The Future of Interchain Security: Shared, Not Borrowed

Shared security is inevitable. The current model of borrowing security from Ethereum via rollups is a temporary scaling hack, not a final architecture. It creates fragmented security zones and forces protocols like Arbitrum and Optimism to pay perpetual rent to a single settlement layer.

Sovereign chains demand sovereignty. The next evolution is interchain security pools, where independent chains contribute and share security as peers. This mirrors the economic logic of proof-of-stake but operates at the L1/L2 level, enabling chains like Celestia-based rollups to secure each other without a central hub.

The metric is economic alignment. The security of a chain is its total value secured (TVS). A shared security pool aggregates TVS across participants, creating a stronger, more resilient defense than any single chain could afford alone, moving beyond the fragility of today's isolated bridges and oracles.

Endogenous security is foundational. A system's security must derive from its own economic stake and validator set. Relying on external validators from Ethereum or another L1 creates a critical dependency and a systemic risk vector, as seen in bridge hacks.

Shared security is not borrowed security. Protocols like Cosmos Interchain Security and Polygon 2.0's shared sequencer model demonstrate that validators can natively secure multiple chains. This contrasts with the oracle-based security of most bridges like LayerZero or Wormhole, which are external attestation layers.

The economic model dictates security. A chain with its own sovereign validator set aligns slashing penalties and rewards directly with its operation. Borrowed security, like an EigenLayer AVS, introduces misaligned incentives where operators prioritize the primary chain's rewards.

Evidence: The $325M Wormhole hack exploited an external validator signature. Conversely, the IBC protocol, with its light client-based endogenous security, has never had a protocol-level exploit despite $2T+ in cross-chain volume.

Borrowed security is a liability. Protocols like Cosmos IBC and LayerZero rely on external validator sets, creating a trust dependency. The security of a bridge or chain becomes a function of another network's economic security, which is not designed for that purpose.

The validator incentive mismatch is fatal. The Ethereum validator set securing an optimistic rollup has zero economic stake in that rollup's correct execution. Their slashing condition is for Ethereum consensus, not for verifying L2 state transitions, creating a security abstraction leak.

Shared security is the correction. EigenLayer's restaking and Cosmos Interchain Security (ICS) align security by having the same validator set economically accountable for multiple services. This eliminates the delegation of trust to a third-party with divergent incentives.

Evidence: The Polygon Avail data availability layer chose to build its own validator set instead of borrowing from Ethereum, citing the need for direct slashing and accountability as the core reason for this architectural decision.

Ethereum's security is non-fungible. The economic security of a chain is a function of its native asset's value and the cost to attack it. Ethereum's high staked ETH value secures Ethereum. Exporting this to secure a Cosmos app-chain via Interchain Security (ICS) creates a security mismatch where the slashing penalty is disconnected from the app's own token economics.

Shared security is not borrowed security. Validators in a shared security model, like Polygon Avail or Celestia, secure a data availability or execution layer for its own ecosystem's value. This is a shared cost model, not a rental of Ethereum's sovereign security. The security budget scales with the collective value of the secured chains.

The gold standard is a liquidity trap. Projects that anchor security solely to Ethereum, like early optimistic rollups, pay a massive premium for L1 gas and face constrained throughput. The future is sovereign chains with light client verification (IBC) or ZK proofs that inherit security through cryptographic guarantees, not economic subletting.

Shared security is inevitable. Current models force chains to bootstrap their own validator sets, creating systemic fragmentation and risk. The future is a modular security layer where chains lease economic security from a base layer like Ethereum or Celestia, similar to how EigenLayer restakers secure Actively Validated Services (AVSs).

Security is not a validator set. The core innovation is decoupling execution from consensus and settlement. Chains will execute locally but settle disputes on a shared, high-security layer. This is the model pioneered by rollups and is now extending to sovereign chains via protocols like Eclipse and Dymension.

The sovereign stack emerges. This architecture enables sovereign execution with borrowed security. A chain built with the Cosmos SDK can use Celestia for data availability and Ethereum (via EigenLayer) for its validator set, creating a new class of hyper-scalable, secure app-chains without the bootstrap cost.

Evidence: EigenLayer has over $15B in restaked ETH securing external systems. This capital proves the demand for a trust-minimized security marketplace, moving the industry beyond the isolated security silos of today's app-chains and L2s.