Key points:

1. One-click chain launch technology is becoming mature, and various L1 and L2 chains are beginning to emerge;

2. Native contracts can no longer meet the needs of ecological applications, and large applications have begun to deploy their own application chains;

3. The chain issuance market is gradually divided into two camps: independent L1 and L2. L1 emphasizes the customization and independence of blockchain, while L2 relies more on the development of the Ethereum ecosystem.

4. Modularity has become the direction of independent blockchain construction, and speed, customization, and flexibility have become the main requirements of the market for blockchain construction;

5. Lower-cost, more efficient and customizable blockchain launch platforms will gradually replace Polkadot and other launch platforms.

introduction

Although the blockchain industry has not been developed for a long time, there is still a lot of room for infrastructure, upper-layer applications, and model innovation. However, after the development in recent years, the industry's infrastructure has been rapidly improved, from the initial one-click coin issuance to the current one-click chain issuance model, which is already quite mature. Especially in terms of one-click chain issuance, after several generations of chain issuance technology iterations, it has become possible to build a main network, and it is very complete in terms of main network performance, security, decentralization, data storage, consensus mechanism, and application construction, and there is a lot of room for choice.

Whether you want to build a Layer 1 yourself, or build a Layer 2 or even a Layer 3 on the Ethereum ecosystem, it can be easily achieved. For some applications that require specific scenarios, the emergence of application chains is sufficient to meet their needs. For example, the decentralized derivative platform dYdX has developed the application chain dYdX Chain based on the Cosmos SDK.

This report will comprehensively analyze the technical evolution, advantages and disadvantages comparison, development status, and current market demand for chain-issuing platforms of major chain-issuing platforms. Is there really a demand for one-click chain-issuing in the market? Is it better to choose smart contracts to build Dapps for applications, or is it better to build your own application chain? What is the future trend of one-click chain-issuing, and what deficiencies need to be improved?


Table of contents

1. Demands of the blockchain market

  • Application market demand

  • Independent public chain development requirements

  • Enterprise blockchain transformation

  • Government and regulatory needs

2. The evolution of blockchain technology: entering the homes of ordinary people

3. Analysis of chain launch platforms: Lightweight chains are more popular in the market

  • Polka Dot

  • Cosmos

  • Avalanche

  • Starcoin

  • L2 chain platform

4. Comparison of technical differences: flexibility and customization become the trend

  • Consensus Mechanism

  • Network performance

  • VM Virtual Machine

  • Composability of basic components

  • On-chain governance

  • Data availability layer

5. One-click chain launch application scenario

  • Help projects go online quickly

  • Provide technical support to break through application bottlenecks

  • Helping enterprises transform to Web3

6. Bottlenecks and challenges

  • Security issues

  • Performance issues

  • Permission issues

  • Policy compliance issues

7. Summary: The future of one-click chain launch


1. Market demand for blockchain

The market demand for blockchain development fundamentally comes from the application layer. The narrative of Web3 is [Next Billion User], and to carry so many users, a single chain cannot support such a phenomenal application. It is obvious from the construction of Ronin by Sky Mavis, the development team of Axie Infinity, that Ronin was created to solve some problems in the Axie Infinity game, such as the congestion of the Ethereum network and the high gas fees. As a sidechain of Ethereum, Ronin runs independently and aims to provide reliable, fast and affordable guarantees for games while avoiding the expansion problems of the main chain.

There are not many teams in the market that have professional technical background and development capabilities like Sky Mavis. Most teams cannot independently develop and run a public chain and ensure its performance and security. This has led to the market demand for one-click chain issuance. In general, the market demand for chain issuance includes the following points:

1.1 Application Market Demand

We can see that many large-scale applications have such needs. For example, Uniswap Labs launched Unichain on October 11. As a Layer 2 built on OP Stack technology, Unichain has faster transaction speeds and lower costs, and enhances its liquidity through OP's Superchain ecosystem.

For many mature applications, building an application chain by themselves can get rid of the many limitations of the native main network, gain greater autonomy, and also have exclusive access to the computing and storage resources of the entire network, which will help applications break through growth bottlenecks and achieve greater breakthroughs.

1.2 Requirements for independent public chain development

The most discussed topic about chain development is undoubtedly Layer2, represented by Optimism's OP Stack and Arbitrum Orbit. With the help of Raas (Rollups-as-a-Service), developing a Layer2 chain has become very simple. However, there are still many development teams that have the need to customize consensus mechanisms, development languages, network access rights, VMs (virtual machines), and on-chain governance. For example, PoW is used for consensus, the more secure Move is used for development languages, and network permissions require authorization for access.

1.3 Enterprise Blockchain Transformation

With the continuous improvement of Web3 infrastructure, traditional Internet companies are also facing the need to transform to blockchain. Companies hope to use blockchain for supply chain management, data sharing, asset tracking, etc. At this time, the maturity of one-click chain technology can meet the needs of companies to deploy their own private chains or alliance chains without reinventing the wheel.

1.4 Needs from Governments and Regulatory Agencies

Governments and regulators in some countries hope to adopt blockchain technology for digital identity management, smart contract execution, e-government management, etc. Through one-click chain issuance, these institutions can quickly create blockchain networks and customize them as needed to promote the application of technology in public services.

