Why Modular Frameworks Make Validator Sets Obsolete

In monolithic chains like Ethereum, the validator set is a single point of failure for security, scalability, and sovereignty. To scale, you must either increase hardware requirements (centralizing validators) or fragment liquidity across insecure L2s.

• Security Tax: Every new chain must bootstrap a new, expensive validator set from scratch.
• Sovereignty Lock-in: Appchains are forced to adopt the base layer's execution environment and governance.
• Capital Inefficiency: Billions in staked capital sits idle, securing only one execution thread.

Frameworks like Celestia, EigenLayer, and Babylon decouple security from execution. They provide a pluggable security layer that any rollup or chain can rent, turning capital-intensive validator sets into a reusable resource.

• Capital Rehypothecation: $10B+ in restaked ETH secures hundreds of AVSs and rollups simultaneously.
• Instant Bootstrapping: New chains launch with battle-tested security, avoiding the validator cold-start problem.
• Specialized Execution: Chains optimize for performance (e.g., FuelVM, SVM) without compromising on base-layer security.

Monolithic blockchains couple data availability (DA) with execution, forcing all nodes to process all transactions. This creates congestion, high fees, and vendor lock-in to a single VM.

• Data Bloat: Full nodes require terabytes of storage, centralizing infrastructure.
• Throughput Ceiling: Execution is bottlenecked by the slowest node in the global consensus layer.
• Innovation Stagnation: Upgrading the VM (e.g., Ethereum's slow transition to Verkle trees) requires years of coordinated social consensus.

Modular frameworks separate DA and execution. Rollups post data to specialized layers like Celestia or EigenDA, and execute transactions locally. This enables horizontal scaling and sovereign governance.

• Independent Execution: Chains can fork, upgrade, or fix bugs without base-layer permission.
• Cost-Effective DA: Data posting costs drop by >100x compared to Ethereum calldata.
• Parallel Throughput: Thousands of rollups execute in parallel, sharing a single security and DA layer.

Monolithic chains and their L2s create isolated liquidity silos. Bridging between them introduces security risks (bridge hacks >$2B+ lost) and user experience fragmentation.

• Trusted Bridges: Most bridges rely on small, centralized multisigs.
• Latency & Cost: Cross-chain messages can take minutes and cost hundreds in gas.
• Composability Breakdown: DeFi protocols cannot operate natively across chains.

When rollups share a DA layer and a settlement layer (like Ethereum or Celestia), they gain a canonical, trust-minimized communication channel. This enables native bridging and cross-rollup composability.

• Light Client Bridges: Rollups can verify each other's state with cryptographic proofs, eliminating trusted intermediaries.
• Atomic Composability: Protocols like Hyperliquid and dYdX v4 enable cross-rollup transactions within a single block.
• Unified Liquidity: Shared security and DA create a cohesive ecosystem, not a collection of isolated islands.

Monolithic chains force developers to accept a single, politically-aligned validator set for security, execution, and data. This creates systemic risk and innovation drag.\n- Security is non-negotiable: You cannot opt for a more expensive, conservative validator set for your DeFi app while using a cheaper one for your game.\n- Innovation Tax: Upgrading the execution environment (e.g., a new VM) requires convincing the entire validator polity, a process measured in years, not weeks.

Decouples data publication and ordering from execution. Rollups and L2s post data to Celestia's globally shared data availability layer, enabling anyone to verify state transitions without running a full node.\n- Launch a sovereign chain in minutes, not months, with ~$1.50 per MB data posting costs.\n- Validator function is specialized: Celestia validators only order and guarantee data availability; execution validity is enforced by fraud/validity proofs, a separate concern.

Turns Ethereum's $70B+ staked ETH into a reusable security marketplace. Actively validated services (AVSs) like alt-DA layers or new consensus protocols can rent security from Ethereum validators who opt-in via restaking.\n- Unbundles cryptoeconomic security from a native token. A new chain doesn't need to bootstrap a $1B+ validator stake from scratch.\n- Creates a competitive market for security, driving down costs and allowing builders to mix-and-match security providers based on risk profiles.

With DA and security commoditized, the value shifts to hyper-specialized execution layers. Think an orderbook-specific chain (like dYdX v4), a gaming-optimized SVM rollup, or a privacy-focused Aztec instance.\n- Each chain selects its own validator/sequencer set optimized for its use case (e.g., low-latency, high-throughput, privacy-preserving).\n- Interoperability is protocol-level, not chain-level, via intents (UniswapX, CowSwap) and shared settlement (LayerZero, Across).