Avail's Vision: The unification layer for web3

Overview

The permissionless environment of web3 has led to multiple ground breaking technologies that collectively power today’s thriving ecosystem which still has plenty more room for growth. Faced with numerous technical challenges to overcome in order to reach the scale required for mass-adoption, the ecosystem has built a multitude of innovative solutions across the web3 tech stack. However the need for all of this technology to come together and operate as a cohesive whole for end users, while upholding the decentralized ethos of the ecosystem, still remains.

Cross-ecosystem transactions are more cumbersome than they should be, driving needless fragmentation. User adoption efforts should be directed towards onboarding net-new users, instead of pulling them between existing web3 communities.

To address all of this, Avail is accelerating the unification of web3 via the Unification Layer, enabling a secure, scalable and seamlessly interconnected web3 experience for end users of any ecosystem.

In this deep dive we explore the background and thesis behind the Unification Layer and how it addresses user fragmentation and scalability issues facing the ecosystem today. We show how the first component, Avail DA provides a perfect foundation for not only the numerous rollups hungry for efficient data availability, but to set a base where user intents can be seamlessly fulfilled across the web3 ecosystem via Avail Nexus, a permissionless coordination hub. Avail Fusion Security completes the Unification Layer addressing the growing need for shared security to fortify a thriving and unified web3 ecosystem.

Introduction

If you have ever attempted to make a transaction that crosses more than one blockchain network, then you will know the experience is not yet ready for mass adoption.

With a very deep technical understanding of blockchain architectures, one can begin to address this long-standing problem. By working backward from first principles, we can distill the technical foundation needed to create the unified blockchain experience. One that connects separate L2 rollup networks and L1s, while still enabling permissionless, decentralized innovation, and experimentation from developers across different ecosystems.

Rollups have been developed as a partial solution to scalability challenges, processing transactions off-chain before bundling them into a single on-chain transaction. While effective in reducing fees and enhancing Ethereum’s scalability, rollups have introduced new complexities:

• The demand for more blockspace has escalated costs due to limited availability
• The proliferation of Layer 2 (L2) ecosystems has fragmented the market, further hindering user experience and economies of scale

With these problems solved, the scalability and interoperability potential of blockchain systems which has been laying dormant for years, can finally be realized.

The Avail Solution

Avail is leveraging the asynchronous messaging principle - the same principle that scaled the apps on the Internet - to scale blockchains, and the right time to build this is now.

A foundational Data Availability (DA) layer, Nexus interoperability layer, and Fusion Security network layer come together to form the Unification Layer.

• The DA layer is a highly optimized, low-level layer, specifically constructed for data availability. This is the deepest blockchain layer, with the minimal functionality required to build cross-ecosystem interoperability on top.
• Nexus acts as a light but powerful proof aggregation and sequencer selection ZK rollup on top of Avail, allowing for cross-rollup and cross-ecosystem settlement.
• Fusion Security enables a basket of tokens to pool their crypto-economic security to serve and secure the Avail network.

Avail’s mission is to streamline the rollup experience, offering a unified, efficient platform for both users and developers from any ecosystem.

Avail’s vision is to provide a cohesive user experience within a flexible and modular blockchain ecosystem, drawing on lessons from Web2 to innovate in Web3. By marrying advanced technology with a clear roadmap and accelerated execution pace, Avail is not just building a product; we are pioneering a new phase for the blockchain space, paving the way for an era of enhanced scalability and seamless user interactions.

Background and Inspiration

What can we learn from web2?

How did apps on the Internet really scale? Asynchronous microservices.

The Internet is not one huge world computer. It is a series of interconnected computers doing a few specific things based on the business use case, and then communicating with each other whenever required.

Amazon is a set of related microservices specializing in ecommerce. Visa operates a set of microservices that handle payment.

• When a user clicks on the Buy button for a product at Amazon, it triggers a call from the browser to an Amazon product microservice.
• This in turn calls a Visa microservice to send a payment page to the user.
• Once the user fills in the payment details, another request is sent to the Visa microservice to validate the payment.
• Once the payment is validated, it gives a callback to the Amazon product microservice to let the user know that the product has been bought and the payment went through.

