Interoperability Protocol of Rollup - The New Holy Grail in Modular Blockchain Primitives 🧙‍♂️

As we enter the year 2024, the development of modular blockchain infrastructure is accelerating. Dapps built on these infrastructures, such as Perp DEX, Web3 game infra, anti-OEV oracle, and NFT trading platforms, are emerging as new paradigm products based on Rollup.

The upcoming Dapp Rollup new paradigm, Perp DEX Aevo, which will soon start trading farming, is poised to challenge the old paradigm Dapps (such as GMX built on general Rollup) and initiate the process of flipping perpetual contract CEX ceiling Bybit in this bull market.

The superpower of Dapp Rollup comes from their modular structure.

We know that modular blockchains decouple a monolithic blockchain into four layers: consensus layer, data availability (DA) layer, settlement layer, and execution layer. This is achieved through the architecture design of introducing DAS (Data Availability Sampling) technology and lightweight nodes responsible for consensus verification, enabling decentralization, security, and scalability.

Currently, the infrastructure of modular blockchains is thriving.

Mainstream projects in the data availability (DA) layer include Ethereum, Celestia DA which uses optimistic-fraud proof to ensure data availability, Avail DA which uses KZG commitment-validity proof to ensure data availability, Near DA, and EigenDA (not yet online) which uses Restaking validation set + KZG commitment-validity verification to ensure data availability.

Mainstream projects in the settlement layer include Dymension, which supports modular Rollup to share AMM liquidity and interoperability, and Cevmos, which bridges modular Rollup with EVM-compatible chains for liquidity.

Mainstream projects in the execution layer are divided into two categories: native modular execution layers such as Fuel and Eclipse, and general Rollup-provided SDKs such as Op Stack, Arbitrum Orbit, Polygon CDK, and Zk Stack.

In the crypto industry, there has always been a phenomenon of supply leading demand or even creating demand. With the rise of the new paradigm of Dapp Rollup, many service providers have emerged to help Dapp developers build Rollup as a Service (RaaS) using the above modular stack. Mainstream projects include Altlayer, Gelato, Conduit, and Caldera.

Conduit is a high-performance Dapp Rollup RaaS service provider for Aevo, Lyra, and other Perp DEX requirements. Caldera mainly builds Dapp Rollup infra for Web3 games, such as Loot Chain and HYTOPIA.

With the mature development of the intermediate layer, the last piece of the puzzle in the infrastructure layer of modular blockchains - Dapp Rollup interoperability protocol, has become a new design space for incentivizing competition between crypto VCs and developers.

In general, interoperability protocols in the crypto industry have a common fundamental issue, which is how two different entities can reach consensus/trust each other.

Blockchain solves the fundamental issue of Alice <==> Bob, cross-chain bridges solve the fundamental issue of Chain A <==> Chain B, and Rollup solves the fundamental issue of L1 <==> L2.

There are six classic paradigms for achieving cross-chain (including L1 and L2) interoperability:

• Hash Time-Lock Atomic Swap
• MPC Multi-Signature Relay Layer
• Tendermint SDK Relay Layer
• Zk Proof + Lightweight Node
• Lightweight Node + Oracle
• Rollup Relay Layer

Among these six classic paradigm architectures, there is a need to balance between security, finality, and capital efficiency.

The cross-chain bridge with the minimal trust assumption uses the L2 <==> Rollup Relay Layer <==> L2 architecture, such as Orbiter and Across.

This architecture is also recommended by Vitalik. However, this approach was not widely adopted before due to the high gas fees and long finality of Ethereum. Now, with the improvement of modular blockchain infrastructure, these two issues have been resolved.

Currently, the Rollup interoperability protocols in my observation list include:

• KIRA Network, a super modular blockchain, has proposed new primitives of "super modularity" and "finality". In its network architecture, the MF layer simplifies the network complexity of N <==> N interoperability protocols to N <==> KIRA through the use of Staking-Slash game mechanism + block header verification mechanism to replicate the states of all chains and Rollups.

• Initia, which has proposed the new primitives of Interwoven Rollup interoperability, but has not yet released documentation.

• Polymer, which extends IBC interoperability to the entire chain. Polymer itself is an Ethereum Rollup that uses IBC technology to achieve interoperability between different Rollups. It uses OP Stack as the settlement layer, implements native IBC interoperability using Cosmos SDK, and provides scalable data availability proof using EigenDA.

Imagine that during the peak of this bull market cycle, there are 1 billion active users on millions of Dapp Rollup new paradigm products, and interoperability between Dapp Rollups will become a market necessity. This is why building Rollup Relay Layer using modular stack has become the new holy grail of modular primitives.

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