1. Introduction

In the ever-evolving blockchain space, scalability and customization have become major concerns for application developers. As ZK Rollups and Optimistic Rollups grow in popularity, it’s clear that developers need solutions that can scale their applications while maintaining flexibility and control.

ZK Rollups and Optimistic Rollups have gained significant attention in the blockchain space in recent years due to their ability to significantly improve the throughput and efficiency of existing blockchains such as Ethereum. However, despite these promises, these aggregation technologies also face their own set of challenges, especially in terms of accessibility, customization, centralization of sorters, soft finality, decentralized liquidity, etc.

This is where AltLayer comes in. Unlike the existing options available to application builders today, AltLayer offers a Rollups-as-a-service offering for developers seeking actual control over their rollup solutions. RaaS services allow developers to directly manage their rollups, providing a high degree of customization and control over their blockchain infrastructure.

However, what really sets AltLayer apart is its new Restaked Rollup framework, which brings a re-stake to rollups. RaaS combined with the Restaked Rollup framework enables anyone, including individuals with little to no coding experience, to create their own customized blockchain execution layer in minutes and bring greater security and decentralization to their rollup transformation. This remarkable feature bridges the gap between technical and non-technical users, making AltLayer a usable option for a wide range of application builders.

In this article, we’ll take a deeper look at the mechanics and potential of AltLayer, exploring how it can serve as a Rollup-as-a-Service solution in the rapidly evolving blockchain environment.

2. Summary center

AltLayer is a Rollup-as-a-Service protocol for developers to launch their own Layer 2 (imagine launching application-specific versions of Optimism, zkSync, Arbitrum, etc.). AltLayer provides:

1. SDK for developers who want to manage rollups themselves
2. No-code dashboard that allows everyone to launch a custom execution layer in 2 minutes with a few simple clicks

Basically, AltLayer is a decentralized aggregation hub that allows individuals to launch their own L2 solutions based on their needs. However, some questions may arise regarding the types of execution methods available, aggregation speed, general/specialized aggregation, etc.

AltLayer allows launching ZK Rollups and Optimistic Rollups using EVM, WASM or other runtimes for generic or application-specific purposes. Users can fully customize their aggregation according to their needs and preferences.

Figure 1: Benefits of AltLayer’s Rollup-as-aService product. Source: Source: docs.allayer.io

As mentioned above, AltLayer can be quickly deployed in minutes, and the process is very similar to normal on-chain deployment. AltLayer’s Rollups do not need to be secured by hundreds of validators (such as the Cosmos SDK) because they use the underlying chain (Layer 1) as a security layer.

AltLayer is designed with modularity at its core, enabling end users to tailor their rollup solutions to their preferences. This flexibility extends to the choice of runtime environment, including options such as EVM, WASM, and more. Additionally, users are free to choose their preferred data availability layer, whether it is an L1 blockchain or a data layer like Celestia. AltLayer also allows users to choose their preferred settlement layer, such as Ethereum or Arbitration One.

Figure 2: RaaS architecture. Source: docs.allayer.io

The main problem faced by most aggregations is sorter decentralization (sorting and processing transactions). However, AltLayer is run by a decentralized network of sequencers. These sequencers are selected from a network of sequencers called SQUAD based on their stake and a certain amount of randomness. We discuss SQUAD in detail in the next section.

Finally, a core feature worth mentioning is layered finality. Traditional blockchains typically classify blocks as final or unfinalized. However, AltLayer takes a more nuanced approach to completing blocks, implementing a layered system. This layered system enables end users to determine the final status of transactions based on their chosen security budget. As a block passes through these different layers of finalization, the level of confidence in its finality gradually increases. Confidence in finality is lowest at the execution level and reaches its highest point at the summary level.

AltLayer’s finalization process consists of three distinct layers: execution level (suitable for low security budgets), verification level (suitable for medium security budgets), and rollup level (suitable for high security budgets).