If it’s Black Friday, then Amazon and Visa microservices will be scaled up to meet the demand independent of other microservices on the Internet.

The point is, that the Internet scaled to such a massive extent only via asynchronous microservices. That’s the same thing that will happen with blockchains as well.

How can we enable this in web3?

UPI is a great example to learn from. It is one of the largest payment systems in the world in terms of users, transactions and volume. Currently, it processes over 10 bn transactions per month, which is a testament to the scale of the system.

UPI is a system which enables customers from different banks to interact. But it wasn’t as successful when it launched. Banks were initially very hesitant to join the system - there was no government mandate to join UPI. The main concern expressed by the banks was that if they allowed UPI transactions, they would end up enabling money from customer accounts to move to other banks (liquidity outflow).

The principle of reciprocity was used to solve this problem. Instead of economic incentives, the principle of reciprocity was used to communicate the notion that banks would get access to UPI and the “pay-in” from other bank customers only if they allowed “pay-outs”.

Although this is an example from a permissioned setting (banks in web2), a permissionless unification layer for web3 should still have the principle of reciprocity embedded within it, and be net positive for the whole ecosystem.

Implementing web2’s learnings in web3

The evolution of the Internet offers invaluable insights for the blockchain world. The scaling of the Internet was primarily achieved through asynchronous microservices – a network of interconnected computers each performing specific tasks and communicating as needed.

In web3, we are witnessing a similar phase of growth and complexity. The growing pains experienced today with a number of rollups and Layer 2 solutions on Ethereum has led to the fragmenting of users and liquidity and a disconnected user experience, reminiscent of early Internet challenges.

Current Landscape of the Modular Ecosystem

Rollups have become the recognized solution for scaling blockchains, increasingly dominating the execution layer of the technology. As roll-up technology matures and evolves, incorporating new, more efficient, and application-specific advancements, they are becoming a standard feature across various blockchain platforms.

However, this development raises significant concerns about user experience in an environment where hundreds of chains exist, each hosting a myriad of user interactions.

The major L2 players, in their efforts to address these challenges, have each crafted their unique solutions. Unfortunately, this has led to the creation of growing pains in the form of further fragmentation.

Validity Proof based DA as the Foundation of the Stack

Based on first principles thinking, the base level of the unified stack needs to be a DA layer built with Data Availability Sampling based on validity proofs.

A DA layer is the most minimal layer of a blockchain possible because it’s a consolidation point for both consensus and ordering. While a DA layer requires other components (i.e. execution) to build a blockchain on top, it acts as the root of trust, ordering transactions and reaching consensus on the order of those transactions.

Validity proof powered DAS is the superpower of Avail DA, which is the fulcrum over which we architect the Unification Layer.

The Unification Layer

Avail’s ecosystem is designed to offer a superior experience for both users and developers, balancing the essentials of scalability, interoperability and security without compromise. The platform’s structure is anchored in three primary layers:

• Unopinionated Foundational Data Availability (DA) Layer — This layer serves as the universal foundation that any blockchain can utilize to enhance its scalability and security.
• Nexus Layer for Interoperability and Sequencer Selection — The Nexus layer is the coordination component of Avail, which provides a permissionless framework for inter-rollup messaging.
• Fusion Security Layer — Fusion allows the Avail base chain to incorporate non-native tokens alongside the Avail native token to secure the Avail platform.

Avail DA

The DA layer is a core foundation of any blockchain network acting as a scalable and shared source of truth. It ensures all the relevant data within the network is present each time a new block is produced, with nothing hidden or removed from the network, allowing it to continue operating.

How Avail’s DA Layer works

Avail’s DA Layer is a decentralized blockchain network. It produces and secures blockspace that other blockchains can use as their own ‘pluggable’ data availability layer.

Using a dedicated AppID, blockchains publish transaction data to Avail which gets committed and made available.

