Altan Tutar, a member of the NEAR Foundation team, tried to introduce in vernacular the new future cooperation content between Near and EigenLayer, which will launch a faster settlement layer in the Ethereum ecosystem - Super Fast Finality Layer (SFFL) to quickly carry out cross-Layer2 network transactions. road communications.
Table of contents
ToggleExisting Layer 2 ecological dilemma
There are huge obstacles in the existing ecological interaction of Rollups. Since Rollups need to settle transactions to the Ethereum mainnet, in addition to waiting for the mainnet to be chained, Rollups also need to wait to generate a transaction finality certificate. Zero-knowledge proofs need to wait 12 minutes. , while fraud proof takes 7 days.
Therefore, if users want to perform cross-chain transfers between Rollups, such as transferring USDC on Arbitrum to smart contracts on OP Mainnet, they will have to wait up to seven days, which is very unfriendly to the user experience.
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Extended reading: Comprehensive summary of L2 development in 2023 | Layer 2 narrative is strong but lacks innovation, Layer 1 competition chain returns strongly
Introduction to the ultra-fast finality layer SFFL
In view of the above problems, Near cooperated with EigenLayer to try to launch a new network layer to partially replace Ethereum to speed up cross-network communication efficiency.
Background knowledge: EigenLayer
EigenLayer provides security for Web3 infrastructure, extending Ethereum's security to the infrastructure layer by staking liquid collateral assets (LSD) such as stETH to the protocol.
Extended reading: How will the re-pledge project EigenLayer change the Web3 infrastructure ecosystem?
In the past, infrastructure included projects such as oracles, cross-chain bridges, data availability layer (DA), side chains, and DePIN. Usually, in addition to the infrastructure itself, it was also necessary to create an incentive layer from scratch to encourage the market to join as a node. This Such project teams are called actively validated services (AVS). However, due to the difficulty of building network consensus, the final network security of such projects is usually not high enough.
With EigenLayer, AVS will no longer have to build its own consensus network in the future, and may even not need to issue its own tokens, significantly lowering the threshold for entrepreneurship in infrastructure projects.
Background knowledge: Near
Near Network is a public chain with a native protocol layer that uses sharding technology. It basically treats each account and smart contract as a separate shard, so almost all transactions are in the form of cross-contracts.
Near can quickly transmit and interact with transaction information between different shards. This design architecture can be applied to communication between Rollups.
How SFFL works
In order to solve the problem of interaction efficiency across multiple Rollups, Near cooperated with EigenLayer to create a new network SFFL.
If we assume that Ethereum's performance and architecture remain as they are, then the compromise is to build a network with fast finality (SFFL) and give certain guarantees before Ethereum is finalized. Then Rollups based on this fast network will also It can settle and complete cross-chain communication faster.
But who would be willing to give up the security of Ethereum and trust the consensus of a new network? At this time, EigenLayer's assistance is needed. EigenLayer's strength is precisely to assist projects that require "decentralized networks that need to build consensus from scratch", extending the security of Ethereum to quickly build new consensus networks.
If SFFL’s nodes do evil or do not verify information correctly, anyone can submit a fraud certificate to Ethereum’s EigenLayer contract, and the tokens pledged by their node in the EigenLayer contract will be punished and confiscated, indirectly ensuring the finality of the SFFL network. Potency.
On the other hand, after solving the final problem, how to quickly communicate and transmit transaction information between different networks is Near's expertise. Therefore, the client of the SFFL network will be built with Near's technical architecture, and Near full nodes will serve as settlement and data Validator (AVS) of the availability layer network to enable fast transactions across Rollups.
Therefore, SFFL uses EigenLayer to establish security and Near to enable fast cross-network interaction.
Future Outlook and Potential Issues
SFFL will enable fast communication between Layer2
SFFL can complete cross-network asset transfers within 3 to 4 seconds, and will be able to obtain new applications. The most obvious advantage is that it can easily integrate liquidity.
SFFL can ideally use fast cross-Rollups communication to integrate the liquidity of different Layer 2 networks. For example, whether it is Arbitrum or zkSync, the USDT in it can be quickly transferred to maximize liquidity, and in the future multi-network ecosystem It will be more convenient.
Security concerns increase
The failure points and complexity of the above mechanisms have increased, leading to potential security concerns. In addition to the security of Ethereum, SFFL, EigenLayer, Near and other links are new failure points, and the code history of most contracts or clients is short and more complex, which will increase the security concerns of the project.
In fact, the liquidity of staking on EigenLayer is certainly not comparable to that of Ethereum.
While providing fast and final confirmation of cross-chain transactions, security is actually sacrificed. How SFFL should make choices and balances in the future will be a problem faced by both teams.
