The Battle for Data Availability: Background, Ecology, and Prospects

Overview

Data availability ( DA ) projects are thriving, among which competitive ones include Celestia, EigenLayer, Avail, NearDA, and Covalent.

The Huobi Research Institute analyzes that core DA technology is not complex. The simplest single machine can achieve DA, while the most complex, like Celestia, uses sampling patterns to achieve decentralization. In short, DA is about storage, which has a relatively high cost. If Ethereum-level security is not required, the choice of DA mainly considers the balance between cost and security.

The important principle of using DA is: the higher the value of the service, the more secure the DA should be.

Based on a comprehensive analysis of the DA track, Huobi Research Institute believes that the future of DA may present a decentralized pattern, with 7-8 major DAs possibly being sufficient to meet demand.

1. The emergence of data availability issues

1.1 What is DA

Data availability refers to the process by which block producers publish all transaction data of a block to the network, allowing validators to download it. If the producer publishes complete data and validators can download it, then the data is available; if some data is concealed making it impossible for validators to download the complete data, then the data is unavailable.

Two key points of DA issues: security and cost

DA includes two aspects:

Ensure that the verification mechanism is secure, reducing the cost of publishing data.

To ensure the security of verification, L2 sequencers typically publish L2 state data and transaction data on the more secure Ethereum, relying on Ethereum for settlement and achieving data availability.

Therefore, the data availability layer is actually the place where L2 publishes transaction data, and currently mainstream L2s use Ethereum as the data availability layer.

L2 simply makes data availability and settlement occur on Ethereum. While the security is sufficient, the costs are enormous. This is also the second problem faced by L2, which is how to reduce the cost of publishing data.

2. Cost Composition and Cost Reduction and Efficiency Improvement Directions in DA

To make the overall L2 cheaper, it is necessary to reduce the cost of publishing data. There are mainly two methods:

• Reduce the cost of publishing data on L1, such as Ethereum's upcoming EIP-4844 upgrade.

• Mimicking Rollup, the execution of transactions is detached from L1, and data availability is also detached from L1 to reduce costs, meaning Ethereum is not used as a data availability layer.

Currently, in the DA scheme, Near DA has the lowest cost, about $0.0016/block. Next are Celestia, EngenLayer, EIP4844, etc.

3. DA in the Eyes of V God

3.1 Not using Ethereum DA solutions is not a true Layer 2.

After the explosion of Celestia, Vitalik Buterin hinted that "Ethereum layer 2 projects must use data availability on ETH." Dankrad Feist, a member of the Ethereum Foundation, pointed out that those not using ETH as the DA layer are neither Rollups nor Ethereum Layer 2.

Thus, Arbitrum Nova and Mantle are to be "delisted" from the Layer 2 list, as they only disclose transaction data on the off-chain DA network named DAC outside of ETH (.

Dankrad also stated that solutions like Plasmas and state channels, which do not require on-chain data availability to ensure security, are still considered Layer 2, but Validium), which does not use ETH as the DA layer for ZKRollup(, is not considered Layer 2.

) 3.2 Using non-Ethereum as DA means it is Ethereum Validium.

V God later stated in a Twitter reply, "Using validium is the right choice for many applications, and a good distributed DA can enhance the actual security of validium."

He believes that the core of rollup is unconditional security assurance: even if everyone is against you, you can still withdraw your assets. If data availability relies on external systems, this assurance cannot be obtained.

3.3 About ENS and Data Availability

The ENS domain service defines a set of interaction logic, allowing users to input a short domain name that automatically connects to the corresponding long address of the ENS smart contract, solving the pain point of complex and hard-to-remember EOA addresses. ENS's domain service points towards a future expansion market with a larger user base, especially the Mass Adoption user group. Layer 2 is the future of Ethereum's expansion and absorption of large traffic.

Vitalik Buterin believes that if the ENS domain resolution scheme cannot cover layer 2 and remains at the Ethereum mainnet level, it will be difficult to open up the imagination space. Against this background, Vitalik explained the importance of ENS on Twitter, "it needs to be affordable!". ENS will naturally consider providing a complete set of data resolution solutions aimed at layer 2, allowing users to directly perform domain resolution and data retrieval on layer 2, reducing dependence on the semi-centralized gateways of each respective layer 2.

For users to properly use ENS domains on layer2, it is necessary to call and verify global data on the Ethereum mainnet. This means that to enjoy this set of services provided by ENS, one must adopt the authentic Ethereum Data Availability capability. Layer2 solutions that take shortcuts by launching their chains based on the OP Stack and place DA on third-party DA platforms like Celestia will not be compatible with ENS. Vitalik's deeper intention is to establish a set of interactive operability standards for various layer2 platforms using ENS, while also consolidating some control over DA.

3.4 V God Talks Plasma Return

1. In Vitalik's article, he mentioned that Ethereum's Layer 2 scaling solutions originally included various options such as Plasma, Rollup, Validium, and Parallel. The scaling direction that Vitalik expects should be balanced development, adapting to various application scenarios for diversified Layer 2 construction. However, the current market landscape shows that the Rollup solution is dominant and increasingly competitive.

2. Plasma is equivalent to a sidechain solution, which periodically synchronizes Merkle state data with the mainnet. It is a scalability solution that relies on the mainnet for data and computation. This allows Layer 2 to efficiently scale in a highly centralized manner, utilizing a very complex ledger model and reusing the capabilities of the mainnet validators. Vitalik's new article brings Plasma back into the spotlight and guides the ZK+Plasma scaling solution, clearly signaling another political move concerning layer 2.