2. The evolution of blockchain technology: entering the homes of ordinary people

When we talk about the spring of Web3 applications, the demand for launching chains has already appeared, from the various forked projects at the beginning, such as BOS, Meetone, Telos, which forked the EOS code; to some copycat public chains that directly copied the Ethereum code, such as Binance Chain. Although these cannot be said to be truly one-click chain launches, it can be seen that the market has an urgent need to launch its own public chain.

The real one-click chain launch should start with Cosmos and Polkadot. To launch a chain on Cosmos, you can use the Cosmos SDK to build it, and then use the IBC protocol to communicate between chains. On Polkadot, you build parallel chains through the Polkadot SDK toolkit, and then achieve interoperability and shared security through the zero-layer protocol relay chain. The architecture and design purpose of Cosmos and Polkadot attempt to build a bridge between blockchains and ultimately build a blockchain Internet.

However, to truly achieve a simple and fast one-click chain launch, they still have many shortcomings. For example, to develop a parachain on Polkadot, you first need to stake its native token DOT, and then bid for the relay chain slot. The number of slots is limited, and the market demand for chain launch is huge, so the cost of the auction is very high. According to data, in the first round of Polkadot's slot auction, the top 5 locked DOTs exceeded 99 million, close to 10% of the total supply. Among them, the first Moonbeam locked 35,759,931 DOTs, which was about 135 million US dollars at the price at the time. Since there were only 5 qualifications, the fifth Clover locked 9,752,487 DOTs, which was about 37,059,452 US dollars at the price at the time. Simply put, at that time, to launch a parachain on Polkadot, you needed to lock up a minimum of 37.05 million US dollars in assets, so the cost was very high.

 https://parachains.info/auctions/polkadot-1-5


However, with the emergence of modular L2 represented by Optimism and Arbitrum, simple and fast one-click chain launch has gradually become a reality. Developers can directly develop with the toolkit provided, configure many components of the chain, such as throughput, privacy, gas tokens, governance, precompilation, data availability layer, etc., and share the main network security and communication layer. Developers do not need to build a powerful node network and data storage system on their own. The network's security, computing and data storage can all be provided by other branch networks. And communicate with other chains in the ecosystem, share liquidity, enhance interoperability, and break down isolated liquidity barriers.


In addition to the EVM ecosystem, Starcoin, a one-click blockchain platform based on the Move language, has also quickly become a representative of the new generation of blockchain platforms. StarStack is its development framework, which can provide a more flexible, customized, and independent blockchain design solution. For example, the consensus mechanism can choose PoW or PoS, the virtual machine supports Move construction, the on-chain governance module and parameters can be customized, and the blockchain access rights can also be customized according to the needs of developers.

It is particularly noteworthy that Starcoin has proposed the concept of AI+Web3 smart chain issuance. It is developing a conversational chain issuance system connected to AI, that is, developers can put forward requirements and modification opinions in the form of dialogue, and AI will complete the contract deployment and related parameter settings. This greatly reduces the threshold for one-click chain issuance, allowing non-technical personnel to operate the system and release their own L1 blockchain.

3. Analysis of chain launch platforms: Lightweight chains are more favored by the market

The concept of one-click chain launch has been put into practice since 2018. Substrate launched by Polkadot supports the creation of a blockchain in 15 minutes, solving the technical difficulties of creating a public chain. At the same time, Cosmos SDK is also constantly improving and participating in the competition in a low-key manner.

Later, Polygon, Avalanche, Starcoin, Rollup technology solutions and others joined the competition in the chain issuance market, providing developers with tools to quickly develop blockchains and optimize parameters for different needs, making the creation of a blockchain simple and efficient.

3.1 Polkadot

Polkadot is the first emerging chain platform, and its solution is relay chain + parachain. The relay chain is a zero-layer protocol responsible for network security, consensus, and transaction processing; the parachain is built through Polkadot Substrate, focusing on highly flexible and customized protocol construction. Each parachain can have its own parameters, such as block time, transaction fees, governance mechanism, and mining rewards.

Substrate is an extensible, modular, open source blockchain framework that implements most common functions encountered in blockchain development, such as p2p network, consensus algorithm, common encryption algorithm, data storage, transaction management, etc. At the same time, Substrate abstracts the business logic related to blockchain, so developers only need to care about the implementation related to business logic, which makes it easy to combine and customize blockchain functions.

Substrate was created by blockchain technology company Parity Technologies, which was founded by Gavin Wood, one of the co-founders of Ethereum and the creator of Polkadot.

Substrate has many advantages in blockchain development:

  • Modularity: Substrate allows developers to easily create, combine and publish components to form business logic by providing an open SDK and practical components that can be combined, reused and published.

  • Multi-layer architecture: The three-layer structure of Substrate is Substrate Core, Substrate SRML and Substrate Node.

    Substrate Core is a module for building a minimal blockchain framework, which can provide modules such as storage, consensus, transaction queues, block production mechanisms, and low-level JavaScript utilities; the SRML layer is simpler, and all developers have to do is select the group they need from the module and set the parameters; Substrate Node, you only need to provide a JSON configuration file to get a complete smart contract blockchain.

  • Non-fork upgrade: Substrate supports non-fork Runtime upgrade. The Substrate-based chain stores WebAssembly Blob or WASM Blob, which contains all the logic required for the chain to build a new block. The chain's own Runtime is contained in this WASM Blob. If the relevant information of the blockchain needs to be modified, it only needs to be combined with the on-chain governance referendum. If the votes are passed, the corresponding upgrade can be completed, thereby reducing the impact of hard forks.

