Value of Data Availability Services and Project Research — Avail
After Celestia, the second data availability project we studied is Avail, which has only been developed for two years but has a very fast iteration speed.
Avail Project History
As of August 2023, the Avail project has not yet launched a formal mainnet project, and it remains to be seen how related projects will be advanced. Avail is expected to launch the third phase of the test network in 2024, and will then try to cooperate with technical routes such as OP and ZK to be compatible with more technical routes to expand the project.
Avail’s Product Logic
Avail Achieves Data Availability through Proofs, Requiring Only Verification of Block Headers
The Avail project mainly focuses on data availability rather than execution-level verification, thus greatly simplifying the node verification process for blocks. Unlike traditional systems that focus on verifying the state of decentralized applications, Avail is centered on ensuring the availability of transaction data and the orderliness of transactions.
In the traditional structure of the blockchain, both verification nodes and full nodes need to perform complete backtracking verification of submitted block data. However, under Avail’s design, as long as the data availability algorithm is adopted, other nodes can quickly complete the block confirmation process only by verifying the block header information, thus greatly improving the efficiency of the system.
Avail Uses KZG Polynomial Promises for Faster Verification
For the issue of data availability, the node submitting the block needs to be combined with some kind of commitment to ensure the integrity and accuracy of the data on the basis of improving block verification. Avail chose to use KZG polynomial commitment as its core design element, which not only significantly increases the speed of data block confirmation, but also reduces the development difficulty and complexity associated with fraud proofs.
Avail’s design based on the KZG commitment has the following three distinctive features:
- Data redundancy: Effectively prevents block producers from hiding or tampering with any data in the block.
- Fraud-proof freedom: Ensure the correctness of erasure coding and avoid complex fraud-proof processes.
- Simple proof mechanism: Allow full nodes to use simplified proof methods to convince light nodes to accept the inclusive proof of transactions, thereby enhancing the security and stability of the system.
This plan is more efficient than the “Reed-Solomon Commitment” plan adopted by Celestia — Celestia requires data providers to submit fraud-proof when data errors occur and ensure that the data can be effectively verified. It is reported that in order to improve the efficiency of its system, Celestia also plans to introduce KZG polynomial commitment in future Danksharding updates.
Avail Open-Source OpEVM Supports Decentralized Sequencer
The Avail team recently officially released and open-sourced its Optimistic Ethereum Virtual Machine (OpEVM) SDK prototype to the community. This open-source technology, in the form of L2 Rollups, aims to help developers use the OpEVM SDK to build fully sovereign Op Rollups that are highly compatible with EVM.
Under this framework, OpEVM does not exist alone but closely relies on the data availability layer provided by Avail. This layered design ensures that transaction execution and L1 data availability can operate independently on different layers. Avail plays a vital role in the entire OpEVM system architecture, becoming the core pillar of data availability and providing rock-solid security for L2 Rollups. This design not only ensures that L2 Rollups can inherit its security from Avail verification nodes but also allows verification nodes to enjoy the incentive mechanism of using L2 tokens. This creates a Rollups environment for OpEVM that can handle dispute resolution completely independent of L1 smart contracts.
In the traditional L2 Rollups design, all dispute-handling logic is concentrated in the smart contract deployed in L1. The new L2 Rollups solution proposed by OpEVM boldly transfers this process to L2 Rollups, completely eliminating the dependence on L1 smart contracts, and making the overall architecture simpler and the operation process more efficient.
It is worth emphasizing that Avail is not just a data source layer, it provides complete and real data access to all L2 Rollups participants. Under such a setting, each L2 Rollups node can independently verify the status of the chain based on the Op. This means that the OP fraud-proof verification responsibility that was originally concentrated in the L1 smart contract has now been transferred to each node of L2 Rollups. This decentralized verification mechanism not only reduces dependence on external smart contracts but also gives each node operator broader autonomy and control.