• Execution-level finalization: Transaction pool contents are collected by block producers and organized into blocks. These blocks are then subject to a consensus protocol. Once these blocks and the transactions they contain are verified and accepted by the consensus protocol, they are executed at the execution level lake
• Verification Level Finalization: Once generated and verified by block producers and the consensus protocol, blocks are subject to verification by validators, thereby achieving verification level finalization. Additionally, stronger finalization occurs when additional validators can confirm or reject updates, and more confirmations increase the likelihood of correctness.
• Aggregation level finalization: Blocks cleared by quorum consensus go through a challenge phase, allowing anyone to run the validator and participate in validation. If a challenger discovers a discrepancy with an on-chain proposal, they may challenge it. A successful challenge will invalidate subsequent blocks, triggering state restoration. An unsuccessful challenge results in a significant reduction in the challenger’s stake.

AltLayer also provides another type of aggregation, called a flash layer, which is better suited to scalability issues. The flash tier is a one-time application-customized volume with optional fraud proofing.

With Flash Layers, dApp developers can do the following

• Quickly launch fast and scalable rollups protected by Layer 1
• Use rollup as needed to prevent layer 1 congestion
• The rollup is disposed of with an End-of-Life settlement on Tier 1.

This significantly optimizes resource utilization, as the execution layer and its resources are only invoked when a dApp encounters high traffic that exceeds Layer 1 limits. When demand decreases, dApps can seamlessly return to layer 1 operation.

Potential use cases include NFT minting events, games, event ticketing, and more.

Figure 3: Flash layer summary. Source: docs.allayer.io

3. Re-pledge summary

This is a new concept developed in collaboration with EigenLayer. It consists of a set of three vertically integrated Active Verifiable Services (AVS), created on demand for a given rollup package. Together, these AVS provide three key services for rollup applications: decentralized ordering, state correctness verification, and faster finality. This contributes to Rollup decentralization, security enhancement, and interoperability between Rollups, while leveraging Ethereum’s trusted network through re-staking. The updated rollup package consists of three modular components called:

• VITAL (AVS for decentralized aggregate state verification)
• MACH (AVS for fast finalization)
• SQUAD (AVS for Scattered Sequencing)

Figure 4: Summary of re-releases. Source: altlayer.io/retaked-rollups

Let’s take a closer look at these components:

1. Essential Acts as an integrated verification layer for rollup packages. It consists of a network of AVS registered operators responsible for validating all new status proposed by SQUAD operators. The VITAL operator detects invalid state roots and can challenge the SQUAD operator using the bisection protocol.
   Essentially, VITAL is the carrier network that validates the new state. Unlike the initial confirmation provided by the rollup sequencer, the confirmation given by VITAL is stronger due to its underlying financial incentives. This allows assets to be withdrawn instantly. VITAL can also use optimistic proofs and ZK proofs, where the VITAL operator can ask the SQUAD operator to generate a ZK proof for a disputed state root.

Figure 5: Crucial. Source: blog.allayer.io

1. Mach is designed to solve the slow finality of aggregation by validating the aggregation block and ensuring that the block is valid based on the aggregation’s state transition function. Once an invalid block is detected, the MACH operator will issue an alert. If a sufficient number of operators agree with the alert, it can be upgraded to an upstream dApp.
   The end user’s MACH service will be provided as an RPC endpoint reporting whether a specific summary block is considered final. This RPC endpoint can be integrated into any converged decentralized application, providing faster and more reliable confirmations. Additionally, MACH will benefit exchanges, bridges, light clients, and other ancillary services that require streaming access to aggregated state and blocks to deliver their products and services.

Figure 6: MACH. Source: blog.allayer.io

1. Team Enables nodes operated by EigenLayer AVS operators to register their interests as aggregated sequencers. Once the required number of sequencers have staked the minimum collateral, these sequencers can begin sequencing aggregate transactions.
   To facilitate sequencer discovery, SQUAD is designed as a network of nodes that any EigenLayer AVS operator can join, effectively acting as a full-fledged blockchain with WASM and EVM execution environments. Nodes in SQUAD are called validators, which is typical for any PoS network.

