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Is the application chain theory impeccable? The Game of Composability and Autonomy

深潮

2022-10-17 17:41

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Original title: "The Case For and Against the Appchain Thesis"

Original author: Degen Sensei

Original compilation: Shenchao TechFlow

Appchain theory has developed as a refutation of Ethereum's multi-chain future, especially ignited with the development of Cosmos 2.0 and the transfer of dYdX from Ethereum's second-layer solution Starknet to Cosmos the philosophy.

So, what is the application chain theory?

Application chain theory

Application chain theory is: with each Protocols on-chain that want to scale, they will seek to transform into sovereign chains, giving them full control over their protocol, independent of legacy L1.

Why do you want to do this?

Imagine if you created a DeFi protocol on Solana and struggled to stay afloat, but the network was constantly down, seriously hindering your business. In this case, you are forced to look for other chains that are more resilient, and you can choose the following independently:

· Maintain your own consensus;

· Security (inter-chain security can be exchanged);

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· Verifier independent setting;

· ;uptime;

They will get full power to run their sovereign blockchain instead of relying on the underlying L1. It's a double-edged sword, so let's dig into the pros and cons, and I'll try to provide a fair reason for both sides.

The viewpoint of supporting application chain theory

Sovereign sovereignty

One argument against the application chain theory is that it loses composability. However, believers in Lisk will say that full composability creates a cascading effect that runs through the system like dominoes, leading to more disruption.

A DeFi protocol that lacks demand and users will likely take a different route after observing the Polkadot ecosystem. We have seen examples of sovereign chains functioning perfectly, such as the failure of Terra, without causing the larger Cosmos ecosystem to collapse.

Facilitates interoperability

Appchain facilitates interoperability, any relevant Data can be sent from one chain to the next, which means that the promoters of this infrastructure will also be the main beneficiaries from the application chain theory.

More room for speculation

One of the reasons L1 has amassed so much value is that , they have incredible ecosystems. This also makes them difficult to value from a financial perspective-this leaves room for more speculation and potential growth, while standard DeFi applications are relatively easier to value, and becoming an application chain is expected to improve more room for speculation.

More Token empowerment

The application chain also provides Token Further utility, as an application's native token can be used to pay the validator's gas fee, which will create an additional token consumption to ease the selling pressure caused by incentives.

MEV resistance

MEV (miner extractable value) resistance is another application chain Core advantage because it makes enforcing MEV much harder when you have a customizable set of validators that you can ensure enforced behavior. We have already seen examples of this in the Cosmos Hub, where transactions must be forced to be batched, limiting the ability to execute MEV (batched execution forces miners to execute transactions that have nothing to do with transaction order).

Applications pay Gas on L1 to get the same block space as other applications. As you already know by now, during times of high demand, this will cause gas prices to skyrocket and turn into a negative experience for the end user. This doesn't happen on AppChain because apps control their network.

Avoiding regulatory hurdles

Finally, one of the most powerful points of Lisk is that they is more decentralized. If you compare protocols deployed on L2 such as Arbitrum with a centralized orderer, an AppChain with an infinite number of validators is clearly more decentralized, which is why protocols that are fearful of being tokenized as securities may behave in this way Reasons for seeking asylum.

These are the examples of Lisks I've seen so far, let's look at the arguments against them.

Against the application chain theory

Lack of composability

The premise of the application chain theory is: if an application does not need composability, other applications will become redundant, because the market will be tilted towards the winner.

Composability has always been one of the main drivers of DeFi development, and at the same time, you already have sidechains, which are for those who do not inherit the security of Ethereum built for specific applications. In addition, the protocol has been successfully deployed on L2, which is more scalable while being secure in Ethereum.

Applications are isolating themselves through fragmented fluidity and losing the composability that has always worked so well for them. If the ecosystem works well, liquidity fragmentation does not necessarily become a problem, but in fact, the user experience is not very good, and some security issues need to be considered.

