Chainfeeds Summary:
Last week, we saw several proposals on the Ethereum consensus layer roadmap. Most notably, Justin Drake outlined his vision for the Ethereum ZK era in his Devcon 2024 talk. This article introduces a future that leverages ZK and consensus research advances. We will start from first principles to explore the base layer, then dive into the core concepts in consensus research. Finally, we will delve into how to apply these research findings to the design of the next-generation base layer, especially under ZK mechanisms.
Source:
https://www.bedlamresear.ch/posts/base-layers/
Authors:
krane, lamby, sylve, lancelot
Perspective:
bedlam research: The current discussions around the Rollup-centric roadmap largely focus on the value growth of ETH and Ethereum under the presence of Rollups. L2s like Base, which have user relationships, can charge a premium on their block space and only need to return a small portion of their revenue to Ethereum in the form of DA fees. The base layer can capture some of the revenue that would otherwise be lost to market makers and liquidity bridges by allowing Rollups to publish state data more frequently to achieve faster interoperability. However, how much value the improved interoperability system can bring to the base layer entirely depends on the number of Rollups that need to communicate with each other. When Rollups cannot satisfy multiple applications, the value accrual to the base layer becomes more apparent. Applications can leverage the composability of the base layer for interaction. Applications can achieve high throughput and control over their own space without sacrificing composability. There is also a view that improving the execution capability of the base layer is a way to increase the value of the native token. This actually allows the base layer to compete with Rollups, which goes against the Rollup-centric design intent. Another approach (which may also be our preferred approach) is to build embedded Rollups, where base layer assets are re-staked to secure the Rollup sequencers. If necessary, the base layer validator set can even act as the Rollup sequencer set. For an ecosystem like Ethereum, this can allow ETH to recapture some of the lost value, while also allowing developers to experiment more freely on Rollups, where the risks may be much lower than on Ethereum L1. Overall, we believe the ZK-era represents an exciting and forward-looking future for Ethereum and the entire blockchain space. In this article, we outline how to combine ZK with state-of-the-art consensus to provide a potential new direction for the base layer in Rollup-centric systems. By combining zero-knowledge proofs with ideas borrowed from DAG-based consensus mechanisms, we can reimagine a base layer truly optimized for Rollups. Consensus is only applied minimally where actual shared state is involved, rather than as a blanket requirement for all operations. As the ecosystem continues to evolve towards a modular design, we expect this more granular base layer consensus approach to become the standard for modular blockchains. Overall, we believe that given some new supporting technologies are just now entering production, the base layer must adopt these technologies to remain competitive.
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