Figure 7: Squad. Source: blog.allayer.io

4. Participating players

4.1 Partners and projects using AltLayer technology

AltLayer has numerous partnerships, most of which are integration in nature and involve using AltLayer’s technology stack or integrating other projects’ technology stacks to work with AltLayer. This is a strong indicator that the product offers Rollup as a Service. As of September 2023, AltLayer has multiple partners and integrations: EigenLayer, Sovereign SDK, HyperLane, Celestia, Orbiter Finance, Espresso Systems, Radius, Double Jump. Tokyo, Arbitrum Orbit and other projects related to AltLayer include: Another World , My Square, Connext, MatchBox, Oveit, BendDAO, Skyark, Port3, Degame, Uforica, Evolv, Chirpley, StratisX, RNS.ID, 3UP, Evolv, Fobo.club, Automata, MySquare NFT, TaskOn and DF Archon. Now, as of late May 2024, AltLayer has a host of partners and integrations, with weekly blog announcements and an ecosystem section containing 120 projects in various categories.

Figure 8: AltLayer ecosystem. Source: altlayer.io

4.2 Integration example

own layer It is the Ethereum-heavy pledge protocol. As mentioned before, AltLayer and EigenLayer collaborated to come up with the concept of Restaked rollups. AltLayer currently has the following summary of relaunches on the EigenLayer mainnet.

polyhedron - Polyhedra Network’s ZkBridge represents a significant advancement for the blockchain industry, providing a robust, efficient, and secure cross-network interaction protocol across a variety of Layer 1 and Layer 2 networks. By integrating zkBridge, AltLayer rollups now ensure seamless compatibility with over 30 different Layer 1 and Layer 2 networks. As part of the partnership, AltLayer plans to join Polyhedra AVS to re-stake Bitcoin zkBridge.

solo shot - MACH integrated with AltLayer for inEVM, allowing smart contracts compiled to EVM bytecode to be deployed and integrated within the Injective ecosystem, while also ensuring composability via WASM/EVM. AltLayer’s MACH will provide rehypothecation-based security in inEVM, benefiting applications running over inEVM.

Brevis is a zero-knowledge coprocessor that allows smart contracts to read and utilize the complete historical data on any chain and perform custom calculations in a trustless manner. Using Brevis, developers can create a variety of data-driven features. AltLayer’s replay aggregation will now be enhanced with the Brevis coprocessor. The remastered rollup is our flagship product. By making the Brevis coprocessor available for re-aggregation, developers on AltLayer can reliably perform on-chain historical data calculations and build data-driven decentralized applications that respond to dynamic data input.

Sovereign SDK is an ecosystem of interoperable and extensible rollup packages that can run on any blockchain. Their SDK is an open source toolkit for creating zk and optimistic rollup packages. Protocols such as Haun, 1kx, EigenLayer, and Celestia use the Sovereign SDK. In AltLayer, Sovereign is integrated to facilitate the deployment of rollup packages in the Rollups-as-a-Service (RaaS) ecosystem.

passing lane Simplifies the deployment of functional compatibility for any protocol in the blockchain. With permissionless interaction capabilities, users can deploy Hyperlane anytime, anywhere. As a result, blockchain creators and developers can enjoy greater autonomy and quickly make their products available across chains. AltLayer partners with Hyperlane to provide license-free compatibility within the AltLayer ecosystem. In addition to the built-in merge bridge, projects using the AltLayer stack can leverage Hyperlane for inter-merge service deployment and communication.

Celestia is AltLayer’s modular blockchain for Data Availability (DA) to solve the challenges of data availability and reliable state verification. AltLayer is configured to support Celestia’s DA layer as one of the possible rollup package options created through AltLayer merged dashboards, thereby reducing the cost required for data availability. As part of the integration, AltLayer developers will extract chain data from Celestia, compress it, and upload it to the Celestia network. This will allow the summary state to be fully reconstructed using data from Celestia.

Nebra - AltLayer partners with Nebra to integrate its advanced Universal Proof Aggregation (UPA) technology into its aggregation solution. Nebra’s UPA is the first production-ready universal proof aggregation protocol designed to reduce gas costs by more than 10x and improve the composability of zero-knowledge proof verification.

Orbital Finance Serves as a bridge between Ethereum and L2 Rollup. Orbiter has partnered with AltLayer to address liquidity fragmentation in L2 with a feature compatibility tool.

