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Edited by Iti9 at 25-12-2023 01:01 PM
Near, a well-known sharding blockchain project, announced the launch of the popular "Data Availability Layer" solution, NEAR DA, during NEARCON. This solution aims to provide better efficiency for Ethereum and its Rollups, competing with Celestia, which recently airdropped TIA tokens.
Joining the Data Availability Layer Battlefield
Introduction to Data Availability Layer
The scalability issue of Ethereum has always been a focus of the community's development efforts. Even though there are Layer2 solutions like Arbitrum or zkSync that offer lower-cost services, the cost of Layer2 remains high due to the need to record complete data on the Ethereum mainnet. Therefore, the community believes that complete data should be stored in another place more economically, modularly establishing a network specifically for storing complete transaction information. This network is known as the Data Availability Layer (DAL).
The Data Availability Layer records complete transaction information, reducing the cost of information recording to enhance the operational efficiency between the main network and Layer2.
However, not everyone agrees with this technology. Vitalik believes that storing transaction information off-chain (outside the Ethereum mainnet) is not a secure practice and suggests evaluating it based on the use case. For example, it is not recommended for financial services, but it might be more suitable for applications that involve a large number of transactions, such as gaming.
NEAR Introduces NEAR DA
The Near Foundation announced the launch of its Data Availability Layer solution, NEAR DA, during its third annual developer conference, NEARCON. NEAR DA leverages existing Near resources to provide an alternative data storage solution for Ethereum's Rollups, alleviating the burden of storing and transmitting large amounts of data on the Ethereum blockchain. Recent data shows that the cost of recording transaction information using NEAR DA can be reduced by 8000 times compared to existing Rollups on Ethereum.
The team stated that the cost of publishing 100KB of calldata on existing Rollups on Ethereum is approximately $26.22, while publishing the same amount of data on the Near Protocol costs only $0.0033.
The official announcement mentions partners adopting NEAR DA technology, including the technical teams of Starknet's ecosystem, Madara, and Caldera, as well as the movement Labs team from the Move ecosystem. The team welcomes more development teams to join in the future.
Intense Competition in Data Availability Layer
NEAR DA represents Near's entry into the modular blockchain battlefield, competing with other DA providers such as Celestia, offering similar services and strategies.
Celestia launched a new network last week, attracting attention through airdrops. Additionally, the original Polygon project, Avail, announced the release of a new test network, Clash of Nodes, with a reward program to attract developers for testing and preparation for the mainnet launch next year.
The Near team is entering a competitive race, involving both technical competition and a test of business development capabilities in the commercial market.
NEAR's Development Strategy
Existing Advantages
Why did Near choose to launch DA services at this time? Near already has relevant technology, whether it's Layer2 or application chain frameworks. The team is familiar with modular architecture, and this service is just an extension application of its core technology stack, providing significant benefits by reaching Ethereum's vast market and ecosystem.
NEAR DA and Celestia share the same goal, expecting to gain Ethereum market share by redirecting it to their own ecosystems using competitive modular components.
Now is the golden age of modular data availability layers. Because a "market-competitive" data storage solution needs to be established before Ethereum's EIP-4844 is implemented; otherwise, its cost advantages will weaken or disappear. There is uncertainty about whether DA can attract market behavior changes at that time. Therefore, both Celestia and NEAR DA are launching services recently.
Future Vision
The Near team's goal is to create an open network, Open Web, that can accommodate more people, making it easier for users and developers to use blockchain technology. NEAR DA will be part of the Open Web Stack, providing developers with more complete functionality.
Ecosystem Competition Resumes
Whether it's existing exchanges building Layer2 networks based on OP Stack or Arbitrum Orbit, or projects from the Cosmos and Near ecosystems establishing infrastructure for Ethereum Layer2, the essence is to extract energy from the Ethereum market and strengthen their own ecosystems.
Ethereum has long been the top target for various ecosystems, but strategies are constantly changing. From the past approach of introducing new Layer1 as an Ethereum killer, it has gradually evolved into providing competitive services and establishing links and composability with Ethereum, attempting to attract and grow ecosystems in new ways.
In the future, more projects building services based on Ethereum are expected to emerge. |
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Post time 13-11-2023 20:37:24