Polkadot has a spiritual leader in the community, complete development tools, and rich ecological support, so it attracted a large number of developers in the bull market in 2020. However, Polkadot's development momentum soon came to a halt after its rapid rise.

The direct reason is that the investment institutions in the Polkadot ecosystem focus more on short-term returns, so long-term holders have basically suffered heavy losses. At the same time, due to the cost issues mentioned above, many developers have stopped. But the fundamental reason is that the overall progress of projects in the ecosystem is not as expected, and those applications are not indispensable to it.

In fact, there is also a hidden limitation, which is that it only supports a maximum of 100 parachains, which discourages potential new developers. And after Gavin Wood resigned as CEO of Parity Technologies, the Polkadot ecosystem development organization, it will be very difficult for Polkadot to take off again in the future.

3.2 Cosmos

Compared with Polkadot, the Cosmos ecosystem is quite comprehensive. According to Coingekco statistics, there are 162 Cosmos ecosystem projects included, and among the top 100 projects by market value, 12 are from the Cosmos ecosystem, such as Celestia, Injective, and Sei, which were popular some time ago, all from Cosmos, and Luna, which previously had a market value of over 10 billion.

Cosmos SDK is an open source toolkit for building multi-asset public proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchains. Blockchains built using Cosmos SDK are often referred to as application-specific blockchains, or what we call dApp Chains.

Today’s mainstream applications are all built on virtual machines such as Ethereum. Developers build decentralized applications through smart contracts. However, due to bottlenecks in the underlying platform, applications may be limited in flexibility, sovereignty, and performance, so they are not suitable for building complex applications.

Cosmos' application chain is a blockchain customized for running a single application. Developers have more choices when building, and can also provide better sovereignty, security, and performance. However, the disadvantage is that liquidity is decentralized, security is isolated, and security cannot be shared like Polkadot. At the same time, the developer ecosystem also needs to be built independently.

3.3 Avalanche

Avalanche defines itself as: an open platform suitable for deploying Dapps and enterprise-level blockchains, where developers can deploy their own L1 (formerly known as Subnets).

Avalanche L1 is a customizable validator network that can achieve consensus for one or more blockchains in the ecosystem. L1 operates independently from the Avalanche mainnet and has its own execution system to ensure that there is no competition for resources. L1 validators must first join the mainnet and stake at least 2000 AVAX to participate.

Avalanche L1 improves blockchain scalability by reducing traffic on the main network, resulting in faster transactions and lower gas fees. They offer a wide range of customization options, including control over validator requirements, token structure, and permission settings.

It is worth mentioning that Avalanche's L1 architecture takes a compliance route, which requires validators to meet relevant compliance conditions, such as validators must be located in a given country/region, must pass KYC/AML checks, must hold specific licenses, etc.

At the same time, it also supports the creation of private blockchains, where only certain predefined validators can join, and the content of the blockchain is only visible to these validators, which meets the needs of some projects that want to keep information private.

3.4 Starcoin

Starcoin is a one-click intelligent deployment solution based on the Move language, focusing on high-performance, customizable Layer1 blockchain. Developers can use StarStack for blockchain development. StarStack is an open source code library with modularity as its core, used to build customized Layer1. Developers can use this code library to start the Move virtual machine and run their own blockchain. In the future, they can also use its AI intelligent system to deploy blockchain in the form of dialogue.

Unlike other blockchain distribution platforms, StarStack has unique advantages in security, network performance, consensus mechanism and flexibility, making it the only blockchain distribution platform that developers can fully customize.

The advantages of StarStack technology framework are:

1) Built on Move language and virtual machine. StarStack's underlying framework and smart contracts are written in Move language, and the virtual machine also uses Move. Object-oriented and asset-based programming makes resources in the module highly transparent, while external calls to the module are completely opaque. Move language is also known as the most secure and flexible smart contract language, which also provides more space for its one-click chain launch solution when customizing Layer1.

2) Based on DAG structure. StarStack introduced the DAG structure and launched FlexiDAG in combination with its own innovation, which upgraded the PoW consensus mechanism and dynamically adjusted the block time, difficulty and block reward. FlexiDAG will speed up the block generation, shorten the transaction confirmation time, and greatly improve the network performance and system efficiency. In addition, key parameters can be dynamically adjusted through the on-chain governance mechanism, making the system more adaptable and flexible.

3) Parallel high-performance network. In StarStack, TurboSTM, a high-performance multi-threaded memory computing engine, was introduced, which completely changed the way smart contracts are executed. TurboSTM uses multi-version concurrency control (MVCC) and optimistic locking to achieve synchronous data reading and timely updates, greatly reducing execution bottlenecks and improving transaction throughput. This also makes the network performance have a qualitative leap. According to the official test environment data, the highest TPS can reach 130,000, which is already the ceiling of the industry's public chain.

4) Compatible with mainstream applications in the Move ecosystem. Recently, Starcoin has achieved full compatibility with applications in the Move ecosystem through the upgrade of Move V7, allowing developers to easily migrate and deploy their dApps without rewriting the code. In short, Layer1 issued by Starcoin is compatible with most applications in the Move ecosystem. For example, applications developed on Aptos can be easily migrated to the new Layer1 without modifying the original code. Of course, this also applies to blockchains developed using StarStack, so this provides great convenience for developers who want to deploy the Move ecosystem.

