The debate is a false dichotomy. No major chain is purely monolithic or modular; Ethereum is a modular system with a monolithic social layer, while Solana's monolithic execution layer relies on modular data availability from validators.
developer-ecosystem-tools-languages-and-grants
Blog
Why the 'Modular vs. Monolithic' Debate Is Misguided
The spectrum from Solana to Ethereum to Celestia reveals a false dichotomy. Every system is modular; the critical distinction is where and how trust boundaries are drawn between execution, settlement, consensus, and data availability.
introduction
THE MISDIRECTION
Introduction
The 'Modular vs. Monolithic' debate distracts from the real architectural challenge: designing for user intent.
The real metric is user abstraction. Successful architectures, like Arbitrum's Nitro or Optimism's OP Stack, hide complexity. Users execute swaps on Uniswap, not on a specific data availability layer.
Execution is the new bottleneck. As data availability commoditizes with Celestia and EigenDA, the competitive edge shifts to hyper-optimized execution environments like Monad or Fuel.
Evidence: The market cap of execution-focused L2s (Arbitrum, Optimism) is an order of magnitude larger than pure modular data layers, proving where value accrues.
thesis-statement
THE REAL FRONTIER
The Core Argument: It's All About Trust Boundaries
The true architectural divide is not about modularity but about the location and minimization of trust assumptions.
The debate is a distraction. Framing the choice as 'Modular vs. Monolithic' obscures the fundamental trade-off: security versus sovereignty. A monolithic chain like Solana or Sui centralizes trust in a single, high-performance state machine. A modular stack like Celestia + Arbitrum distributes trust across specialized layers but introduces new bridging risks.
Trust minimization is the real goal. The optimal architecture depends on the application's trust tolerance. High-value DeFi needs Ethereum's base-layer security, accepting its constraints. A social app might prioritize low cost via an EigenDA-powered L2, trading some decentralization for scalability.
Evidence: The market votes with TVL. Over $40B remains secured by Ethereum L1 smart contracts, not modular alt-L1s, because developers price cryptoeconomic security above pure throughput. Meanwhile, rollups like Arbitrum and Optimism dominate L2 activity by inheriting this security while scaling execution.
key-trends
BEYOND THE FALSE DICHOTOMY
The Modular Spectrum: A Continuum, Not a Binary
The 'modular vs. monolithic' debate is a distraction. Every chain exists on a spectrum of modularity, trading off sovereignty for performance and security.
01
The Problem: The Sovereign vs. Shared Security Trade-Off
Rollups must choose: inherit security from a parent chain (e.g., Ethereum) or build their own validator set. This is the core modular decision.
- Sovereign Rollups: Full control, but must bootstrap a $1B+ security budget.
- Shared Security Rollups: Inherit ~$50B in economic security, but are bound by the parent chain's rules and upgrade path.
$50B+
Shared Security
$1B+
Sovereign Cost
02
The Solution: Hybrid Execution Layers (Celestia, EigenLayer)
New primitives allow chains to mix-and-match components, creating a continuum. You are not locked into a single stack.
- Celestia: Provides data availability and consensus as a modular service, decoupling it from execution.
- EigenLayer: Allows restaking of Ethereum's security to bootstrap new networks, creating a market for cryptoeconomic security.
~$0.001
DA Cost/Tx
10+
Active AVSs
03
The Reality: Monoliths Are Modularizing (Solana, Monad)
Even 'monolithic' chains are adopting modular design principles internally to scale. The distinction is about where the modular boundaries are drawn.
- Solana: Uses local fee markets and QUIC to partition network congestion, a form of internal sharding.
- Monad: Introduces parallel execution and deferred state writes, modularizing the EVM's state access patterns for 10,000+ TPS.
10,000+
Peak TPS
-90%
State Contention
04
The Outcome: Application-Specific Trade-Offs
The optimal point on the spectrum is determined by the application's needs. There is no one-size-fits-all architecture.
- High-Frequency DEX: Needs ~100ms finality, favoring a high-performance monolithic chain or an AppChain with a tailored VM.
- Permissioned Enterprise Chain: Values data privacy and governance control, opting for a sovereign rollup with custom execution.
