Compared with the loss of DA legitimacy and the rise of diversified and prosperous Layer 2 and Layer 3 markets, Ethereum will always be the biggest beneficiary.
Written by: Haotian
How to understand @CelestiaOrg’s threat to Ethereum? Is it really an Ethereum killer? In my opinion, Celestia’s invasion war will continue in the layer 2 field, but the result of this war will not be death or death, but will instead achieve a “win-win” situation.
In essence, this is the inevitable result of the high modularity of the layer2 market. Why? Next, let me tell you my opinion.
We disassemble the Ethereum blockchain system, and there are two cores:
- Data Avaliability, data availability; 2) interoperability, interoperability. As for the other EVM execution layers and POS consensus layer, although they are also important, when talking about Rollup layer 2, we pay more attention to DA and interoperability.
DA corresponds to the verification capability of Ethereum’s Validators. If Ethereum participates in DA, the state transition process submitted by layer 2, the main network Validators have the ability to perform verification to ensure security. If Ethereum DA is separated, the main network calldata and Blob The block becomes layer 2’s state transition bulletin board, and its validity is determined by the third-party DA consensus. Even if a premeditated “bad debt” is submitted to the main network, the main network cannot make judgments and intervene.
Interoperability corresponds to the communication and interaction capabilities of Ethereum and other chains, mainly involving the security of asset settlement communication between chains, and effective solutions for common liquidity. Currently there are mainly Restaking projects such as @eigenlayer and some middle layer projects for liquidity management.
In addition to stabilizing the status of Ethereum’s asset settlement layer, this type of liquidity management solution can not only release Ethereum’s overloaded consensus to a multi-chain environment, but crucially, it can also export the security consensus capabilities of Ethereum Validators to other chains. Open up a new territory for the Ethereum DeFi brand foundation.
Celestia is one of the originators of modular public chains. It stands to reason that it should take Cosmos IBC-related public chains as its main target. After all, most chains based on Cosmos IBC focus on lightweighting, and the DA layer is built on Celestia, which is a perfect fit.
However, Celestia did not take the usual path and launched Blobstream for the Ethereum ecosystem. As an “external trouble”, it continued to penetrate into Ethereum. Combined with the “internal trouble” caused by the one-click chain issuance of the Ethereum layer2 OP Stack, with this, Celestia almost Conquer cities and continue to invade the territory of Ethereum layer 2.
As a layer2 developer, what lies ahead is nothing more than the tradeoff of DA legitimacy and chain cost.
DA legitimacy is relatively passive in the commercial market. It is suitable for some comprehensive layer2 projects that are more concerned about security consensus issues and have certain brand heritage and market foundation. And some cutting-edge small layer2s, especially those based on OP Stack’s one-click chain launch The chain will try its best to squeeze costs to a minimum.
Therefore, third-party DAs such as Celesitia are naturally a better choice. Although EigenDA also provides Ethereum DA service issues, it cannot reduce the actual cost of developing layer2 for the project side.
For developers who choose to take shortcuts to operate and maintain layer 2, cost will inevitably be the first consideration. The largest cost of layer 2 is the DA cost of Ethereum. Choosing a low-cost third-party DA to hedge against the market revenue pressure of early operations may It is the preferred choice of most small developers at the tail end.
Therefore, the key to whether Celestia will endanger Ethereum lies in the future development situation of Ethereum layer 2. If layer2 will gradually narrow to a comprehensive layer2 headed by the Four Kings, then DA legitimacy will be the main theme. If layer2 will spring up with various layer2 solutions, then cost considerations will always be the last word.
Although there is still a variable of Cancun upgrade, the trend of Ethereum layer2 is already obvious. There will definitely be a large number of layer2 solutions emerging. The reasons are not difficult to understand:
The development of the four major kings such as Arbitrum, Optimism, Starkent, and zkSync is not as expected, the problem of Sequencer decentralization, the problem of the 7-day challenge not being implemented, the hardware acceleration problem of the Prover system, the EVM competiable equivalence problem, the asset cross-chain escape hatch problem, and the Token economy The model cannot empower and manage token issues, the development of native DeFi is difficult, and so on.
It is no exaggeration to say that the development of layer2 has left a lot of problems. If any problem is raised and matched with the Stack framework and Celestia DA, it may become a powerful development direction for the capital’s narrative imagination space.
I also said in my previous article that the chaos in layer 2 will really begin after Cancun is upgraded, and the layer 2 market will move towards “diversification” and prosperity. Moreover, OP Stack and ZK Stack are still building a more open and inclusive layer3 application chain era. By then, the traditional Ethereum layer2 framework will be more blurred, and third-party DAs such as Celestia will become a modular DA layer and become a necessity.
This is the inevitable trend of commercial expansion of the layer 2 track, and it is also the fundamental reason why Celestia is so evil about the Ethereum layer 2 ecosystem.
However, this is not just a threat to Ethereum. When more and more layer 2 adopt third-party DA solutions such as Celestia, Celestia’s market position will be highlighted, and it will also promote changes in Ethereum layer 2:
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The comprehensive layer2 platform will become the foundation, and liquidity, user volume, application ecology, etc. will occupy the commanding heights of the brand, and DA legitimacy will become the core difference to ensure their solid position;
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The personalized cutting-edge layer2 platform will become scalable, innovative, diverse gameplay, market expected opportunities, etc. will attract groups of people to explore and explore for gold. Flexibility and freedom are their trump cards.
Based on this idea, the core layer 2 of Ethereum will become increasingly stable, and the position of Ethereum DA will not be shaken. However, for some more flexible layer 2 or layer 3, although DA is not in Ethereum, don’t forget, as long as they are built on the Stack stack On Ethereum, it is difficult for them to escape from the control of Interoperablity.
By then, Ethereum, as the asset settlement layer and source of liquidity, will form softer liquidity control for these flexible layer 2.
If you don’t understand what I mean, just look at how few transactions are running on Celestia, whose price has been sky-high. While Celestia is invading Ethereum, it will gradually lose its “comprehensive chain” attribute. (It was not originally), but became a modular DA layer of the Ethereum ecosystem. So what if so many Ethereum layer2 adopt Celestia’s DA? As long as the framework of Stack and Rollup remains unchanged, these layer2 will have to continue to “pay taxes” to Ethereum.
Compared with the loss of DA legitimacy and the rise of diverse and prosperous layer2 and layer3 markets, Ethereum will always be the biggest beneficiary.
