Blockchain
Decentralizing Ethereum layer-2 options has been an ongoing problem for ecosystem individuals, however Figment Capital thinks that distributed sequencer know-how (DST) may put an finish to this headache.
Sequencers are blockchain nodes run by layer-2 options to succeed in consensus. They’re a essential device to assist construct and suggest blocks, and considerably cut back the associated fee to transact on Ethereum.
In right now’s ecosystem, layer-2 options largely preserve just one sequencer — which means that it’s topic to centralization dangers.
If rollups find yourself being centralized methods constructed on prime of a decentralized community, then it defeats the aim of getting a decentralized system within the first place, Dougie DeLuca, an investor at Figment Capital, instructed Blockworks.
“We got here up with a brand new thought for a possible sequencer design,” DeLuca defined. “What we’ve been ideating is a brand new resolution that may primarily function a cease hole resolution till a extra complicated and maximally decentralized design is on the market for use.”
This design is essentially much like distributed validator know-how (DVT), the place the tasks of a validator are distributed throughout completely different operators or machines.
“Proper now with validators you have got one operator, one machine, and if a validator turns into compromised or goes offline, they’d be topic to slashing circumstances — which principally means they are going to get penalized for not doing the work that they’re presupposed to do,” DeLuca stated.
With DVT, you possibly can have one validator being serviced by six completely different machines, DeLuca famous.
“What that accomplishes is fault tolerance, which implies if one sub-validator cluster goes offline, the opposite 5 are nonetheless working as meant, so because of this we get a extra resilient community,” he stated.
DVT additionally permits options comparable to community geographic distribution — making networks much less liable to regulatory dangers and community outage (comparable to the latest Etheruem outage).
Utilizing DVT as a framework, DeLuca famous that he and different Figment crew members had an thought of repurposing it for sequencers.
“There are folks utilizing it right now who can testify that it really works, so as an alternative of considering of a model new design that will take without end to implement, let’s consider one thing that can be utilized within the mid-term…so similar to DVT, DST could be utilized to a single sequencer and it will possibly distribute tasks of working the sequencer throughout a cluster of machines and operators,” he stated.
Though Figment Capital is not going to be constructing out the know-how themselves, DeLuca shared that Obol Community is presently having conversations with completely different rollup groups to discover the chances of this know-how.
