Choosing a DA layer isn’t only about fees or Ethereum “alignment.” If your favorite L2/L3 relies on an alt-DA layer, you should understand how trust assumptions change. I wrote about the importance of a well-designed DA bridge in securing user funds—check it out here 👇

https://t.co/Ww7NXOKidb

Basically if you’re a SERIOUS L2 you have two choices: - integrate @ethereum blobs - integrate altDA BUT WITH DA Verifier (onchain contract that encapsulates all components needed to trust-minimize its external DA integration) Time to stop accepting anything else ✊

L2BEAT want to see more projects integrating with DA verifiers, and populate the Optimium/Validium category. At the same time, Alt-DA layers need to work to raise the security bar for these integrations. The goal, as always, is to raise user safety across the ecosystem. Feedback

Mitigating these risks requires: - Onchain verification of DA consensus/quorum - Decentralized DA cert relayers & fallbacks - Upgrade delays > challenge window, and most importantly - a sound proof-system integration with DA verifier (e.g., certs recency and decoding checks)

In this forum post ( https://t.co/IDgFlU2uIC) I go through all core attacks that can take place, from the simplest - data withholding attack due to no DA verifier integration - to the more nuanced (e.g, commitment recency, DA certs decoding issues)

It is crucial for chains integrating an external DA layer to make sure the integration is sound, so that the trust assumptions can be reduced to the committee safety thresholds. This is far from straightforward - there are many ways the integration can go wrong

IMO the term Data Availability Verifier (DA verifier) is a much more intuitive term to capture this - an onchain contract (usually set of contracts) that encapsulates all components needed to trust-minimize its external data availability integration

The term DA Bridge refers to different contracts depending on the architecture; usually restrictive to where attestations are posted. Where and how they are verified - the core of the integration - it's not well captured by this ambiguous term, with teams often getting confused

Alt-DA integrations today come in many different forms: - DA certs shape (e.g., sigs/no sigs, different blob info) - DA certs verification (e.g., fully onchain, node-based, offchain provers), and at different times (e.g., inbox-gated, on-demand in PS, coupled with ST proofs)

You would think the only additional trust assumption comes from the external DA layer committee, but the truth is nearly all alt-DA L2s fully rely on its operator to be honest - if the operator withholds or miscommits data, funds on the L1 are at risk

External DA layers like @celestia , @eigen_da and @AvailProject promise cheaper and higher througput for L2s, but integrating them securely into Ethereum’s trust model is a serious architectural challenge 1/n

today is a sad day for the ecosystem. not only hurts me a lot what happened to Balancer but the repeated acts of censorship once again prove that truly decentralised & immutable chains are the exception, not the rule. Long live the incorruptibility of Ethereum mainnet!

gm, just published a proposal to decouple escrows from the stage assessment and provide instead more nuanced escrow-specific assessments. feedback is welcome! this affects projects like @LineaBuild and their upcoming native yield bridge.

My thoughts about the @RelayProtocol, one of the most used (and - IMO - bad) protocols for interop and why I think the Ethereum community should make a strong stance against such designs ⚠️⚠️⚠️ 🧵

zcash is cool but what if we didn't need to buy into someone's ponzi to get privacy 🤷‍♀️

Another great feature from @vincfurc and the whole research team, bringing liveness to @AvailProject, @celestia, @EspressoSys and @eigen_da 🫡 What else would you like to see on DABEAT?

New section dropped in DABEAT: Liveness 🚨 It shows how actively different DA layers are posting their data availability attestations to Ethereum - and whether they stick to their usual schedule. What’s inside? 👇

Must read for anyone building frontends in crypto

Happy to share the progress done in the past month on native rollups! A new shiny website has been created to collect the spec draft and design ideas, with the goal of providing a starting point for feedback from community members and L2 devs. link at the end of the thread 🧵👇

ZK Catalog just got a major refresh! We’re introducing a public framework to evaluate trusted setups of ZK proving systems across L2-related applications. Goal: make hidden trust assumptions explicit, set clear standards & make it the go-to reference for our ecosystem. 🧵👇