3.5 L2 Chain Launch Platform

L2 chain platforms are represented by Optimism, Polygon, Arbitrum, and also include zkSync and Starknet. They are mainly for users with Ethereum ecosystem development needs. They issue L2 chains, which are not completely independent blockchains in the true sense. Because its consensus mechanism, VM, processing performance and gas fees are heavily dependent on the Ethereum architecture, and there are also many deficiencies in scalability.

4. Comparison of technical differences: flexibility and customization become the trend!

From the above analysis of various chain-issuing platforms, we can see that each platform has its own characteristics, and has different trade-offs in modularization, customization, security, network performance, etc. For example, application-focused projects can choose Cosmos to build their own application chains; if you value the development and security of the Ethereum ecosystem, you can choose OP, Arbitrum or Polygon to build your own Layer2 chain; if you are optimistic about the development of the Move ecosystem, you can choose to build an independent Move public chain based on Starcoin.

But from the perspective of the purpose of launching a chain, we need to think about what the needs of developers are for building a public chain? Is it to provide high TPS, ultra-low gas, and smooth commercial-grade services for millions of users, or to provide an enterprise with a highly customized, flexible parameter, and permission-managed internal system?

Below we will conduct a comprehensive comparison of various chain issuance platforms from the perspectives of consensus mechanism, interoperability, network performance and transaction costs, VM, etc. to see the advantages and disadvantages of each chain issuance platform.

4.1 Consensus Mechanism

In terms of consensus, most blockchain platforms use PoS, which ensures the security and decentralization of the network by staking native tokens. Of course, there are some small differences, such as Polkadot uses NPOS (Nominated Proof of Stake), and Cosmos uses a consensus mechanism that combines PoS+BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerance). Of course, there are also some projects that are compatible with PoW and PoS, such as Starcoin.

PoS does not require physical mining machines, does not consume a lot of complex computing power and electricity, and is relatively more environmentally friendly and energy-saving. Because it does not require complex calculations, transactions are usually faster. However, in order to ensure decentralization and security, PoS also requires more nodes to participate in network maintenance, similar to Ethereum, which has a huge node network.

As the first generation consensus mechanism, PoW increases the difficulty of attack by calculating the complexity of hash functions. Attackers need to consume huge computing power and electricity to control the network, making it more difficult for the network to be maliciously controlled. At the same time, PoW has outstanding performance in decentralization. Small-scale projects can participate in mining with a computer, a mobile phone, or even a network broadband, and large-scale projects can use professional mining machines. At present, PoW is the earliest widely adopted consensus mechanism and has been successfully run on multiple blockchains for many years, with excellent performance in security and decentralization.

4.2 Network Performance

Theoretically, network performance is inversely proportional to transaction costs. The higher the performance, the lower the transaction costs. The performance mentioned here mainly refers to TPS and BPS. According to statistics, the TPS of each parallel chain of Polkadot is only 1,000. Although it has more advantages than some old public chains, it is obviously not enough as a public chain that can carry more Web3 applications.

L2, Ethereum's expansion plan, is also not satisfactory. The theoretical maximum TPS of Optimism and Arbitrum are 714 tx/s and 40,000 tx/s respectively, while the recorded maximum TPS performance is 67.41 tx/s and 944 tx/s.

https://chainspect.app/compare/arbitrum-vs-optimism

Meanwhile, in terms of gas fees, although it has been greatly reduced compared to Ethereum, Optimism’s gas for sending ETH is $0.09, and the gas for transactions is $0.18; Arbitrum’s gas for sending ETH is $0.09, and the gas for transactions is $0.27. This price is quite high compared to Solana, BSC and other L1s.

https://l2fees.info/

The theoretical maximum TPS of Polygon is 649 tx/s, and the theoretical maximum TPS of Avlanche is 357 tx/s, both of which are less than 1000. However, Starcoin, which is developed based on the Move language, has recently been observed to have upgraded its mainnet 2.0, with a theoretical maximum TPS of 130,000 tx/s, which is quite amazing. Compared with the current statistical chain-issuing platforms, it is already a huge lead. Of course, since the 2.0 mainnet is still in the trial operation stage, whether it can really reach the terrifying 130,000 in the formal environment remains to be verified, but at half the price, being able to exceed 50,000 TPS is already the leader in performance public chains.

At the same time, there are also different differences in BPS (blocks per second). We know that the block generation speed directly affects the transaction speed. The faster the block generation speed, the more transactions can be packaged under the same block size, and the faster the transaction confirmation speed. Among them, Polygon 2.13s/block, Avalanche 2.05s/block, Polkadot 6s/block, Starcoin 1s/block, it can be seen that Starcoin is still significantly better than other public chains in this regard, while Polkadot lags behind in this regard.

4.3 VM Virtual Machine

We know that VM is responsible for executing smart contracts and calculating gas consumption in the blockchain. All dApps require a virtual machine to run normally.

