The Rollup

We really enjoyed this presentation. While we’ve had multiple shared sequencers talks on Modular March, each one has been far different. Today’s deep dive is around the game theory and incentive designs behind creating a rollup ecosystem which feels completely seamless and interoperable. At its core, Espresso leverages a two part system to enforce how transactions are ordered and finalized across rollups via its sequencer. This system mirrors Ethereum's, but with a twist, aiming to streamline interactions between different rollups and thereby improve user experience significantly. We discussed the based sequencing approach, their auction & lottery mechanism, and where Espresso fits in the broader modular thesis. While we are bullish on Espresso (and Ellie is amazing), we didn’t let their vision go untouched so to speak. There were areas where we pushed back around the incentive designs and whether or not this would actually work in practice. We also tried to understand why potentially making things more complex is really the solution for scaling the modular L2 landscape. Also, if Espresso is another chain with trust assumptions, what tradeoffs does that bring for rollup operators? Finally the big question…Will rollup operators really want to use Espresso if it could cause a big revenue reduction? Ellie flipped that narrative on its head, ever so graciously. She helped us understand how Espresso works under the hood and answered our questions. We were impressed and left feeling extremely optimistic on shared sequencing. Happy April Fools Day (no jokes here, yet!) & let’s have a great week!

We’ve heard of the fragmentation problem many times in Modular March, and we’ve came to learn of a variety of solutions like shared sequencing, intents-based interop, and more. Today, in less than 10 minutes, we hear the vision from Avail’s head of product Dan Mills live from Modular Day in ETHDenver. Created in 2020 as part of Polygon, Avail emerged in response to Ethereum's shift toward a rollup-centric architecture, identifying a critical need for enhanced data availability in support of data-hungry rollups. Avail's foundational product, AvailDA, addresses this need by providing scalable, raw block space without necessitating base layer execution features (aka a specialized, modular blockchain). Through the use of validity proofs and KZG polynomial commitments, AvailDA ensures that light clients can trust the data's integrity through efficient random sampling. However, Dan thought past first order consequences and like many of us now realize, there will be thousands of chains. To counter this, Avail is introducing Nexus, a unification layer based on aggregating proofs from various chains to guarantee the accuracy of execution and state transitions. We also dive into Avail Fusion, the eventual security layer and third part of the Avail Trinity. Stay up to speed on the biggest upcoming modular project launch, Avail, in less than 10 minutes with Andy.

If you are modular-pilled this will be a refreshing short chat. If you want to understand the counterargument to building in a modularized fashion, you’ll enjoy this. Andy sat down with Avery Chang, co-founder of Aptos to discuss his perspective on the modular thesis and understand why he is building Aptos in a more integrated fashion. Avery shared his perspective on the intricate dance between modularity and monolithic architectures in blockchain design, and why Aptos leans into the latter with the elegance of a ‘finely tuned sports car’ as a reference. Avery addressed concerns regarding centralization and scalability, explaining that a unified stack simplifies development and security processes. He highlighted the strength of Aptos's community, with over 400 developers contributing to its codebase, underscoring the project's potential for decentralization and scalability. The conversation also delved into Aptos's adoption of the Move VM, which Avery advocates for its ability to reduce the risks associated with smart contract development and introduce formal verification to the ecosystem. Sometimes we can be stuck in tunnel vision with our steadfast beliefs of modularity. It’s good to hear the other side. We’re still modularity enthusiasts, don’t you worry.

What an interesting conversation this was. Going way back to the core ethos of cryptoeconomic systems, we took a bit of a journey through PoW, PoS, and now modularity. It was quite a different presentation from the previous Modular March episodes. We sat down with Alejo, a co-founder of Lumio, to discuss the memetic nature of crypto incentive systems with a focus on designing conservative systems which are aligned with Satoshi’s vision of blockchain. Alejo is an OG and is now building out Lumio, a moveVM based L2 on Ethereum which will likely utilize EigenDA. To be fair, we just briefly touched on what they are actually building and spent most of the time discussing the philosophical side of building in crypto, which we found interesting. Modularity is breaking apart the traditional mental frameworks for blockchain value accrual and design. See for yourself.

Again, we find ourselves returning to the interoperability and fragmentation problem of the modular expansion. We’ll keep it real, there is nothing innovative of building hundreds of siloed execution environments. Even if you value sovereignty as much as the rest of us, having reachable allies in the onchain world is a necessity. As new L2s and appchains are launched (which is happening at an alarmingly high rate), the ability to seamlessly interact across chains becomes crucial for the broader adoption and user experience. In today’s video, we set out to learn if an intent-based design is a viable solution. We had the pleasure of sitting down with Hart, co-founder of UMA & Across, to discuss why he believes intents are the future of interoperability. This design employs third-party actors, known as relayers or solvers, who provide the liquidity needed for cross-chain transactions, thereby allowing sub one second transfers and enhanced security (no ‘honeypots’ for hackers). But, as always, we pushed back. Is there really a way to scale an intents based design to 1000s of chains? Is value transfer the only necessity of bridging in crypto or is there also a demand for messaging? Why are solvers sometimes slow to fill orders vs. extremely quick in other scenarios? We really vibe with Hart well, and he wasn’t fearful of any questioning on his mental models. We enjoyed hearing his perspectives and learning from him. You probably will, too.

