Blockchain
Decentralizing Ethereum layer-2 options has been an ongoing problem for ecosystem contributors, however Figment Capital thinks that distributed sequencer expertise (DST) may put an finish to this headache.
Sequencers are blockchain nodes run by layer-2 options to achieve consensus. They’re a vital device to assist construct and suggest blocks, and considerably scale back the price to transact on Ethereum.
In right this moment’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 concept 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 offered for use.”
This design is essentially just like distributed validator expertise (DVT), the place the duties of a validator are distributed throughout completely different operators or machines.
“Proper now with validators you will have 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 may get penalized for not doing the work that they’re imagined to do,” DeLuca stated.
With DVT, you may have one validator being serviced by six completely different machines, DeLuca famous.
“What that accomplishes is fault tolerance, which suggests if one sub-validator cluster goes offline, the opposite 5 are nonetheless working as meant, so consequently we get a extra resilient community,” he stated.
DVT additionally allows options equivalent to community geographic distribution — making networks much less susceptible to regulatory dangers and community outage (equivalent to the newest Etheruem outage).
Utilizing DVT as a framework, DeLuca famous that he and different Figment crew members had an concept of repurposing it for sequencers.
“There are folks utilizing it right this moment who can testify that it really works, so as an alternative of pondering of a model new design that might take endlessly to implement, let’s consider one thing that can be utilized within the mid-term…so identical to DVT, DST will be utilized to a single sequencer and it could possibly distribute duties of operating the sequencer throughout a cluster of machines and operators,” he stated.
Though Figment Capital is not going to be constructing out the expertise themselves, DeLuca shared that Obol Community is presently having conversations with completely different rollup groups to discover the probabilities of this expertise.