Polygon, Optimism, Arbitrum, and Avalanche use Ethereum's virtual machine EVM, which is written in the Solidity development language. It can support bytecode-compatible smart contracts, which enables it to cross various blockchains. At the same time, EVM is good at executing complex and customized smart contracts, which is essential for various applications including dApp, DeFi platforms, games, and NFTs. At the same time, EVM is also the largest blockchain ecosystem at present, with a huge developer community behind it to provide support, more mature technology, and rich ecological applications.

However, EVM also has some shortcomings. For example, the scalability is poor, and EVM can only process a limited number of transactions per second; the gas fee is high, and the gas fee will increase rapidly in the case of network congestion due to the lack of scalability of EVM; the irreversibility of smart contracts, once deployed, smart contracts on the blockchain cannot be changed.

Starcoin uses the Move virtual machine. It will perform verification before the contract runs. This verifier can check for various types of errors. The security of the contract state during the contract call process is mainly isolated through the security within the programming language to ensure safer operation of smart contracts.

At the same time, compared with EVM, the composability of the Move language is reflected in the modules. The modules themselves are stored in the global storage, so in terms of smart contract optimization and upgrade, it is only necessary to target the combined modules, which speeds up the upgrade and optimization of the contract.

4.4 Composability of basic components

Composability is mainly reflected in the modular blockchain, which divides the entire system into several specialized components, each with its own clear functions and responsibilities. Such a design allows each component to be optimized for a specific task, thereby ensuring efficient execution. Just like Lego blocks, each block has its specific shape and function, but can be combined together to build a variety of models.

Currently, all chain-issuing platforms have the ability to modularize blockchains, dividing the blockchain into execution layer, data availability layer, settlement layer, and consensus layer, greatly improving the composability of the network.

In the Rollups solution, the L2 chain is usually only responsible for the execution layer, leaving consensus, data availability and settlement to the Ethereum main network. Relatively speaking, it has the following advantages:

  1. Improving the performance of the chain means achieving Ethereum’s expansion;

  2. Promote ecological prosperity, each module undertakes different functions, and ensures overall security;

  3. Improve user experience, such as reducing costs, reducing fragmentation, and reducing difficulty of use;

  4. Reduce the cost of building a Rollup L2 chain. In addition to sharing security from L1, it can also share multiple services such as node operators and sequencers.

Currently, Optimism and Arbitrum both use the Rollup solution. They provide a software development framework so that L2 chains issued through their platforms can share security, communication layers, and open source technologies. Such as OP Stack, Arbirtrum Nitro, Polygon CDK, the Rollup framework is the most important component for the development of modular blockchains, which greatly reduces the threshold for building L2 in a modular way.

However, it is worth noting that in the modular construction of L2 chain, since the Rollup framework, data availability service, sequencer, cross-chain bridge, etc. are all designed by Raas service providers, the flexibility and scalability are poor when customizing the blockchain.

Just like dYdX abandoned the L2 (dYdX v3) created on StarEx, chose to migrate to the Cosmos ecosystem and released dYdX Chain (dYdX v4). This chain released with the help of Cosmos SDK is an independent L1, which gets rid of the limitations of L2, takes business logic as the core, and rebuilds highly customized from the underlying infrastructure to achieve "fully decentralized off-chain order books and matching engines", which enables dYdX as a DeFi application to provide users with faster and lower-cost derivatives trading services.

In the modular design of Cosmos, consensus, state machine, and virtual machine are separated, allowing chain developers to more easily combine them in a building block-like manner. For example, as a developer, you can customize your own consensus mechanism, add specific logic and modules to the state machine, and choose different virtual machines. This is one of the reasons why dYdX chose Cosmos SDK for construction.

Starcoin, which is characterized by high customizability and composability, also excels in modular blockchain construction. Its development framework, StarStack, provides highly modular, easy-to-combine, and easy-to-redevelop technical components. With StarStack, developers can build an independent L1, and the application can be newly built from the underlying framework based on the business logic, and can be flexibly configured in terms of consensus mechanism, chain components, communication protocols, virtual machines, etc.

According to the introduction, its development framework StarStack has:

  1. Scalability: The modular architecture decomposes core functions such as consensus, execution, and storage, allowing developers to independently expand each module based on demand.

  2. Flexibility: StarStack's modular design enables it to adapt more flexibly to technological updates and changes. Each module can be optimized or upgraded individually without affecting the stability of the entire network.

  3. Improved security: By separating different functions, the risk of single point failure is reduced. Each module is relatively independent, which means that even if one module is attacked, other modules can still operate normally, thereby improving the security of the entire network.

  4. Compatibility and interoperability: The modular design makes it easier for the chain developed by StarStack to interoperate with other blockchain networks. For example, by separating the execution layer and the consensus layer, it can support cross-chain interaction and asset transfer with other blockchains, further improving the interoperability of its ecosystem.

  5. Optimize transaction speed and fees: The modular design allows different execution layers to handle transactions of different complexity, optimizing the execution efficiency of transactions and thus reducing the transaction fees paid by users on the network.


4.5 On-chain governance

The governance module is crucial for a decentralized project. Currently, many projects use third-party platforms for project management, such as Snapshot. Of course, Polkadot, Cosmos, Starcoin, etc. have also developed their own on-chain governance modules for developers to call.