• The data that is published on Avail’s blocks is validated by the Avail network, but not executed.
• Avail’s data availability blockchain can support any blockchain network.
• Avail uses validity proofs so that developers and users don’t need to trust the Avail network that data is available; they can actually verify it for themselves.
• Data published to Avail is extended through erasure encoding, adding redundancy to the data.
• Avail ensures the data has a footprint in the Avail block header using KZG polynomial commitments.
• Once new blocks are finalized by validators, validity proofs can be used to guarantee data availability immediately after finalization.
• Avail’s nominated proof of stake (NPoS) blockchain was built using the Polkadot SDK, and it will support up to 1,000 external validators.

Data Availability Sampling (DAS)

DAS is a core concept used to efficiently validate that data is available on the Avail blockchain by other networks, wallets, and users.

Using Avail’s Light Client, a user can quickly sample the Avail blockchain to verify a validity proof that proves the data is available. This efficient and lite code can be easily implemented across different products and devices, including a user’s phone and in the browser.

Ability to Scale

With Avail light clients and Data Availability Sampling, Avail supports expandable blocks allowing it to increase the size of blocks and support more blockchains as demand grows.

The Avail light client can sample a subset of the data in the network and validate the availability of that data. Light clients can quickly generate data availability guarantees very close to 100% with 8-30 samples providing comparable security guarantees to a full node. With more light clients, the network has more capacity to sample data. This leads to a positive feedback loop where blockspace actually increases the more light clients there are in the network.

Avail Nexus

The ability to easily spin up rollups means there will be thousands of rollups. That means, the end-user experience of interacting with these rollups will be fragmented. That is why we are building Avail Nexus, which acts as the verification hub unifying the rollups, using Avail DA as the root of trust.

Avail Nexus is a custom ZK coordination rollup on top of Avail that consists of:

• Proof aggregation and verification layer
• Sequencer selection/slot auction mechanism

Proof Aggregation

ZK proofs come with a very important property that they are concise. Verification of a statement requires much fewer computational resources, than arriving at the statement itself. Added to this, the possibility of being able to prove that n proofs are valid with a single proof (aggregation) is groundbreaking. We now no longer have to verify validity proofs of rollups individually, but verification of a single aggregated proof verifies all the validity proofs of participating rollups up to that point, which translates to verifying the validity of the entire history of all participating rollups.

Avail Nexus, within its runtime, verifies all validity proofs that are submitted to it on certain conditions being met and creates a single succinct proof of having done that. This proof is then submitted to the Avail base layer, which is verified by all nodes. Essentially it becomes an enshrined settlement layer.

Avail Fusion

A unifying layer needs unified security. The biggest value proposition for spinning up a new rollup rather than creating a separate L1 is the ability to inherit security from the base layer. For Avail to be the web3 coordination layer, it needs to be extremely secure.

Fusion Security takes the native assets of the most mature ecosystems such as BTC, ETH and more and allows them to contribute to the Avail consensus. Not only that, it allows the new rollup tokens to also play a role in securing the base layer which empowers them.

Fusion Security is additive crypto economic security for the unified vision of Avail.

Fusion allows two new categories of tokens to be added to Avail’s staking pallet:

• Established Cryptocurrencies: Tokens like BTC, ETH, and SOL, among others.
• Emerging Rollup Tokens: New tokens created on Avail, limited to a small percentage of the total stake to bootstrap their utility.

Avail Token

The Avail token will drive a circular economy within the network:

• The DA, Nexus, and Fusion Security layers will be secured through Avail token staking
• Transaction and bridging fees are paid in Avail’s native token, ensuring a self-sustaining network with incentives aligned across all participants

Avail token holders will form the base community for many projects looking to build on Avail DA and leverage the benefits of the Avail ecosystem.

The Unification Vision

In a landscape populated by hundreds of chains, each with its own security and interoperability considerations, Avail aims to be the platform offering a seamless, unified experience across the entire ecosystem.

This platform will provide a single-user interface, allowing users to easily manage all their assets across various blockchains. When a user wishes to execute a transaction, they simply need to sign an intent on the interface.

The backend of the Avail Platform then springs into action, utilizing Avail Nexus and its support for asynchronous message passing. This system communicates with other chains across the ecosystem to fulfill the user’s request, ensuring a smooth and efficient, unified web3 user experience.