Espresso system Integration into the AltLayer stack adds Espresso Sequencer, a decentralized sequencer solution. When deploying within an AltLayer stack, developers can choose whether to deploy rollup packages using AltLayer’s decentralized validation solution and/or the Espresso Sequencer. This partnership provides application developers with an easy way to launch a scalable and customizable L2 layer, while ensuring that future users of the merged package benefit from the properties provided by the decentralized sequencer.

radius Redefining decentralization of Rollup packages with protection against MEV, censorship resistance, and financial stability. Together with encryption-based sorting, this protects users from censorship and MEV risks. With Radius integrated with AltLayer, developers will discover the dual benefits of the user-friendly and efficient AltLayer platform for creating summary packages, combined with the encryption-based sorting provided by Radius.

Tokyo double jump - Leading Japanese startups in blockchain gaming and NFTs have partnered to integrate AltLayer’s comprehensive technology stack into Oasys - a blockchain optimized for game development, developed by a group including Double Jump.tokyo Created by developers.
It’s worth noting that, in general, AltLayer embraces web3 game narratives and caters to customers in that space. AltLayer provides game developers with two types of rollup packages: temporary packages and persistent packages. Temporary rollup packages are ideal for event-driven applications that experience rapid spikes in demand over a short period of time, such as mini-games or turn-based games. On the other hand, persistent rollups are best for games with a long lifespan.
Notably, AltLayer’s rollup package (Flash Layer) has previously been used to host popular full-network games such as Dark Forest, attracting 250,000 transactions per day. AltLayer positions Flash Layer as a solution also suitable for gaming.

orbital decision is a permissionless solution recently announced by the Arbitrum Foundation that enables developers to create fully customizable Layer 3 protected by Arbitrum One. AltLayer has begun integrating support for Arbitrum Orbit and its technology stack on its no-code launch dashboard and will go live in Q2 2023, becoming the first rollup package provider to support Arbitrum Orbit.

until agreement - Deri Protocol is a way to trade derivatives using DeFi: hedging, speculation, arbitrage, all on-chain. With Deri Protocol, trades are executed according to the AMM paradigm and positions are tagged as NFTs, allowing easy integration with other DeFi projects.

Automata - Automata is a blockchain middleware provider powered by Binance Labs, Jump Crypto, and more. They recently launched a modular proof layer where proofs are performed entirely on-chain for non-protocol computations.

bring it on - Cometh is a game studio from France. They have previously worked with high-profile clients such as La Française des Jeux (FDJ), Lacoste, FanLive Rugby and Life Beyond Studios for their Web3 needs.

5. Token Economics

Functionality of the AltLayer token includes the following:

• Economic Bonds: ALT tokens will be used with re-staking assets to provide economic collateral. This benefit may be reduced if malicious behavior is detected.
• Governance: ALT token holders can vote on governance decisions.
• Protocol Incentives: Operators in the AltLayer ecosystem can receive ALT tokens as rewards for their services.
• Protocol Fees: Network participants are required to pay for services within the network using ALT tokens.

Additionally, AltLayer has token wrappers - reALT and stALT:

• In effect: This stands for “Re-staking ALT Token”, an ERC20 interest-bearing token that records the holder’s interest in ALT and accumulates the rewards earned through compound interest. reALT tokens are issued to users who stake ALT in the main staking pool. It is a reward token that accumulates heavy rewards.
• Default: This is an ERC1155 token that represents the holder’s interest in the main staking pool. stALT tokens can be manually converted to realALT through the portal.

Figure 9: AltLayer token metrics. Source: binance.com

6. Who is behind AltLayer?

The team is mostly composed of core team members and developers from Zilliqa, whose experience mainly dates back to 2017 and have strong technical backgrounds. Additionally, team members have a solid reputation in the crypto industry.