Polkadot SDK provides a token-based governance model. Newly constructed parachains can participate in the project's decision-making process through native tokens. The governance mechanism is protocolized into interrelated functional components, such as treasury, parliament, referendum, etc. These components can be iterated as the protocol is upgraded. Each entity involved in governance interacts with the system through their own blockchain account to perform governance operations such as staking, delegation, proposal, and voting.

Its governance framework provides processes for:

  1. Proposal: A proposal is a formal proposal for network improvements, protocol upgrades, parameter adjustments, or other important matters. Anyone can make a proposal.

  2. Voting: Parachain native token holders can express their support or opposition to a proposal through referendum voting. The voting mechanism can take different forms, such as simple majority, weighted voting, or token staking voting, which can be customized;

  3. Decision-making: The decision-making process will determine the final decision result according to certain rules. These rules may include the proportion of votes passed, voting duration, minimum number of votes, etc.

  4. Execution delay: All referendums have an execution delay period, and this module can also modify related parameters;

  5. Automatic execution: Once the execution delay period is reached, the corresponding operations will be executed on the chain, including parameter adjustments, protocol upgrades, fund transfers, etc.


To achieve on-chain governance, Polkadot SDK combines smart contracts, voting contracts, voting weights, governance modules and governance parameters to implement a fully functional and customizable on-chain governance mechanism. This mechanism gives token holders the right to participate in decision-making and ensures transparency and fairness of governance through the automatic execution of smart contracts.


Cosmos SDK has shown some innovations in on-chain governance. Before proposing, the application chain will pre-package a governance system. Proposals can be code-based or text-based, and the permissions to create proposals can be customized. They are then voted on by validators and delegators and submitted to the blockchain, where the content can be executed by validators.


Regarding on-chain governance, Cosmos SDK provides four restrictive thresholds, and application chain developers can select and modify relevant parameters:

  1. Staking Appchain tokens: To prevent spam, a certain amount of native tokens must be staked within a set time when creating a proposal. The proposer can stake the tokens, or seek support from the community. If a sufficient amount of tokens are not staked within the specified time, the staked tokens can be destroyed or not;

  2. Quorum: After entering the voting phase, there are four options: Agree, Disagree, Veto, and Abstain. Veto means strong opposition. The Cosmos SDK component can define the minimum proportion of staked tokens required for voting.

  3. Veto: Before the end of the voting period, it can be stipulated that no more than a defined percentage of vetoes can be cast;

  4. Pass threshold: You can define the percentage of votes in favor that must be reached for the proposal to pass.


It can be seen that the on-chain governance provided by Cosmos SDK is relatively more political. Although relevant parameters can be customized by developers, there are many thresholds and it is not suitable for most ordinary users.

Starcoin's StarStack is innovative in on-chain governance. Through a DAO-style governance mechanism, it promotes decentralized governance of the blockchain built by StarStack and establishes a more inclusive, transparent and efficient governance model. Compared with Polkadot and Cosmos, StarStack's proposal process is more streamlined and friendly, and decision-making and transactions are open and transparent, and all community members can participate in network governance.

  1. Proposal process: The DAO-style governance process is streamlined and user-friendly. First, the initiator proposes a change or new policy. Then, network users participate in voting and express their preferences for each proposal with their tokens. Developers can define the proposal time, voting weight, approval form, and execution method of the proposal, giving developers more customization space;

  2. Unique implementation: StarStack DAO adopts a unique approach, where different types of proposals are controlled by different contract modules. This modular system is a result of Move's static function call distribution, which requires all code calls to be predetermined at compile time;

  3. Decentralized voting: StarStack DAO adopts a token-based voting system. The number of votes is proportional to the number of tokens held. At the same time, developers can also adjust the weight of voting tokens, such as 1:1 for less than 1,000 tokens and 1:0.8 for 1,000 to 5,000 tokens, in order to weaken the influence of large coin holders and promote decentralized governance of the project;

  4. Proposal lifecycle: StarStack DAO provides a comprehensive proposal lifecycle, including pending, activated, failed, agreed, queued, executable and executed stages. The parameters of these stages can be modified or disabled by developers.


The StarStack DAO governance module enables:

  • Security and transparency: DAO’s on-chain governance ensures transparency and security, and all decisions and transaction records are transparent and tamper-proof;

  • Efficient: The direct governance model simplifies the decision-making process, eliminates the need for middlemen, and reduces bureaucratic delays;

  • Community empowerment: Each token holder votes, enhancing community cohesion and allowing each member to have a say in the future direction of the network;

  • Decentralization: By adjusting the weight of token voting, more ordinary users can be mobilized to participate in project governance, reducing the influence of large coin holders and achieving decentralized governance of the project;

  • Highly customizable: Comprehensive and highly customizable design is carried out from modules such as proposal process, implementation form, decentralized voting, and proposal life cycle to meet developers' various ideas on project governance and provide developers with more flexible operation space.


4.6 Data Availability Layer

The data availability layer (DA layer) is mainly responsible for ensuring that data in the network can be accessed and verified. It usually includes functions such as data storage, transmission and verification to ensure the transparency and trust of the blockchain network.

The most representative DA projects at present include Celestia, Avail, EigenDA, etc. Rollup chain platforms such as Opitimism and Arbitrum do not have a DA layer, while single public chains such as Polkadot, Cosmos, Starcoin, and Avalanche themselves serve as the DA layer.



