What is Volition, the new hybrid data solution launched by Ethereum expansion engine StarkEx? Why is it worth paying attention to?
Editor's Note: This article comes fromChain News ChainNews (ID: chainnewscom), Author: Riyao, published with authorization.
Editor's Note: This article comes from
Chain News ChainNews (ID: chainnewscom)
Chain News ChainNews (ID: chainnewscom)
, Author: Riyao, published with authorization.
According to the data availability solution adopted by StarkEx, Vitalik and others believe that it does not belong to Rollups, but Validium. In this regard, StarkEx stated that data availability is a rich category, and a simple dichotomy cannot be made by storing data on-chain or off-chain. StarkEx plans to launch an on-chain/off-chain hybrid data solution called "Volition," which allows users to dynamically choose where their data is stored.
Ethereum Layer 2 expansion solution that has been implemented: StarkEx
StarkEx is an exchange technology solution launched by StarkWare, an Israeli zero-knowledge proof research and development organization. StarkWare calls it a ZK-Rollup expansion engine.
The StarkWare team has been working on applying the new technology "STARK" (simplified fully transparent zero-knowledge proof) in the zero-knowledge proof protocol to more practical needs of the blockchain, such as optimizing custody, trading and settlement in exchanges engine etc.
In view of this, StarkWare has launched two technology solutions related to exchange applications: StarkEx and StarkDEX. To put it simply, StarkEx is a solution to enhance the "centralized exchange", and StarkDEX is a solution to enhance the "decentralized exchange".
Among them, StarkDEX is a prototype product jointly developed by StarkWare and the blockchain transaction protocol 0x, and the Alpha version was released last year. It is understood that compared with other DEXs, StarkDEX can increase the transaction throughput of DEX by 20 times and save about 95 % transaction cost.
As a technical solution to enhance the centralized exchange, StarkEx has two main advantages: 1) through batch verification, the transaction processing speed is greatly improved (up to more than 9,000 transactions per second); 2) it allows users to self-custody (self-custody) ) assets, to realize the true ownership of their assets, which is also the core problem faced by many centralized exchanges.
The StarkEx technical solution has been implemented.
On June 4, DeversiFi, the first decentralized exchange based on the StarkEx expansion engine, was launched. According to the official introduction, the new version of DeversiFi can achieve professional-level self-custody services, and the user experience can rival that of centralized exchanges, with a TPS of up to 9000. However, less than a week after the new version of DeversiFi was launched, it encountered performance problems for nearly 20 minutes. Five traders were unable to submit orders immediately and the system failed to clear the balance in time.
In addition to DeversiFi, Immutable also announced that it will develop an NFT (non-fungible token) exchange Immutable X based on the StarkEx expansion engine, which is planned to be launched in the third quarter of this year. The Ethereum mainnet has very weak support for the throughput of homogeneous token transactions, and has more restrictions on non-homogeneous tokens. The StarkEx solution not only eases the hassle of such transactions, but also eases the difficulty of minting them.
StarkEx technical solution caught in "naming dispute": not ZK-Rollup, but Validium
The rapid development of the StarkEx technical solution has attracted a lot of attention from the Ethereum expansion track, and the implementation of the StarkEx technical path and its naming category on Twitter have also aroused heated discussions.
Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, believes that StarkEx’s data availability solution cannot be regarded as a “Rollup” solution, and StarWare’s product Avihu Levy also refuses to call it “Plasma”**, thinking that it might as well give it a separate name .
Subsequently, Vitalik pointed out that StarkEx could be named "Validium", which evolved from "Validia" proposed by StarkWare co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson. "Validium" means "effective" in Latin.
In Vitalik's view, the Validium solution can be regarded as "zkRollup of off-chain data version" or "Plasma of Snarks version", and said that "zkRollup" can also be renamed to "Validium Rollup" or other similar names in the future.
Matter Labs, the development team behind Ethereum's Layer 2 expansion solution ZK-Sync, also made a supplementary analysis saying that the main differences between zkRollup and Validium are:
1) zk Rollup saves data on the chain, as long as there is at least one Ethereum full node, its security can be guaranteed.
The Validium scheme allows each user to download off-chain data by itself, so that recovery is still required after logging out, in case the operator goes offline suddenly or permanently.Compared。
Vitalik Buterin believes that the advantage of the Validium expansion solution is that it can greatly simplify the logic of the exit mechanism (exit game logic) for proof of the validity of the off-chain data system, and allow arbitrary execution within the second layer. The downside is that this causes exit delays. Because of this, Vitalik believes that "the Validium scheme (zk Plasma) is far less exciting than the zk Rollup scheme."
The congestion dilemma of the Ethereum mainnet (Layer 1) has contributed to the prosperity of the Layer 2 expansion track. Technical solutions such as Plasma, Sidechain, State Channels, Opitmistic rollups, and zkRollup are surging, and diverse technical implementation paths also mean differentiated technical trade-offs .
Alex Gluchowski, founder of Matter Labs, discussed the existing Ethereum Layer 2 expansion plan on 19 sub-dimensions including Security, Performance/Economics, Usability and other four major dimensions. of
Compared
This table very intuitively presents the technical pros and cons of each Ethereum Layer 2 expansion solution. Similar to the "impossible triangle" dilemma that exists on Layer 1, Layer 2 also has trade-offs in terms of decentralization, security, and performance.
As can be seen from the figure above, from the perspective of security, the Rollup series is the best (zkRollup is the best, followed by Optimistic Rollups), but this series of technical solutions also sacrifices the most in performance, which is the performance of all layer 2 solutions. Minimum (based on ETH1.0). In terms of performance, the Validum and State channels schemes are the best, but these two schemes have made trade-offs in terms of security.
Although the mechanisms of Validium and zkRollup are very similar, they both use zero-knowledge proofs to achieve transaction validity. Whereas data availability in zkRollup remains on-chain, Validium remains off-chain. This also makes Validium pay a price for security while achieving high performance. Possible security risks include "quorum verifiers can freeze funds", "quorum verifiers can confiscate funds", "suffer hot wallet key attack".
StarkEx Launches Hybrid Data Solution "Volition"
In the latest official blog post, the StarkWare team responded to questions about the StarkEx data availability solution.
StarkWare said that Data Availability (DA) is a very rich scope, and it cannot be just a simple dichotomy between on-chain and off-chain, and said that the earliest StarkEx deployment case is a Validium, but in fact, the StarkEx use case can be deployed as Rollup (Chain on-chain data), or it can be deployed as Validium (off-chain data).
According to StarkWare, the DA solution selected by the DeversiFi DEX based on the StarkEx deployment in early June is to store data off-chain through the Data Availability Committee (DAC). The main reasons are:
DeversiFi's clients (professional traders) do not want to have their trading history recorded on-chain, which would expose their strategies to competitors. Therefore, the new version of DeversiFi chose to run on Validium.
In the Layer 2 expansion scheme, StarkWare is committed to pursuing the DA design of sub-linear expansion (that is, the scalability is better than ZK-Rollups). They believe that as the congestion of Ethereum increases, especially when Ethereum This kind of DA design will become more and more important after it becomes a ubiquitous public infrastructure. In other words, StarkEx pays more attention to the pursuit of performance improvement.
In addition, StarkWare officially proposed a new solution called "Volition", which is an on-chain/off-chain hybrid data solution that allows users to dynamically choose the data storage location they want, and StarkEx said it will support it soon Volition scheme.
With the launch of this program, StarkEx hopes to give users the freedom to choose their DA preferences at any time, for any type of asset, and for any selected amount, according to their individual trading levels. Its main implementation logic is:
