The Future of Composable Security Partnerships

Rollups fragment liquidity and UX by running isolated sequencers. A shared sequencer network like Espresso or Astria provides a canonical ordering layer, enabling atomic cross-rollup composability and credible neutrality.

• Enables native cross-rollup arbitrage and MEV capture.
• Reduces finality time from ~12s to ~2s for cross-domain transactions.
• Mitrates centralization risk from individual rollup operators.

Bridges are the largest exploit vector, with >$2.8B stolen in 2024. Security must be a verifiable property of the message-passing layer itself, not a trusted assumption.

• LayerZero V2 and Hyperlane shift security to an omni-chain AVS model, allowing apps to choose their security stack.
• Zero-knowledge proofs, as used by Polygon zkBridge, provide cryptographic finality instead of economic games.
• Enables sovereign security budgets where apps pay only for the risk they incur.

Isolated chains and rollups bootstrap security from zero, creating weak points. EigenLayer and Babylon enable the reuse of Ethereum's ~$70B stake and Bitcoin's ~$1.3T work to secure other protocols.

• Dramatically lowers capital costs for new chains and AVSs (Actively Validated Services).
• Creates a unified slashing marketplace where security failures have tangible, cross-protocol consequences.
• Turns passive crypto-native capital into an active, yield-generating security service.

EigenLayer transforms Ethereum's economic security into a reusable resource. Protocols can bootstrap security by leveraging the collective stake of the Ethereum validator set, creating a flywheel of shared cryptoeconomic safety.

• Bootstraps security from $15B+ in restaked ETH.
• Enables fast-tracked trust for new AVSs (Actively Validated Services).
• Creates a security marketplace where demand funds supply.

Babylon solves the capital inefficiency of securing PoS chains by allowing them to lease Bitcoin's time-tested finality. It turns Bitcoin's $1T+ security budget into a composable service for other chains.

• Unlocks Bitcoin staking without soft-forks via timestamping protocols.
• Provides slashable security for PoS chains, reducing attack viability.
• Enables fast-unbonding for staked BTC, preserving liquidity.

Shared sequencers like Espresso Systems and Astria decouple execution from sequencing, creating a neutral, high-throughput base layer for rollups. This prevents MEV centralization and enables atomic cross-rollup composability.

• Prevents sequencer censorship and failure as a single point of failure.
• Enables native cross-rollup arbitrage and composable bundles.
• Drives costs down via sequencing-as-a-service economies of scale.

Next-gen oracles like Pyth and Chainlink CCIP are evolving into generalized cross-chain security layers. They provide not just data, but verifiable compute and message delivery, forming the connective tissue for secure composability.

• CCIP enables programmable token transfers with risk management networks.
• Pythnet uses a proprietary Proof-of-Stake appchain for 400ms price updates.
• Turns oracle networks into universal truth layers for DeFi and beyond.

Protocols like Hyperlane and LayerZero are moving beyond simple message passing to offer modular security stacks. Developers can choose their security model, plugging in EigenLayer or Celestia for attestations, making trust assumptions explicit and customizable.

• Modular security stacks let devs choose their trust (optimistic, ZK, economic).
• Interchain security quotas prevent one chain's failure from cascading.
• Universal hooks enable security policies to travel with assets.

ZK co-processors like Risc Zero and Succinct Labs allow any chain to offload complex, verifiable computation. This creates a new security primitive: the ability to cryptographically verify state transitions from other ecosystems, enabling trust-minimized composability.

• Proves arbitrary logic from other VMs (EVM, SVM, Move) on-demand.
• Enables light-client bridges with ~1KB proof sizes for state verification.
• Turns complex DeFi strategies into verifiable, portable modules.

A major validator fault in a provider like EigenLayer or Babylon triggers slashing, which propagates to all consumer chains, creating a systemic liquidity crisis. The shared security pool becomes a shared failure vector.\n- Risk: A single bug could slash $10B+ TVL across dozens of chains.\n- Mitigation: Requires hyper-conservative slashing parameters and circuit-breaker mechanisms.

