Why Data Availability Layers Need to Embrace Account Abstraction

ERC-4337 Paymasters allow apps to sponsor gas, generating massive volumes of low-value, high-frequency meta-transactions. Legacy DA layers charge per byte, making sponsorship economically unviable.

• Cost Structure: Paymaster ops require posting userOp hashes and signatures, creating ~200 bytes of overhead per transaction.
• Scale Requirement: A popular dApp could generate 10M+ userOps/day, demanding sub-cent DA costs to be sustainable.

Solving engines like UniswapX and CowSwap don't submit transactions; they submit signed intents and later post cryptographic proofs of fair settlement. DA layers must efficiently store these sparse, finality-critical proofs.

• Data Pattern: Bursty, irregular posting of ZK proofs or merkle roots (~1KB) after batch resolution.
• Guarantee Need: Users and solvers require strong DA guarantees that settlement proofs are available for dispute, linking to systems like Across and Anoma.

AA wallets are inherently multi-chain, but UserOperations are chain-specific. Executing a single intent across Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Base requires publishing the same userOp payload to multiple DA layers, exploding costs.

• Redundancy: Identical signature and calldata published N times for N chains.
• Synchronization: Requires atomic publication guarantees across heterogeneous DA systems to prevent partial execution.

Smart accounts like Safe{Core} and Rhinestone modularize logic via plugins. Upgrades and state changes must be available for fork-choice rule verification in modular stacks. DA becomes about state diff availability.

• New Primitive: DA for EIP-7377 migration transactions or plugin installation calls.
• L2 Integration: Rollups like Arbitrum Orbit need this data to reconstruct the latest account state on a new chain, a core need for layerzero's omnichain future.

AA enables session keys for gasless UX, but each authorized contract and permission rule must be recorded on-chain. A gaming session could authorize dozens of actions, creating massive, structured authorization graphs.

• Data Explosion: Not a simple tx; a graph of permissions (contract, function, limit) must be made available.
• Ephemeral Nature: Data is only needed for the session's duration (minutes to hours), but requires strong initial availability.

AA enables transaction privacy via stealth addresses or encryption. DA layers must adapt to store commitments to private data while enabling verifiable inclusion, a paradigm shift from public calldata.

• New Demand: ZK-proofs of inclusion for encrypted userOps, separating execution data from verification data.
• Composability: Private intents from RAILGUN or Aztec must still be settled publicly, requiring hybrid DA models that work with sequencers like EigenLayer.

DA layers like Celestia and EigenDA compete on cost per byte, but users don't pay for bytes—they pay for transactions. Without native AA, bridging assets from a DA chain to an execution environment like Arbitrum or Optimism requires manual, multi-step interactions, locking liquidity in silos.\n- User Burden: Forces users to manage gas on multiple chains.\n- Protocol Risk: Increases reliance on third-party bridges like LayerZero or Across, adding points of failure.

Low-cost DA attracts high-volume, low-value data blobs from sequencers like those from Arbitrum Nova. This creates a race to the bottom on hardware, favoring a few large, centralized operators who can achieve economies of scale. Native AA could enable fee abstraction and sponsored transactions, distributing economic activity and making node operation accessible.\n- Current Model: Incentivizes few blob producers.\n- AA Model: Incentivizes many transaction sponsors and service providers.

If DA layers remain passive data stores, the value accrual shifts entirely to the execution and settlement layers (e.g., Ethereum L1, Arbitrum). Projects like StarkNet and zkSync with native account abstraction will abstract away the DA layer entirely, treating it as an interchangeable commodity. The DA layer becomes a cost center, not a value layer.\n- Commoditization Risk: DA becomes a race to the cheapest blob.\n- Value Capture: AA-enabled execution layers capture all user relationships and fees.

DA layers must bake in AA primitives, not delegate them. A native paymaster contract on the DA layer allows apps to sponsor blob fees, enabling gasless user onboarding. Session keys can permit secure, batched actions across the modular stack (DA -> Execution -> Settlement). This turns the DA layer into a proactive coordination point.\n- Direct Integration: Mimics Ethereum's EIP-4337 but for data publishing.\n- Network Effect: DA layer becomes the user's home base for modular interactions.

Move beyond first-come-first-serve blob ordering. Let users submit signed intents (e.g., "I want this data available within 2 blocks for under $0.10") to a shared mempool. Solvers—like those in CowSwap or UniswapX—can batch, order, and fulfill these intents efficiently for a fee. This creates a liquid market for data inclusion, not just storage.\n- Efficiency: Solvers optimize for cost and speed, similar to MEV searchers.\n- User Experience: Predictable pricing and guaranteed service levels.

DA layers should natively generate and verify ZK proofs of state transitions related to data availability. This allows an AA wallet on Ethereum to trustlessly verify that its transaction data was posted to Celestia, without relying on a separate bridge oracle. This turns DA into a verifiable service, closing the security loop for modular AA.\n- Security Model: Removes social consensus assumptions for light clients.\n- Interop Standard: Becomes the bedrock for chains using the DA layer.