~100ms
Target Finality
100%
Custom Rules
THE MONOLITHIC FALLACY
Architectural Trade-Offs: Trust vs. Performance
A comparison of architectural paradigms based on first-principles of trust assumptions, performance ceilings, and operational complexity. The 'modular vs. monolithic' debate is a false dichotomy; the real trade-off is between verifiable trust and raw throughput.
| Core Architectural Dimension | Integrated Monolith (e.g., Solana, BNB Chain) | Sovereign Rollup (e.g., Celestia, Eclipse) | Optimistic/zk-Rollup (e.g., Arbitrum, zkSync) |
|---|---|---|---|
Trust Model | Native Validator Set | Data Availability Layer | L1 Settlement & DA |
Time-to-Finality (Optimistic) | < 1 sec | ~20 min (Dispute Window) | ~1 week (Challenge Period) |
Time-to-Finality (ZK-verified) | < 1 sec | < 10 min | < 1 hour |
Max Theoretical TPS (Execution Only) | ~50k | ~100k+ | ~100k+ |
Sequencer Censorship Resistance | |||
Upgrade Sovereignty | Foundation/Gov Multisig | Rollup Developer | L1 Security Council / Multisig |
Cross-Domain Composability Latency | Sub-second | ~20 min (via bridge) | ~1 hour - 1 week |
Developer Forkability Cost |
| < $10k for new rollup | $100k - $1M for new L3 |
deep-dive
THE FALSE CHOICE
The Developer's Dilemma: Picking Your Poison
The modular vs. monolithic debate is a distraction from the real trade-off: sovereignty versus integration.
The debate is a distraction. Developers don't choose 'modular' or 'monolithic'; they choose a sovereignty-integration spectrum. Solana (monolithic) offers integrated performance. Celestia (modular) offers sovereign execution. The choice is about control.
Sovereignty demands integration work. Choosing a modular stack like Celestia + Arbitrum Nitro means you manage data availability, sequencing, and bridging. This is the cost of escaping a single chain's roadmap.
Integration sacrifices sovereignty. Building on a monolithic chain like Solana or a high-integration L2 like Arbitrum means you inherit its bottlenecks and governance. You trade control for developer velocity.
Evidence: The market votes for integration. Over 60% of Ethereum's L2 TVL resides on Arbitrum and Optimism—highly integrated rollups. True modular sovereign rollups like Eclipse are nascent experiments.
case-study
WHY THE DEBATE IS MISGUIDED
Case Studies in Boundary Drawing
The real engineering challenge isn't picking a side, but strategically placing boundaries between execution, settlement, and data availability to solve specific bottlenecks.
01
Celestia: The Data Availability Primitive
The Problem: Monolithic chains bundle execution with data availability, forcing all nodes to store all data forever. This creates a centralizing force and high node costs. The Solution: Celestia decouples DA into a dedicated layer, enabling sovereign rollups and light nodes that verify data availability with data availability sampling (DAS).
- Key Benefit: Enables ~$0.001 per transaction DA costs vs. monolithic L1s.
- Key Benefit: 1000x scalability for light nodes via sampling, not full downloads.
~$0.001
DA Cost/Tx
1000x
Node Efficiency
02
EigenLayer: The Security Marketplace
The Problem: New protocols (AVSs) must bootstrap their own validator set and economic security from scratch—a multi-billion dollar coordination problem. The Solution: EigenLayer re-stakes Ethereum's ~$50B+ staked ETH to secure other systems, creating a capital-efficient security marketplace.
- Key Benefit: Slashing for misbehavior inherits Ethereum's economic weight.
- Key Benefit: Unlocks modular security for rollups, oracles, and bridges without new token issuance.
$50B+
Securing Power
0-New-Token
Bootstrapping
03
Fuel: The Parallel Execution Engine
The Problem: Monolithic EVM chains process transactions sequentially, creating a fundamental throughput ceiling and high latency during congestion. The Solution: Fuel acts as a modular execution layer using UTXO-like state model and strict state access lists to enable parallel transaction processing.
- Key Benefit: Theoretical 10,000+ TPS by eliminating state conflicts.
- Key Benefit: Deterministic execution fees unaffected by network congestion.
