Devconnect News Highlights of DA, altVM, DVT, ZK, Rollup, and other tracks

Devconnect News Roundup Latest Updates on DA, altVM, DVT, ZK, Rollup, and More!

Author: Andy, The Rollup Developer; Translator: LianGuai0xjs

During the Istanbul Devconnect this week, I had the privilege of engaging in deep conversations with hundreds of talented developers in various crypto tracks. I have some thoughts I’d like to share.

First and foremost, a big thank you to everyone who kindly shared their brilliant ideas and discussed the intricacies of this exciting industry we call “cryptocurrency”. It’s been great to see developers pushing boundaries and innovating in multiple fields, like David Mirzadeh and his “based booster rollups” from the taiko team.

Whether it’s because we feel on the brink of a massive bull market or simply because people are genuinely excited about this technology, everyone seems to be very optimistic.

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Now, after a busy week full of alpha at Devconnect, what I’m most interested in is getting to the substance of it all.

While there are plenty of verticals in the cryptocurrency space, a key part of becoming a truly successful investor and entrepreneur in the emerging ecosystem is identifying the “winners” and then betting accordingly, scaling appropriately. The benefits of doing so are tremendous. If you don’t, well, the rising tide will lift all boats, but ideally, you want to be in the top three.

Essentially, I’ve made a little wager on modularity and Rollups with utmost conviction, and I believe I will be rewarded. Let me explain why:

Modularity

A modular, “à la carte” menu of scaling options is very appealing to investors, builders, and developers alike.

You can mix and match different parts of the stack like a buffet, where teams are experimenting with combining “pieces” that are available and most effective.

This is the aspect I’m most excited to watch and invest in.

Furthermore, all the builders involved in modularity and scaling at Devconnect are extremely talented. They are keen on attracting new developers, users, and building better user experiences.

Let’s delve into the details:

DA

On the technical side, the new DA layer will make Rollups significantly cheaper than ever before. If you think transactions are cheap now, you’re in for a treat.

Personally, I expect it to be 10 times cheaper. Word has it that Celestia will be 10-15 times cheaper than current costs.

Everyone is talking about Celestia and their airdrop, and for good reason.

Switching gears, at the ETH infra day, Firat and Near co-founder Illia explained how Near DA will be 8000 times cheaper than ETH L1. Illia also agreed that we haven’t seen minuscule gas costs associated with rollup transactions yet. What a leverage point, well done. Further validating the modular approach.

Avail is likely to go live on the mainnet in the first quarter of 2024 and has performed well in Istanbul. Eigen Layer has also shown promise and will soon enter the testnet.

I expect to see more DA layers, but these layers currently have a huge advantage. I will closely monitor the situation in the DA field in 2024.

altVM

In terms of technology, altVM will play a key role in introducing new developers, improving user experience, and “usability”.

Factors such as parallel execution, isolation of noisy Gas markets, higher security, and performance will drive altVM to the forefront of the modular extension race.

Of the teams I encountered here, Cartesi, Movement, Fluent, and Fuel are the most exciting.

Each team will lead new developers into the ecosystem through various initiatives, which is exciting for the entire field. Perhaps one or two teams will bring a few boxes of pizza and some beer to the university blockchain club and allow developers to directly enter their ecosystem.

DVT

Another ecosystem with absolute super brains (and large funds) is the DVT market. Please refer to the comments below for explanations. Teams like Clay Stack, SSV Network, Diva, Puffer Finance, Tenderize, Obol, Chorus One, and others are truly impressive.

They are collaborating with staking service providers to attract a large amount of institutional capital, while providing individual stakers with the opportunity to stake ETH at much lower amounts than the 32 ETH required for a full node.

ETH staking democratization, more decentralization, more nodes, stronger censorship resistance.

ZK Explosion

Next, the zk space is definitely exploding. I have seen actual use cases, live testnets, upcoming mainnets, as well as a plethora of exciting products around proof markets, zk shards, zk light client bridges, zkEVM, and even zk oracles.

This field has been developed by some of the smartest minds in the world, along with quite a significant amount of funding. Some of the teams that come to mind are Nil Foundation with their zkSharding and intriguing zkLLVM, Polygon Miden with their innovative “note” passing system, Kakarot ZkEVM bringing Starknet <> EVM together, Lagrange with their proof building and Eigenlayer’s AVS, and of course Scroll going live on the mainnet and providing a seamless experience for users.

Manta Network is transitioning from an OP-stack-based Rollup to using zkEVM with the Polygon CDK. Additionally, major DA partners are on their way.

zkLink is creating secure L3 using zk technology and will receive more attention in the first quarter of 2014. I’m excited to learn more about zk technology, although much of it is beyond my understanding.

Interoperability

One of my favorite keynote speeches comes from Neon, on how Neon integrates Solana and EVM. While there may still be technical issues and challenges to address, the integration of these communities will greatly benefit the industry’s development.

Another impressive project is Union, which conducts IBC <> EVM transfers on the testnet.

Imagine any ERC20 token on Cosmos, Osmosis, Sommelier, or Neutron. It’s coming soon.

Li.Fi is making great progress, continuously integrating new bridges and bringing Solana liquidity to EVM through Allbridge. LiFi holds a unique position in the market as it grows alongside becoming bridge aggregators with the growth of the interoperability space.

Another cool interoperability project that focuses on the use of intents (solvers, relays, etc.) is Across Protocol. I almost always use Across for L2<>L1 bridging, and they are implementing fascinating technology using third-party intent-driven relay networks.

As we enter a world with hundreds of Rollups, the demand for interoperability will increase exponentially.

Rollup

Vitalik Buterin has been involved in decentralization and infrastructure aspects of Rollups.

Espresso shared sorters are currently in high demand, and people are interested in working with them. This is a good sign for this space.

There is also Witness Chain, which focuses on building watchtowers to monitor if there are any malicious or fraudulent activities in the current centralized sorter.

All the mentioned DA layers play a role in this vertical space… and altVM to some extent as well.

All in all, I’ve never been as optimistic about L2 as I am now. This field is evolving at the speed of light, with some prominent figures actively driving innovation in the name of Ethereum.

We will continue to update Blocking; if you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us!