Anna interviews Prabal Banerjee, co-founder of Avail, discussing his career, the building of the Avail project, and their use of KZG, validity proofs, and data availability in the blockchain ecosystem. They explore Avail's position in the Ethereum ecosystem and compare it to competing systems. They also discuss the transition from plasma-based to PUS contracts, the evolution of the Avail project, and the role of data availability in blockchain models. Additionally, they delve into the security of the Avail Network and the risks and opportunities associated with roll ups in financial trade.
Avail is positioned as a fundamental layer for various roll-up solutions, offering data availability (DA) and serving as a neutral hub for different execution layers like ZK roll-ups.
There are two different constructions of data availability (DA) being used in the Ethereum ecosystem, each with its own security and cost implications.
Avail aims to create a decentralized data availability layer by combining KZG polynomial commitments and erasure coding, increasing user control and ownership.
Deep dives
The Evolution of the Avail Project
Prabell Banerjee discusses the evolution of the Avail Project, starting from its proof of concept stage to becoming a standalone company. He covers his background in academia, his decision to join Polygon, and the focus on scalability solutions. Avail is positioned as a fundamental layer for various roll-up solutions, offering data availability (DA) and serving as a neutral hub for different execution layers like ZK roll-ups.
Data Availability (DA) and Avail's Technological Choices
Banerjee explains the concept of data availability (DA) and Avail's approach to it. He highlights Avail's use of KZG validity proofs and its positioning within the Ethereum and wider blockchain ecosystems. He compares Avail to competing systems like Celestia and EigenDA and discusses the interaction of DA with different parts of the modular blockchain stack. Banerjee emphasizes the importance of credibly neutral solutions for data availability in order to facilitate adoption by competing systems.
Security and Challenges for Avail and Roll-ups
Banerjee outlines the security considerations for Avail and roll-ups. He highlights the importance of crypto economic guarantees and the consensus mechanism in ensuring the security of the Avail chain. He discusses potential attack scenarios, including the possibility of reordering data blobs, and emphasizes the role of full nodes and light clients in maintaining network integrity. Banerjee also addresses the role of the social layer in protecting against attacks and the importance of running a full node or light client to verify the correctness of the chain.
The different constructions and tradeoffs of data availability
There are two different constructions of data availability (DA) being used in the Ethereum ecosystem. One is an optimistic roll-up that uses Ethereum as a DA and settlement, while the other is a committee-based approach called Arbitrum Nova, which tackles the high cost of posting data on Ethereum. These different constructions have their own security and cost implications. The optimistic roll-up inherits the complete security of the base layer, while Arbitrum Nova uses a committee to handle the data and relies on Ethereum for verification. These distinct systems address different needs within the Ethereum ecosystem.
Avail's approach to decentralized data availability
Avail aims to create a decentralized data availability layer by combining KZG polynomial commitments and erasure coding. They use a base construction for security and decentralization, and allow light clients to verify data availability through sampling without relying on the super majority of the chain. Avail has also developed a peer-to-peer network for sampling, reducing reliance on full nodes. They are working on integrating Avail's light clients into wallets, enabling users to verify data availability and execution proofs. This approach offers a high guarantee of data availability and increases user control and ownership.
In this week’s episode, Anna catches up with Prabal Banerjee, co-founder of Avail. They deep dive into Prabal’s career, starting with his work in academia, his move to Polygon and to his spinning out the Avail project. They discuss how the project was built, tech decisions and the motivations behind them as well as their use of KZG, validity proofs and their position within the Ethereum and wider blockchain ecosystem. They go on to revisit Data Availability and the interaction with different parts of the modular blockchain stack, comparing Avail to competing systems and cover edge-cases and their impact in a DA-secured stack.
Applications to attend and speak at zkSummit11 are now open, head over to the zkSummit website to apply now. The event will be held on 10 April in Athens, Greece.