10,000+
Theoretical TPS
Parallel
Execution
04
The Solana Trade-Off
The Problem: Modular designs introduce latency and complexity from cross-layer communication, harming user experience for high-frequency applications. The Solution: Solana's monolithic architecture tightly couples all components, optimized for single-machine performance via local fee markets and ~400ms block times.
- Key Benefit: Atomic composability across all apps with sub-second finality.
- Key Benefit: Avoids the liquidity fragmentation and bridging risks of a multi-chain ecosystem.
~400ms
Block Time
Atomic
Composability
counter-argument
THE TRADEOFF
Steelman: But Monolithic Chains Are Simpler!
Monolithic architectures offer superior simplicity and atomic composability, but this comes at the cost of fundamental scalability and sovereignty constraints.
Monolithic simplicity is real. A single, vertically integrated stack (like Solana or a high-performance L1) provides atomic composability and a unified security model. Developers build on a single state machine, avoiding the complexity of cross-chain messaging and fragmented liquidity.
The trade-off is sovereignty. Every application on a monolithic chain competes for the same global block space and is governed by the same social consensus. Upgrades are monolithic events, forcing all dApps to adapt simultaneously, as seen with Ethereum's London hard fork.
Scalability is fundamentally capped. A monolithic chain's throughput is limited by its single execution thread and global state. Networks like Solana push hardware limits, but face congestion from a single popular NFT mint, proving the shared resource bottleneck.
Modularity is inevitable specialization. Just as AWS decomposed the monolithic server, modular blockchains (Celestia, EigenDA, Avail) separate consensus, data availability, and execution. This allows rollups like Arbitrum and zkSync to scale independently while inheriting security.
takeaways
ARCHITECTURE IS A SPECTRUM
TL;DR for Protocol Architects
The binary debate obscures the real trade-offs. The future is a continuum of specialized execution, data, and settlement layers.
01
The Problem: The False Dichotomy
Framing the choice as 'Monolithic vs. Modular' forces a tribal, all-or-nothing decision. In reality, every chain is modular somewhere (e.g., Ethereum uses external data availability from blobs). The real question is where to place the trust boundary and which components to outsource for your specific use case.
0
Pure Monoliths
100%
Hybrid Designs
02
The Solution: Sovereign Rollups
Sovereign rollups like Celestia and EigenLayer-secured chains demonstrate the power of choice. They decouple execution and settlement from data availability and consensus, enabling:
- Unforkable upgrades (sovereignty)
- Custom fee markets and virtual machines
- Specialized security via restaking or modular DA
$1B+
Restaked Sec
~$0.001
DA Cost/Tx
03
The Problem: Integration Complexity
Modularity introduces a coordination overhead nightmare. Developers must now manage bridges, sequencers, provers, and DA layers. This creates fragility and shifts risk to the application layer, as seen in cross-chain bridge hacks exceeding $2B+ in losses.
5-10x
More Components
$2B+
Bridge Losses
04
The Solution: Integrated Rollup Stacks
Stacks like Arbitrum Orbit, OP Stack, and zkStack provide a curated, vertically integrated experience. They offer a batteries-included path to launching an L2/L3, abstracting away the complexity of modular component selection while preserving optionality for key parameters.
- Shared security & tooling
- Native cross-chain messaging
- Proven codebase
50+
Chains Launched
<1 Week
Deploy Time
05
The Problem: Liquidity Fragmentation
Every new execution layer fractures liquidity and composability. Users face a multi-chain wallet nightmare, and protocols must deploy expensive replicas. This undermines the network effects that made monolithic L1s like Ethereum valuable in the first place.
50+
Active L2/L3s
-90%
TVL per Chain
06
The Solution: Intents & Shared Sequencing
The endgame isn't more chains, but better coordination layers. Intents (via UniswapX, CowSwap) and shared sequencers (like Espresso, Astria) abstract chain boundaries for users and apps.
- Atomic cross-rollup composability
- MEV capture & redistribution
- Unified liquidity access
~500ms
Cross-Chain Latency
$10B+
Intent Volume
ENQUIRY
Get In Touch
today.
Our experts will offer a free quote and a 30min call to discuss your project.
NDA Protected
Confidentiality24h Response
Time to ValueDirectly to Engineering Team
No Sales Fluff10+
Protocols Shipped
$20M+
TVL Overall