Security Issues

Compared to EVM, it can be considered that the Cosmos SDK is rather cumbersome to build, Applications taking responsibility for their own security becomes a major risk. It's clear that interchain security is one way to mitigate this, so it deserves attention.

Furthermore, it is undeniable that cross-chain bridges have proven to be quite dangerous. While cross-chain bridges enable consumers to use assets on different chains, it also reduces security given the number of hacks that have occurred in the industry. If we want the cryptocurrency industry to be taken seriously, we need to reduce the loss of value from hacks. This does not mean that IBC is unsafe, however, after the BNB incident, we conducted some in-depth investigations. We have discovered a vulnerability that affects all IBC-enabled chains. Hats off to the Cosmos team here for catching this issue before it caused more damage.

Informal Systems audited the Cosmos Go module (used to implement IBC) in January 2021, and while I don't doubt their competence, they are smarter than me Much more, but it would be nice to see the module audited by other independent parties. Although Informal Systems was not involved in the build of this module, they directly benefited from it, since their business was built on it, which became a conflict of interest.

Cannibalism within an ecosystem

Cannibalism within an ecosystem will mainly Adversely affect ATOM Token. Multiple protocols are trying to capture different forms of value accumulation in the ecosystem, as the Cosmos Hub has been slow to implement. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it can be seen as providing value to anyone rather than being a gatekeeper keeping it inside.

As a direct competitor to the new ATOM 2.0 roadmap, the main one to watch is: Celestia.

Celestia is a modular blockchain that allows other chains to connect to their existing consensus without requiring them to create their own , providing shared security between these chains. The value proposition is that it will be easier to deploy on Celestia than using IBC and ICC.

At the same time, Celestia is also able to scale with the number of users joining its network by downloading availability sampling of random data samples only from blocks rather than the entire network -> Proof The entire block is usable and verifiable. The block size is able to grow with the number of users (light nodes) because the base layer does not need to download the entire block, so there is no need to continuously increase hardware requirements.

Developer Complexity

The main reasons why competitors like Celestia will emerge One is the Clunkyness of the Cosmos SDK, making it a bigger task for developers to run and maintain their own chain on Cosmos than just launching on Ethereum.

For most applications that need to benefit from the convenience of composability, being bulky and siled is probably not a good idea.

In addition, The current roadmap of Ethereum is already moving towards the direction of application chain and Rollup, and give priority to the development in this direction. IMX is an example, as is Arbitrum Nova. Nevertheless, competition is healthy for the development of the industry, as users will get a better experience from high-quality products.

So, who will benefit from it?

The answer is ATOM Token, because they plan to launch interchain security , allowing for better value capture. When I argued for Lisk, I mentioned it being good for interoperability, and some of you might have guessed that Synapse might be worth keeping an eye on. The team is jumping into the cross-chain future as it leverages capital better than other cross-chain bridge protocols.

Synapse has started building the Synapse chain, which is preparing a cross-chain messaging system to securely send any arbitrary data between chains. It will provide an interface to facilitate the process for developers to build cross-chain use cases.

Synapse also includes a cross-chain bridge infrastructure other than IBC, which enables you to bridge between 18 different L1/L2.

Main harvest

From the perspective of blockchain, application chain theory and current Mainstream blockchains are different. While you say there are other blockchains, like Solana and Avalanche, which are also PoS blockchains, there is no significant difference other than speed.

The Cosmos ecosystem offers something different, and while impressive development has occurred so far, there is still a long way to go way to go.

However, there is no doubt that the infrastructure that is being built provides a net It doesn't really matter - as long as it's easy to use and attracts demand, people will use it. Therefore, Cosmos and Ethereum are the same.

However, I would take some precautions with protocols that don't use interchain security when the protocol is released, especially if they don't have the maturity to heavily use the Cosmos SDK experience.

Finally, this is the first iteration of the cross-chain infrastructure, and there is no doubt that people's experience on the various chains will be better over time Silky and seamless.

What do you think about the future of cross-chain?