Smaller chains underpay for security, diluting the economic incentives for stakers in pools like Cosmos Hub's ICS or EigenLayer. This leads to a tragedy of the commons where security is commoditized and underfunded.\n- Risk: Security budget per chain drops below the cost of a 51% attack.\n- Mitigation: Dynamic pricing models and minimum stake requirements, akin to Osmosis superfluid staking economics.

Composability introduces complex dependencies. If a key provider like Avail for data availability or a shared sequencer network goes offline, hundreds of rollups halt, sacrificing liveness for perceived security.\n- Risk: A ~30 min outage in a core service can freeze an entire ecosystem.\n- Mitigation: Requires robust fallback mechanisms and multi-provider architectures, as seen in Celestia's data availability sampling design.

A regulator like the SEC targets a major restaking protocol, classifying its tokens as securities. This forces a wholesale unwinding of staked assets, collapsing the economic foundation for all connected chains simultaneously.\n- Risk: Legal action against one entity triggers a cross-chain bank run.\n- Mitigation: Jurisdictional diversification and legally-insulated protocol designs, a lesson from Lido's and Rocket Pool's structures.

Composable security often relies on cross-chain oracles (e.g., Chainlink, Pyth) for slashing conditions and state verification. A sophisticated attack corrupting this data layer can fraudulently slash honest validators or approve invalid state transitions.\n- Risk: Compromising a $5B+ oracle undermines $50B+ in secured value.\n- Mitigation: Requires decentralized oracle networks with high cryptoeconomic security and multi-sig fallbacks.

The DAO governing a core security provider (e.g., EigenLayer's strategy manager) is captured by a malicious actor or cartel. They can then drain funds or censor chains across the entire ecosystem, turning shared security into shared control.\n- Risk: A $1B governance attack can compromise $100B+ in sovereign chains.\n- Mitigation: Requires time-locked, multi-sig governance with strong veto powers, inspired by MakerDAO's governance security model.

Building and maintaining a full validator set for a new chain costs >$1M/year and introduces single-point failures. This model doesn't scale for the hundreds of app-chains launching annually.

• Capital Inefficiency: Idle stake locked in siloed networks.
• Operational Overhead: Teams become security experts, not product experts.
• Fragmented Liquidity: Reduces capital efficiency for stakers and the broader DeFi ecosystem.

Treat security as a pluggable utility, purchased from specialized providers like EigenLayer, Babylon, or Cosmos ICS. This creates a liquid security market.

• Rapid Launch: Deploy a chain with $100M+ economic security in days, not months.
• Market-Driven Pricing: Slashing risk is priced by the free market of restakers.
• Capital Reuse: The same $30B+ in restaked ETH can secure multiple networks simultaneously.

Bridges and cross-chain messaging protocols like LayerZero, Axelar, and Wormhole are high-value attack surfaces, responsible for ~$2B+ in exploits. Their security is often opaque and non-composable.

• Asymmetric Risk: A bridge hack can drain an entire chain's liquidity.
• Fragmented Audits: Each app integrates multiple bridges, multiplying audit surface area.
• No Unified Slashing: Malicious actors can't be penalized across the stack.

Security layers must produce cryptographic proofs that can be verified and composed by other layers. Think zk-proofs for state transitions or TLSNotary proofs for data feeds.

• Shared Intelligence: A slashing on EigenLayer can inform a bridge's fraud proof system.
• Defense in Depth: Combine restaking, light client bridges, and oracle security for multiplicative protection.
• Auditability: Transparent, on-chain verification of all security claims.

Staked capital is trapped, unable to respond to real-time threats or opportunities. A 51% attack requires a slow, coordinated social response, not a market one.

• Capital Stasis: $100B+ in staked assets earns only base yield.
• Slow Response: Governance-based slashing takes days or weeks.
• No Secondary Market: Can't hedge or trade slashing risk.

Tokenize and trade slashing risk, creating a real-time security pricing feed. Protocols like EigenLayer enable this; the next step is on-chain insurance/hedging.

• Dynamic Pricing: Security cost fluctuates based on live risk metrics.
• Instant Defense: Attackers face immediate financial counter-pressure from derivatives markets.
• Yield Enhancement: Stakers can sell slashing protection for additional 5-15% APY.