After roughly counting, I have talked about modularity no less than ten times. It is really a cliché, but it has always maintained its popularity. Even with this recent market situation, it is still the main topic in the entire encryption industry, especially after experiencing the airdrops of several "King of Heaven" projects, Near @NEARProtocol has also recently embarked on its own journey in the field of modular blockchain. journey, and the team aims to be more than just another L1 replacement.
After a brief summary, we will go directly to the topic of Near. A single blockchain like#Ethereumor#Solanaputs all its functionality into a single protocol that runs across the network. In contrast, modular blockchain divides its functionality into independent components called modules. With this approach, an aggregation or application can selectively select modules that align with its specific use case, eliminating the need to adhere to a one-size-fits-all blockchain model. Late last year, Near announced the launch of Near Data Availability (Near DA) and Super Fast Final Layer (SFFL) with Eigenlayer.
Near DA is a module used by modular blockchains to solve problems caused by the design of Ethereum. In a multi-chain, transactions are initially processed on the second layer before being settled on Ethereum via aggregation transactions, so ensuring data availability (DA) is critical. Without these security guarantees, participants cannot independently confirm that a block is valid because they lack the complete data set required for local transaction execution and result verification.
Publishing complete transaction data to Ethereum is quite expensive, even in compressed form. EIP-4484, which aims to reduce the cost of publishing data to Ethereum by 10 times, is just the vision, allowing Ethereum to act as a more efficient data availability layer.
For example, Celestia's newly released DA near protocol has now become a cheaper data availability layer alternative to L2. These external data availability layers focus specifically on data storage, replication, providing state snapshots, and ensuring the availability of the on-chain transaction execution engine.
The execution engine accesses the necessary data shards on demand from the availability layer during validation, eliminating the need to bear the full replication burden. By centralizing storage using the DA layer, data availability as well as transactions become more cost-effective.
As the saying goes, you can do as much as you pay for. This approach also has shortcomings, that is, the guarantee of data correctness has now become an external data availability layer, and it is no longer Ethereum itself.
A core part of how DA works is a new concept called blobs. Blobs are very cheap temporary memory, mainly used to carry data. The purpose is to improve the verification efficiency of these transactions. The network no longer needs to verify every transaction in the block, it only needs to confirm that the blob attached to the block carries the correct data. It's equivalent to me being a teacher taking students on a spring outing. When we arrived at the scenic spot, I told the uncle that we were in the same class. For convenience, the uncle only needed to authenticate my identity.
Effectively, these blobs are sorted data from aggregations. When blob data is published to Near, it is stored on the network for the equivalent of 36-60 hours. This provides ample time to verify content as needed. After this time is up, the blob is automatically trimmed and deleted from Near to save space.
However, data can still be accessed indefinitely from archive nodes and indexers connected to the near network. These independent nodes store historical state and can retrieve old blob data on demand even after being deleted from Near itself.
Currently, Near DA has integrated with many well-known networks, such as Op’s OP Stack, Polygon CDK and Arb Orbit. These frameworks allow anyone to launch their own L2 and leverage DA (specific projects for DA include Dymension, Caldera, Vistara, Fluent, Movement, and StarkNet)
Ethereum's roll-up ecosystem provides huge scalability advantages, but there are still two key problems: the fragmentation of liquidity in roll-up, and the poor user experience caused by too slow time.
To address these issues, Near and Eigenlayer collaborated to build the Super Fast Final Layer (SFFL). It acts as a mutual coordination layer, equivalent to a middleman. Summarization can be integrated with it, allowing for faster finalization and interoperability. For more details, please check out the Near community, because SFFL has not been launched yet. I won’t go into details here. To sum it up in one word - very quickly.
With Near DA and SFFL, Near Protocol leverages its fast, high-throughput Layer 1 chain to deliver exciting new products. Both new modules provided by NEAR inherently rely on smart contracts, making a fast first-layer chain critical to their execution. Neil fit the bill perfectly and realized they had a significant opportunity here.
Because all transactions created by Near DA and SFFL rely on calling smart contracts on the Near blockchain, and these new products will generate transaction volume on Near. 70% of transaction fees on Near were burned. We assume that the Ethereum roll-up ecosystem continues to develop (actually, there is no need to assume, this is an inevitable event). Since there are many cross-chain transactions between a large number of roll-ups, the point is here - Near may have a deflationary effect.
One more thing is that Near and Eigenlayer's Super Fast Final Layer (SFFL) is also facing stiff competition. Optimism and Polygon both dig deep into developing solutions for seamless interoperability. However, all of these solutions need to be rolled up using their respective technology stacks to benefit from interoperability. For example, the Optimism superchain will only use Optimism’s own technology stack to seamlessly connect chains. In contrast, SFFL is agnostic and can connect rollups using the Arbitrum technology stack with rollups using the Optimism or Polygon technology stacks. It’s easy to see how this versatility could be a competitive advantage for SFFL.
The field of modular blockchain is still in its early stages. There is little data to draw from and little indication of where the field is headed and who will come out on top. What is certain is that modular blockchain has become a fiercely competitive field.
