The Future of Governance is Inescapable for Sovereign Rollups

DA layers like Celestia or EigenDA can censor or fork a sovereign rollup by withholding its data. This is not a technical failure but a governance decision, making rollup security contingent on external politics.\n- Risk: A DA-layer governance attack can invalidate an entire rollup's state.\n- Example: A contentious fork of Celestia could strand rollups built on the 'wrong' chain.

Mitigate single-provider risk by posting data to multiple DA layers (e.g., Celestia + EigenDA + Ethereum). Systems like Avail and Near DA enable this, while zkPorter uses proof-of-stake guardians.\n- Benefit: Requires collusion across multiple, independent validator sets to censor.\n- Trade-off: Increases cost and complexity for ~2-3x higher base-layer security.

Sovereign rollups that settle to Bitcoin or other PoW chains are exposed to deep re-orgs. A 51% attack on the settlement layer can rewrite finalized rollup blocks, enabling double-spends.\n- Risk: Finality is probabilistic, not absolute.\n- Vector: Attackers can profit by manipulating the rollup's native asset or DeFi protocols.

Using Ethereum for settlement provides strong crypto-economic security and social consensus. Its high $100B+ staked and established fork-choice rules make it a politically neutral foundation.\n- Benefit: Inherits Ethereum's anti-fork social layer and economic finality.\n- Example: Fuel and Aztec use Ethereum for canonical settlement, despite higher fees.

Sovereign rollup upgrade mechanisms are often controlled by a multisig or small validator set. This creates a single point of failure, contradicting decentralization promises. A malicious upgrade can steal funds or change protocol rules.\n- Risk: Governance capture leads to rug pulls disguised as upgrades.\n- Precedent: Early Optimism and Arbitrum upgrades were via multisig.

Implement 7+ day timelocks on upgrades, allowing users to exit. Decentralize fork choice via prediction markets (e.g., inspired by Augur) where tokenholders stake on the canonical chain.\n- Benefit: Aligns economic incentives and creates a user-driven security backstop.\n- Mechanism: A contentious upgrade triggers a social consensus fork, with value accruing to the 'honest' chain.

Relying on a shared sequencer like Espresso or Astria outsources your chain's liveness and transaction ordering—the core of user experience. This creates a single point of failure and governance capture.\n- Risk: Your rollup halts if the shared sequencer fails or is censored.\n- Dependency: You inherit the sequencer's governance, not just its security.

Decentralize sequencing by creating a native market for block space, inspired by MEV-Boost. Validators/stakers bid for the right to produce the next block.\n- Incentive Alignment: Sequencer revenue flows directly to your chain's security stakers.\n- Censorship Resistance: No single entity can filter transactions.

A hard-coded upgrade key (multisig) is the standard—and it's a time-locked failure. Every upgrade is a centralized, manual event requiring off-chain coordination.\n- Security Debt: The multisig is your most valuable attack target.\n- Coordination Hell: Protocol changes stall without clear on-chain process.

Bake a DAO (like Optimism's Token House) or futarchy market directly into your rollup's settlement layer. All upgrades must pass through transparent, on-chain voting with enforced time locks.\n- Auditability: Every proposal and vote is on the parent chain.\n- Progressive Decentralization: Start with a multisig, sunset it to the module.

Your native token is likely bridged from Ethereum via LayerZero or Wormhole, making its supply and governance hostage to the bridge's security council. A bridge hack equals an inflation attack on your chain.\n- Supply Risk: Malicious mint on the sovereign chain via bridge exploit.\n- Voting Power: Token-based governance is compromised if the bridge is.

Issue your governance token natively on your sovereign chain. Use a burn-mint model (like Cosmos or dYdX Chain) where the canonical asset exists on Ethereum as a burned representation.\n- Sovereignty: Your chain controls its own monetary policy.\n- Bridge Minimization: Reduces attack surface to simple burn/mint proofs.