Yaoqi Jia, CEO - In 2019, Yao Qi was selected into Forbes’ “30 Under 30 in Asia”. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the School of Computing, National University of Singapore, in 2017. Yaoqi led the design and creation of the first publicly accessible blockchain platform with full sharding capabilities, including network, transaction and smart contract sharding. He has also worked with Xfers on the StraitsX stablecoin initiative in Southeast Asia and has been involved in blockchain projects with Mindshare, Singapore Exchange, Hg Exchange, and others. Prior to Zilliqa, Yaoqi worked at Parity Technologies.

Amrit Kumar, Chief Operating Officer - Amrit holds a Master’s degree in Security, Cryptography and Information Systems Coding. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Grenoble-Alpes, France, and worked at the Informatics Laboratory of Grenoble (Inria). He co-founded and served as chief investment officer of Zilliqa and currently serves as chief operating officer of Alt Research, a research firm associated with AltLayer.

Junhao Tan, Director of Product Engineering - Former co-founder and core developer of Zilliqa, Junhao Tan is very active in the Zilliqa community, ranging from technical aspects to the DeFi ecosystem and its state. He has been working in the computer security field since 2019 and holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the National University of Singapore, majoring in information security.

Antonio Nunez, Platform Development Director - Antonio holds a bachelor’s degree in physics and computer engineering from the Ateneo de Manila University. He has extensive development experience in various languages and tools since 2006 and is a former co-founder and senior engineer at Zilliqa.

Dorothy Liu, Head of Growth - Dorothy holds a bachelor’s degree in international business management and a master’s degree in marketing. She previously worked as a consultant at Deloitte and as a vice president at OSL. Dorothy has extensive experience working at well-known companies such as Synthetix and HashKey Trading, and has extensive knowledge of the inter-layer mechanics of blockchain.

Aparna Narayanan, Head of Communications - Aparna has worked in Public Affairs and Strategic Communications at APCO Worldwide and holds a BA in Economics, Management, Political Science and Public Policy. She entered the cryptocurrency space in 2019 and was promoted from CM to Head of Communications at Zilliqa.

7. Supporters

AltLayer’s backers come primarily from the Tier 1 category and individuals with established reputations in the crypto industry: Polychain Capital, Breyer Capital, Jump, Binance Labs Fund, Hashkey Capital, Bankless Ventures, IOSG Ventures, Primitive Ventures, TRGC, Mask, OKX Ventures, DAO 5, as well as some big names like Circle co-founder Sean Nevile, Gavin Wood, a16z general partner Balaji Srinivasan, Synthetix Kain Warwick, Messari Ryan Selkis, Synthetix Jordan Momtazi and Bodhi Ventures.

Figure 10: AltLayer supporter. Source: altlayer.io

8. Conclusion

In past crypto industry cycles, projects aimed to increase liquidity and fragmentation in the battle for users, striving to dominate the market. However, there is now a growing recognition that collaboration is critical. Each project has its pros and cons, as well as a focus on specific user categories and developers. In recent years, there have been clear convergence trends – the emergence of dApps, different strategies, liquidity and modular blockchains.

AltLayer is a project that keeps pace with the times and aims to provide developers with maximum convenience, without spending a lot of resources, not only to launch their own network, but even to implement it through an SDK. In addition, AltLayer provides its own practical technology solutions for various blockchain layers to launch Rollups as well as the ability to leverage other technologies, including modular technology, to present the product as Rollup as a service.

Additionally, AltLayer successfully integrates and incorporates new technologies into its stack. This is evident in the integration with EigenLayer - AltLayer quickly delivers an AVS-based solution and seamlessly integrates its products for aggregation into it.

AltLayer link:

website | Twitter | Disharmonious | document | Moderate | GitHub

To help us improve and provide you with the best content possible, we would be grateful if you could share your thoughts and opinions on the article you just read. Your feedback is extremely valuable to us and should not take longer than 1 minute.

Also, this post is public, so feel free to share it too

Disclaimer：

1. This article is reprinted from [Dewhales Research]. All copyrights belong to the original author [Dewhales Research]. If there are objections to this reprint, please contact the Gate Learn team, and they will handle it promptly.
2. Liability Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not constitute any investment advice.
3. Translations of the article into other languages are done by the Gate Learn team. Unless mentioned, copying, distributing, or plagiarizing the translated articles is prohibited.