Celestia uses a modular architecture that breaks down blockchain into three parts: data, consensus, and execution. The execution layer exists independently on each blockchain, allowing optimization and specialization for specific use cases. In addition, in Celestia's modular blockchain, data availability sampling can be implemented, allowing nodes to verify a block with a very small sample, and low hardware configuration devices can also act as nodes. Specific implementation:

  • Separation of consensus and execution layers: allows developers to focus on their application logic and smart contracts without having to deal with the underlying consensus mechanism

  • Dedicated Data Availability Layer: Provides a dedicated data availability layer to ensure that all data is available and verifiable on-chain

  • Lightweight client support: allows light nodes to verify data availability through data availability sampling without downloading and storing the entire blockchain data

  • Shared security: Newly launched blockchains can share Celestia’s security, leveraging its strong consensus and data availability services.


EigenDA is a decentralized data availability service built on Ethereum, built using the restaking function of EigenLayer, and becomes the first active verification service (AVS) on EigenLayer. It mainly provides data availability services for Layer2, and the specific implementation is as follows:

  • Leverage the re-staking feature: Allow Ethereum stakers to delegate their staked ETH to EigenDA to provide collateral for data availability services.

  • Data publishing and storage: Rollup can publish its transaction data to EigenDA, which ensures that this data is available and verifiable through distributed storage and verification mechanisms.

  • Node Verification: In the EigenDA system, node operators are responsible for performing data verification tasks to ensure data integrity and availability

  • Enhanced security and throughput: As the amount of stake on EigenDA increases and the number of participating nodes and protocols develops, the overall security and transaction throughput of the system will be further improved

Eigen DA nodes are a subset of the re-staking nodes in the EigenLayer network, protected by 200 operators and millions of re-staking ETH, and inherit some of the security of Ethereum. However, it is precisely because it relies on the Eigen DA contract on the Ethereum mainnet that the cost consumption is higher than other DA layers. Its current write speed is 15 MB/s.


Avail simplifies the Rollup experience through its trinity approach of “Avail DA, Avail Nexus, and Avail Fusion.” Each component plays a unique role in this approach, and together they improve the performance, ease of use, and interoperability of Rollup.

  • Avail DA: Provides a dedicated data availability layer to ensure that all published data is available and verifiable on the chain. Rollup relies on this layer to ensure that the data required for state transfer and proof generation is available.

  • Avail Nexus: Aims to separate data availability and execution layers. Through this separation, using Avail DA as the root of trust, developers can build Rollup independently of the data layer, focusing on application logic and state transfer without worrying about the underlying data availability issues.

  • Avail Fusion: Provides cross-chain compatibility and supports interoperability with multiple blockchain platforms. This cross-chain capability allows developers to easily migrate and deploy their Rollups between different blockchains, improving the portability and application scope of Rollups.


Polkadot, Cosmos, Avalanche and other blockchain platforms already carry the needs of DA. They do not separate the DA layer. Data storage, transmission and verification are all carried out on their main networks. This has caused some problems:

  • Poor performance: The performance of the blockchain is equivalent to that of a single node.

  • A large amount of network activity will cause extremely high Gas Fees;

  • Massive amounts of data will cause state explosion, leading to higher node hardware requirements, especially the need for permanent disk space records, which is contrary to the premise of decentralization;

  • It is extremely difficult to upgrade and improve the public chain under this framework.


Starcoin is worth mentioning in particular. It has separated the data availability layer and has its own data availability layer, Starcoin DA, which is responsible for the storage, verification and confirmation of its main network and newly developed L1 blockchain data. Starcoin DA data is highly efficient, low-cost and secure, mainly achieved through the following methods:

  • Enhanced scalability: Through parallelization technology and FlexiDAG structure, higher scalability is provided, and developers can build high-throughput blockchains. These chains publish data on Starcoin DA and enjoy its efficient data availability and consensus services, thereby achieving higher transaction throughput and lower transaction costs.

  • Dynamic resource call: The StarStack development framework provides a function that supports dynamic resource call, which means that the network's computing resources can be dynamically adjusted according to network demand. As the network load increases, the node's computing resources will be able to continuously switch between various blockchains, effectively achieving a reasonable allocation of supply and demand, ensuring the efficient operation of the network and the rational use of resources.

  • Flexible development tools: StarStack provides a series of development tools, SDKs and detailed documentation to help developers quickly get started and create their own independent blockchains. These tools and resources simplify the development process and make launching and deploying new chains more intuitive and convenient.


At the same time, all data is stored on the chain to ensure data availability and integrity:

  • Node verification: All nodes can access and verify data;

  • High security: Since all data is on the blockchain, any node can verify the integrity and validity of the data

  • High transparency: all data is publicly visible and easy to audit;

  • Decentralization: All nodes can access complete data, ensuring the decentralization and security of the system.


In summary, Ethereum is still the most widely used DA layer, while Celestia, Eigen DA, and Avail DA are mainly aimed at the rollup Ethereum ecosystem, and Starcoin DA can support the data availability of more independent public chains.

If the blockchain being developed is L2, or a side chain of Ethereum, without considering the cost, Ethereum is undoubtedly the best choice, because it provides sufficient security for data settlement and consensus. Considering the cost, Celestia and EigenDA would be good choices, as they both support development frameworks such as Arbitrum Orbit and OP Stack.

