization and security, off-chain solutions can be divided into five categories:
Plasma
Validium
Data Availability Committee (DAC)
Volition
General DA solutions
After Ethereum announced the scalability roadmap centered on Rollups, Plasma’s scalability solution has now been abandoned by Ethereum.
Plasma works by periodically uploading transaction data hash trees on the network and using fraud proofs to ensure asset security. The complete transaction records are not stored on Ethereum but are handled off-chain.
(Vitalik advocates the revival of Plasma combined with ZK-SNARKs, effectively improving development experience and security)
Similar to Plasma, Validium is also gradually losing popularity. Because the off-chain transaction data released by Validium is managed by a centralized operator, it is considered a highly centralized data availability layer solution.
Although the privacy of transaction participants is greatly protected in the Validium mode, the data availability cost is minimized, but the risk is also the highest. If there is a failure or malicious behavior by the off-chain operator, users’ funds will not be recoverable.
To reduce the risk of a single operator causing a single point of failure, most of the previous Validium designs were accompanied by Data Availability Committees (DAC) to enhance data security.
DAC is similar to a consortium chain, composed of multiple authoritative or trusted node members, who store copies of transaction data and make the data public in case of operator failures or malicious behavior, making it easier to prove user asset ownership and extract funds.
DAC’s operating costs are relatively low, but from a security perspective, a small DAC with 8 to 10 members is still prone to private key theft or collective malicious behavior, and there is still a significant risk to on-chain funds.
Volition is a hybrid solution that allows users to choose whether to publish data for individual transactions on-chain or off-chain.
For example, in a DEX built on Volition, users can control multiple accounts and transfer assets to off-chain data accounts when needed to facilitate frequent and inexpensive transactions. After the transaction is completed, the assets can be transferred back to the on-chain data account.
Compared with pure Validium, Volition can inherit some of Ethereum’s security while maintaining the advantages of low cost and high efficiency off-chain.
There is also a category of general DA solutions that provide data availability for Ethereum’s Layer2 and can serve more blockchains without being limited to Ethereum. Examples include EigenDA, Celestia, Avail, etc.
In fact, from certain perspectives, these decentralized data storage solutions based on decentralized systems are actually variants of Validium. Therefore, Vitalik has also stated that if the data availability layer relies on such external decentralized systems, then the network is also Validium.
(Upgrade Cancun | Vitalik supports using Validiums rather than Rollups for some products)
Although the technical implementations of general DA solutions vary, the overall idea is to enhance the security of the data availability layer to achieve the security level of public chains. Therefore, they usually have their own verification nodes, block producers, and consensus mechanisms, but they do not have smart contracts and virtual machines.
With higher security and decentralization, it is not surprising that general DA is considered the most promising off-chain data storage method.
(Viewpoint | Competition in Data Availability (DA) will present a diversified development)
With the changes in Ethereum’s development roadmap centered on Rollups and the recent Cancun upgrade, the landscape of mainstream data storage methods is constantly being affected. Technological iterations are also evolving rapidly, and there may be many innovations worth exploring in blockchain data storage methods.
(Ethereum releases 2024 roadmap, continuing to advance towards a global settlement layer)
In addition, every project hopes to play a key role in the Web3 world, and the value of being the DA layer of mainstream networks is huge, continuously driving industry progress.
Under the influence of development environment changes and business interests, it is not surprising that DA has become so popular in recent years. There is still much room and variables to observe in the future development of the market.
DA
DAC
Layer2
Plasma
Validium
Volition
Further reading
Viewpoint | Wyoming DAO Bill Wants to Build “DAO Headquarters,” But Is Destined to Fall Short
[Introduction to Blockchain] From the On-Chain World to Real-World Enterprises, Governance Mechanisms for the Future – What is DAO?
