Welcome to another week of Validator digest! The biggest announcement this past week came from the Uniswap team who unveiled a new L2 dedicated to DeFi, Unichain. Most interestingly, they have announced from the get-go that they will have validators play a role in providing fast finality. Will this finally be the signal of many more L2s to decentralize their stack? Let's check out some of the L2s that have announced their intentions to decentralize their stack by permissionlessly bringing in external operators.
Protocol | Validator role | URL |
|---|---|---|
Unichain | "a decentralized network of node operators that independently validate the latest blockchain state" | |
Linea | "The accountability feature of QBFT combined with the validators’ stake guarantees L2-finality." | https://community.linea.build/t/proposal-towards-linea-s-decentralization/7701 |
Metis | "We have launched a Decentralized Sequencer Pool to achieve full decentralization in Layer 2 networks and avoid the single-point failures derived from centralized sequencers." | |
Starknet | "Starknet will use a leader-based consensus protocol, with proof-of-stake for Sybil resistance. The role of the first layer is to allow people to join and leave the set of stakers, and to allow all L1 full nodes to determine the present stake distribution and upcoming leader schedule." | https://community.starknet.io/t/simple-decentralized-protocol-proposal/99693 |
Going off of memory, I remember zkSync and Fuel Network having some early discussions on decentralizing their stacks. I failed to locate the relevant communication threads that validate my memory. If anyone has links, please share them with me!
Protocol updates
Avail / Symbiotic
Avail has announced their integration of their Fusion layer with Symbiotic. Fusion is one of Avail's key layer that supports any asset to be staked to secure Avail and by extension Avail DA. With this partnership, any assets restaked on Symbiotic can be staked on Avail Fusion as well. So, theoretically, you can have ETH that: 1) secures Ethereum mainnet, 2) restaked on Symbiotic to secure a co-processor AVS, 3) staked on Avail Fusion to secure Avail, and 4) securing Avail DA.
Avail x @symbioticfi
A unified framework for seamless innovation that introduces multi-asset restaking, powerful use cases for builders, and a vibrant ecosystem of verifiable services to empower users.
To know more, read on
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Conduit
Conduit has announced their own sequencer framework. They claim that their sequencer has 10x higher throughput than some of the other existing sequencers today. Please note that there are no mentions of using any external operators at this moment.
To go along with this post, it's cool to take a look at the live performance of L2s in terms of TPS and Mgas/s. Conduit's sequencer ranks high on these metrics, but of course, Base still remains king.
Hyperliquid
HyperLiquid announced their HYPE token which will be used to secure their own Proof of Stake network. HyperLiquid has been consistently hitting $1 billion in trading volume, so it's undoubtedly a massive opportunity for validators.
The Hyper Foundation has been established to support the growth of the Hyperliquid blockchain and ecosystem. Today, the flagship application on Hyperliquid is the premier decentralised exchange, part of the foundation for a new financial system. Hyperliquid's order books already…
Namada
Namada Delegation Program has been announced. Application period is until the end of this month. Up to 50 validators will qualify for this program and will receive delegations for 6 months.
Solana
The team at Chorus One shared some interesting insights on Solana MEV. Key conclusion is that MEV revenues are being shared at negligible amounts (only 23% of proceeds are shared). @umb_nat suggests that Solana MEV infrastructure needs to mature to allow for opportunities to be better identified. With the incredible increase of on-chain activities, I recon there would be sizeable opportunities on Solana, but the 23% figure is shocking. Are there really not that many players on the Solana builder landscape, or are builders refraining from fee competition?
In our latest dashboard, we unravel Solana MEV dynamic. Our key finding: MEV on Solana is still immature, leading to most of on-chain proceeds flowing away from Solana's stakeholders. Follow this thread for more insights
flipsidecrypto.xyzSolana-MEV Dashboard
This Dashboard is intended to track MEV extracted on Solana. However, it may happen that some transactions are decoded incorrectly due to unforeseen interactions when creating the dashboard. Thus...
Random ramblings
All successful applications will eventually become their own L1s or L2s. It's an obvious evolution, especially if the existing L1 and L2 have roadmaps and considerations that are independent of the applications. I think the most representative example is dYdX which moved to L2 using StarkEx built by Starkware before moving to using the Cosmos SDK to become its own L1. It's difficult to tell whether dYdX's migrations are considered successful since so many competitors spawned during this period.
Eventually all tokens need a core use case other than just being a governance token. I don't think there has been any better use case than using tokens to secure a protocol. How do you make this happen for an application that doesn't really need its own dedicated security? You create an L1 or L2 with decentralized roles with a staking mechanism. I am willing to bet that the vast majority of the top 100 coins will have some form of (re)staking mechanism within the next 2 years, even including memecoins.
Staking Summit this year is packed with great speakers! I've attended both of their events in the previous two years and have found them to be extremely helpful to connect with validators and protocols. Worthwhile to note is that there aren't that many stakers at the event, so make sure to manage your expectations when preparing. https://www.stakingrewards.com/summit
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