However, if the development requirement is an independent public chain, and there are requirements for data read and write speed, network fees and security, then Starcoin can be selected as the data availability layer. Because its cost is low enough, and the data read and write speed can exceed 100 MB/s, it is very suitable for projects that require high-frequency interactions such as social platforms, media platforms, DeFi, games, etc. It is also very simple to deploy. You only need to call the data availability related components in StarStack, and you can easily configure it to your own blockchain and share data security with the Starcoin mainnet. At the same time, StarStack is also configured with a consensus layer, and based on the StarStack DA layer, you can also share Starcoin's network security and decentralization.


5. The value and significance of one-click chain launch technology

5.1 Help projects go online quickly

One-click chain launch can help blockchain projects quickly deploy their own blockchain networks, saving time and development costs. For startups that want to go online quickly or development teams that need to test their projects, one-click chain launch provides a convenient solution, avoiding the traditional complex on-chain configuration and development work.

5.2 Providing support for application bottleneck breakthrough

Currently, most Web3 applications are written using smart contracts and are limited by native platforms, such as consensus mechanisms, network performance, transaction costs, etc. Once the one-click chain technology matures, many already established applications will be able to build their own application chains to achieve technology upgrades and business expansion.

5.3 Helping enterprises transform to Web3

Many traditional Internet companies want to achieve Web3 transformation, but due to insufficient technology, the complexity and workload of developing a blockchain are too large. After one-click chain launch, many Internet companies can access the Web, such as social, e-commerce, games, entertainment and other industries.


6. Bottlenecks and challenges

The bottlenecks and challenges mentioned here are mainly aimed at the large-scale application of Web3 in the future, because in terms of current Web3 applications and users, the existing performance is already fully able to meet the interaction of users in the circle. But imagine facing the application of [Next Billion User] level, the current public chain still cannot be used calmly.

6.1 Security Issues

When Web3 explodes on a large scale, the demand for one-click chain issuance will also grow exponentially, and more and more application chains will be launched, which will bring security issues. Dealing with security issues is the premise of technology application. Security here includes consensus-level security, smart contract security, user account security, etc., because each step may cause the project to fail directly. Security is a major issue that requires the joint participation of developers and users.

6.2 Performance Issues

From the above, we can see that except for Starcoin, which has a theoretical value of 100,000, the TPS of other blockchain platforms is very low, which is obviously not enough for sectors such as financial trading platforms, social networking, and games. We also see that the transaction fees of Optimism and Arbitrum are both over $0.1. If I send a 10-yuan red envelope to someone in the group, and find that the handling fee is 1 yuan, then this function will definitely not be launched.

6.3 Permission Issues

The future one-click chain will definitely be oriented towards enterprise users. Enterprises will have various types of needs, especially in terms of permission management. At present, most public chains are open source, and the data on the chain is public and transparent, and anyone can view it. If it is a social application chain, there will be more considerations for user privacy protection, VIP membership, user level permissions, etc., and the existing blockchain is obviously not satisfied in this regard.

6.4 Policy compliance issues

As Avalanche mentioned, the chain issuer needs to be located in a country or region with policy support, developers need to pass KYC/AML, and also need to hold relevant business licenses. Compliance issues have always been a topic that cannot be avoided in the development of the industry, including the previous Ripple being reported to provide investors with unregistered securities products (XRP), which led to Ripple being entangled in lawsuits and the development of the project stagnated.

If these newly released agreements are not registered or recognized by the financial regulators of the corresponding countries or regions, they may be regarded as illegal provision of financial services.


7. Summary: The future of one-click chain launch

Through a comprehensive comparison of several major mainstream chain-issuing platforms, we can see that one-click chain-issuing is gradually moving towards convenience, modularization, and customization, and is divided into two main lines, one of which is L2, which relies on the Ethereum ecosystem, and the other is the independent L1 direction with high customization and flexibility. L2 has become saturated, and the horizontal development space is limited. However, the demand for the development of independent L1 blockchains is growing, and there is a large room for future growth. There are roughly the following inferences about the future direction of one-click chain-issuing:

  • The demand for blockchain in the application market is growing. Currently, most decentralized applications are based on smart contracts developed on public chains. However, due to the scalability of public chains, the scale of applications and market growth have encountered bottlenecks, as can be seen from the release of independent blockchains by dYdX and Uniswap. Therefore, more applications will be migrated to independent application chains in the future.

  • Independent L1 blockchains have a large room for growth. Although Rollup is an expansion solution for Ethereum, consensus and settlement are limited by Ethereum. Developing more L2 will only increase costs and cause network congestion like previous smart contracts. Therefore, developing independent L1 can truly solve the problem of network congestion.

  • More traditional industries will transform like Web3. As the one-click chain technology matures, the capital and technical costs of chain issuance are reduced, and more Internet industries will migrate to the new track of Web3, using blockchain technology and token economics to achieve industrial upgrading. For example, cross-border e-commerce can build its own blockchain to query orders, track logistics, and score merchant credit.

  • Combined with AI, it can realize intelligent one-click chain launch. AI+Web3 will open up a new track, and the threshold for one-click chain launch will be further lowered, realizing chain launch settings similar to ChatGPT dialogue. For example, you can make customized demands through dialogue, and let AI help you deploy the chain launch contract and set the parameters on the chain, so that even non-technical personnel can easily deploy their own blockchain.