Another notable feature of OpEVM is its support for decentralized sequencers. Unlike traditional Op Rollups that rely on centralized sorters, OpEVM introduces a decentralized set of sorters, making transaction sorting and subsequent block addition operations more fair and transparent. Moreover, its sequencer selection mechanism based on PoS consensus further ensures fairness and can effectively punish the behavior of generating incorrect blocks.
Currently, OpEVM is still in the continuous testing and improvement stage.
Avail Project Advantages
Avail Reinvents Data Availability Verification
Avail enables efficient data availability checking at a fixed cost by innovatively simplifying block verification to data availability verification. This strategy allows Avail to avoid verifying the specific transactions and status of the decentralized application and instead focus on ensuring that the published transaction data is not only available but also in the correct order.
The data availability chain role defined by Avail allows other chains to upload data to it. When it is necessary to verify the availability of data on other chains, Avail provides mathematical proof to confirm the availability of the data, rather than directly providing the data content itself. For those light nodes who do not want to bear the burden of downloading all block data to become a full node, but want to ensure data integrity and avoid attacks, the Data Availability (DA) service provided by Avail provides an ideal solution.
Avail Incentivizes a Wider Range of Nodes to Participate in Verification
With the data availability service provided by Avail, the resource consumption required for node verification can be significantly reduced, thereby attracting more nodes to participate. Under this architecture, light nodes can keep pace with full nodes and participate in block verification, thus greatly enhancing the security of the entire network. The introduction of this model means that both light nodes and full nodes have the opportunity to transform into verification nodes, which will lead to a wider number of nodes being invested in the maintenance of network security.
For those nodes that wish to participate in verification, the resources and risks they invest must be incentivized and protected accordingly. This means that the blockchain’s incentive mechanism for validators and punishment mechanism for malicious behavior need to be reconsidered and designed to attract more capital inflows and strengthen node staking. In theory, this would lead to a reduction in the supply of the token on the market, thus driving the token price up.
The participation of more nodes also provides more possibilities for selecting verification nodes, creating conditions for achieving a higher level of decentralization. Under the constraints of existing hardware and network transaction requirements, the decentralization level of blockchain faces challenges. However, if light nodes can also participate in block verification, this will provide more possibilities for consensus algorithms and herald a huge change in the consensus field.
KZG Polynomial Commitment Eliminates Fraud Proof Challenge Period
Avail provides data availability verification for L1 light nodes and L2 rollups through KZG polynomial commitments. Compared with schemes such as Celestia, the introduction of KZG polynomial commitment enables the omission of fraud proofs in L2 Rollups, which means that the availability of data can be quickly confirmed without relying on dedicated nodes for verification or challenges.
In this context, Avail not only greatly improves the speed of data availability verification, but also makes the future data verification process no longer bound by fraud proofs and other traditional smart contract restrictions, thus greatly reducing the number of errors caused by human operations. risk.
Proposing the Cross-Chain Data Availability
Avail innovatively provides an open data availability layer that is not limited to Ethereum expansion but covers multiple public chains. This broad applicability not only creates diversified revenue streams for Avail itself but also allows a single light node to touch and verify data on multiple chains.
Avail’s cross-chain data availability feature essentially provides a mechanism that allows light nodes to verify cross-chain information based on data on different chains. This creates a solid foundation for emerging cross-chain applications, allowing data interoperability and confirmation through the Avail service. For example, if a dapp running on Ethereum needs to verify asset data and transaction records on the Polygon chain, it can rely on trusted data obtained through Avail to complete this process.
In addition, Avail not only simplifies the process of data acquisition by dapps but also provides a broad space for the sustainable development of cross-chain applications in the future. By eliminating data silos and ensuring data availability, Avail can drive more efficient interoperability between different chains, which is crucial in a cross-chain ecosystem.
By covering more public chains, Avail also increases the robustness and revenue potential of its business model. The access of more chains will not only bring more users and a wider range of application scenarios but may also lead to more transactions and data requests, thus bringing more revenue.
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