After our episode with Tarun Chitra about value accrual in the modular stack, as well as thinking about it deeper we’ve came to our own conclusions. Josh Bowen, ex-Celestia team, and now founder of Astria blew it all out of the water today. Completely shifted the way we are thinking about RaaS providers, shared sequencers, and how they are approaching the competitive market of sequencing. We first dove into the modular architecture of Astria and their relationship with Celestia, and then dove deep into how Josh thinks about early stage tech markets. The vision behind Astria extends beyond facilitation of rollup deployment. Josh aspires to lower barriers to innovation in launching blockchains, in order to create a diverse ecosystem of rollups that transcend the limitations of existing setups. But, is this really possible? Can Astria do what other RaaS providers are doing at a tenth of the cost? Can they actually commoditize RaaS providers? Josh is a straight shooter and did not hold back when he pressed him about his mental models. We left quite impressed.

The checkered cross-chain past is something you just had to live through to understand. We tend to think the best have survived and the unfortunate events of 2021-2022 have led to a completely different way of thinking about interoperability security for the modular expansion. In today’s piece Rob & Andy sat down with Jon Kol, CEO of Hyperlane, to understand their design choices around permissionless. At its core, Hyperlane aims to establish an open framework that enables any blockchain to seamlessly connect with others, creating a interoperable ecosystem without long BD queues and permissioned deployments. But, what does this really mean for security and liveness? Rob and Andy asked Jon about their design choices, security modules, mailboxes, and tried to approach this from a realm of “what could go wrong?” and “how well is this system designed?”. Hyperlane has been a leading part of the Modular Expansion (notably, the team coined the term we believe). We expect them to continue this trajectory as they expand into new verticals like yield routes and other innovative interoperability concepts. We really think the permissionless nature of adding new chains and giving optionality for interoperability partners is a key aspect of their design focused around security.

A core fundamental primitive of blockchain is the unlocking of usecases which are not possibly in any other type of system. We’ve heard a lot of this and we believe the technology stack is being built as we speak which will facilitate an array of “breakout apps” atop of it. In today's piece, we set out to find out what type technological design constraints are present in the current modular ecosystem as well as the necessary solutions. If you’ve been following us for awhile, you know the Lagrange team from our zkAcademy. If you are newer here, you’re in luck. Andy and Rob sat down with Ismael, co-founder of Lagrange, to learn why zk coprocessors are crucial in enabling offchain computation for data queries and processing tasks that are too intensive for standard smart contracts. By creating a decentralized network for ZK proving and prioritizing access to complex onchain information within the modular ecosystem, Lagrange is playing a crucial role in the modular thesis. Let’s have a great week and continue to push forward as part of Modular March.

One of the core issues we heard about awhile back on our podcast with Jon Kol from Hyperlane was the ‘indexing’ problem of the modular expansion. Essentially, if we are going to exist in a world of 1000s of chains, we’ll also need to have a streamlined process for data. This is where yesterdays post with Lava Network fits in the puzzle (RPCs). Staying on the data tooling pattern, today’s post is an interview from ETHDenver with Jack, the founder of Routescan. Andy and Jack discussed Routescan’s journey over the past few months highlighting the growth of their expanding community with over 50,000 users. They also touched on Jack’s approach to embracing modularity by unlocking new block explorers across appchains, rollup frameworks, and subnets. Enjoy this today’s interview live from ETHDenver and Modular March.

Wow. What a day yesterday. Our modular market map absolutely blew up on X. Including in this map, under data tooling, is Lava Network. Lava is modular RPC data access provider for modular chains. Our discussion today is centered around how Lava's modular data access layer is facilitating better connectivity across various blockchain environments. A Remote Procedure Call (RPC), is a vital mechanism for accessing blockchain data. This enables users to perform a wide array of actions, such as checking balances and executing transactions, through effective communication with nodes. The idea here is simple: IF the modular expansion plays out how we think it will, we will have thousands of modular chains which will need RPCs so users can interact onchain. The current solutions are not very extensible and if they are, they lack privacy and/or speed. Lava will take marketshare from the big names of the space who have been monoliths for sometime. Rob sat down at ETHDenver with founders Yair & Gil to discuss where Lava fits in the modular thesis.