3.5 Summary

V God's various operations can be summarized as:

The demand for DA is very high, but they do not want to give the market to Celestia. To start with security, they brought up the ENS issue, and in the end, they found that the market is not buying it. There are still many people using first-party DA, and one might as well say that using Validium counts. A few days later, they dug up the outdated Plasma in an attempt to guide the market to explore the ZK+Plasma direction. Essentially, the goal is to continuously pull the DA market towards Ethereum.

![Who is the final king of the DA track? Background, ecosystem, and future outlook on Data Availability War]###https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-c56268b4dee50019c329f10b189e4047.webp(

4. DA Solutions and Sorting of Each DA Project

) 4.1 DA Solution

There are many solutions for the DA layer. Broadly speaking, they can be divided into two parts: on-chain and off-chain.

On-chain solutions: This means that L2 will still use Ethereum as the DA layer and rely on Ethereum to reduce data availability costs. This implies that Ethereum will serve as a real-time bulletin board in the future, where data announcements will be deleted after a period of time, and L2 must find ways to store all data backups on its own.

Off-chain solutions: That is, Ethereum will no longer be used as a DA layer, but will instead seek more economical ways to obtain data availability. Based on the differences in decentralization and security, off-chain solutions can be divided into four types: Validium, Data Availability Committee ### DAC (, Volition, and general DA solutions.

![Who is the final king of the DA track? Background, ecology, and future prospects of the Data Availability War])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-2cd763ce098af63e2687672a0233caaf.webp(

) 4.2 Celestia

Celestia is the pioneer of modular public chains, developed based on the Cosmos SDK, focusing on data availability. It is currently a competitive leader in the DA sector with its mainnet already launched.

Technical Features:

• Data Availability Sampling ### DAS ( DAS allows lightweight nodes to verify data availability without downloading the entire block. Celestia uses a two-dimensional RS erasure coding scheme to re-encode block data for lightweight nodes' DAS.

• Namespace Merkle Tree ) NMT ( NMT allows the execution layer and settlement layer on Celestia to only download transactions relevant to them. Celestia divides the data in blocks into multiple namespaces, each corresponding to applications like rollups built on Celestia, with each application only needing to download data that is relevant to itself, thereby improving network efficiency.

Celestia primarily generates revenue from applications in two ways:

• Pay blob space fees: Rollup uses $TIA to pay for publishing data to Celestia's blob space.

• Pay gas fees: Developers use $TIA as the gas token for the Rollup, similar to ETH for Ethereum-based Rollups.

Development potential:

• The project has been launched, and the technology maturity is relatively high.

• Potentially rich airdrops from staking $TIA, such as airdrop targets for projects like Dymension and Altlayer, will choose $TIA stakers. In the future, more Ethereum Layer 2 projects, modular public chains, and Cosmos ecosystem projects may follow a similar airdrop route.

• Ecological richness: Collaborating with cross-chain bridges, settlement layer solutions, DeFi projects, games, sorters, etc.

• The number of DA partnership projects is continuously increasing, including Manta, Eclipse, Caldera, and Snapchain. At the same time, it has integrated with Arbitrum Orbit, Polygon CDK, and the Aevo derivatives trading platform, among others.

![Who is the final king of the DA track? Background, ecology, and future prospects of the Data Availability War])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-590a78eb926d694a708fb7792245f800.webp(

) 4.3 EigenDA

EigenLayer is a restaking protocol based on Ethereum, allowing users to restake ETH, lsdETH, and LP Tokens on other sidechains, oracles, middleware, etc., as nodes to receive validation rewards. This way, third-party projects can benefit from the security of the ETH mainnet, and ETH stakers can earn more rewards, achieving a win-win situation.

EigenDA is a decentralized data availability service built on Ethereum using EigenLayer Restaking, and it will be the first active validation service on EigenLayer. Unlike Celestia or Avail, EigenDA does not require the onboarding of a new set of validators, allowing Ethereum validators to freely choose to join.

Technical Features:

• Enhance Ethereum's DA capability: Blob block data + KZG commitment

EigenDA mobilized the Blob block data after the Cancun upgrade + KZG commitments, allowing the Rollup chain to perform erasure coding on the Blob Data to generate KZG commitments and then publish them to the EigenDA contract. The EigenDA nodes ensure the subsequent chain's DA capabilities, which effectively enhances Ethereum's DA capabilities. The key point is that the entire process of EigenDA revolves around existing Ethereum infrastructure like Blob and KZG, and the node validation work is also participated by Ethereum Validators.

• No autonomous consensus and P2P network

EigenDA nodes must re-stake ETH### or ETH derivatives ( in the EigenLayer contract on Ethereum L1. EigenDA nodes are a subset of Ethereum validators. Subsequently, DA purchasers ) such as rollups, also known as distributors (, after receiving the data blob, encode it with erasure codes, generate KZG commitments, publish and distribute them for node confirmation. After that, distributors collect these signatures one by one, generate aggregated signatures, and publish them to the EigenDA smart contract, which verifies the signatures.

• Use a custodial proof method

EigenDA does not use data availability sampling to verify whether nodes truly store data, but instead employs a custody proof method. Anyone can submit proof to the EigenDA smart contract, which will be verified by the smart contract. If the verification is successful, the lazy validators will be penalized.

Development potential:

• Multiple collaborators are competing with Celestia: now integrated with several L2 projects such as Celo, Mantle, Fluent, Offshore, OP stack, etc.

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