Why Shared Security Models Threaten Rollup Sovereignty

Shared sequencing layers like Espresso and Astria centralize transaction ordering, the most valuable and extractable component of a rollup. This recreates the very miner extractable value (MEV) and censorship risks rollups were meant to solve.

• Control Point: The sequencer decides transaction order, influencing MEV capture and latency.
• Sovereignty Loss: Rollups trade execution autonomy for ~500ms faster cross-rollup composability.
• Economic Capture: A single sequencer network can extract 10-30% of chain revenue as a tax on sovereignty.

Using a single Data Availability (DA) layer like Celestia, EigenDA, or Ethereum blobs creates a systemic dependency. This outsources the most critical security function, making rollups vulnerable to the DA layer's governance and liveness failures.

• Single Point of Failure: A DA halt bricks all dependent rollups, a risk not present with isolated DA.
• Governance Risk: DA layer upgrades or forks can force incompatible changes on sovereign chains.
• Cost Illusion: ~90% cost reduction vs. Ethereum calldata is traded for reduced security guarantees and new vendor lock-in.

The antidote is maximizing sovereignty through dedicated infrastructure and force-multiplying technologies that don't require shared trust. This includes projects like Dymension (sovereign RollApps) and Eclipse (custom SVM rollups).

• Dedicated Sequencing: Projects like Radius enable encrypted mempools and trust-minimized ordering without a central operator.
• Prover Networks: Decentralized proof generation (e.g., Georli, Succinct) commoditizes ZK infrastructure without compromising state ownership.
• Interop Sovereignty: Bridges like IBC and Hyperlane provide secure messaging without imposing a shared security model on the chains themselves.

Using Data Availability Committees (DACs) for cheap data saves ~90% on fees but cedes control. The rollup's liveness depends on a permissioned, off-chain quorum of entities, creating a single point of failure and regulatory attack surface. This is the antithesis of credibly neutral, decentralized scaling.

• Key Risk: Censorship by committee members.
• Key Trade-off: Sovereignty sacrificed for immediate cost savings.

Rollups built on Celestia for modular DA achieve unparalleled cost scaling, with fees as low as $0.01 per MB. However, they become permanently dependent on Celestia's consensus and token for security and liveness. This creates a powerful network effect where the cost of migrating to a new DA layer becomes prohibitive, effectively making Celestia a systemically critical dependency.

• Key Risk: Protocol risk concentrated in a single L1.
• Key Trade-off: Maximum scalability for long-term vendor lock-in.

EigenLayer allows rollups to bootstrap security by tapping into re-staked ETH, creating fast, cryptoeconomically secured networks like EigenDA. The danger is the creation of a meta-security layer where the economic security of hundreds of rollups is recursively derived from and dependent on Ethereum's validator set. A slashing event or governance failure in EigenLayer could cascade across the entire ecosystem.

• Key Risk: Systemic contagion from shared slashing.
• Key Trade-off: Rapid security bootstrapping for intertwined systemic risk.

The OP Stack provides a standardized, interoperable blueprint, powering chains like Base and Blast. This shared codebase and upgrade mechanism, however, means a governance decision by the Optimism Collective can be forced onto all chains in the Superchain. Sovereignty is traded for interoperability, creating a scenario where chains are technically independent but politically aligned.

• Key Risk: Coerced upgrades and shared governance capture.
• Key Trade-off: Seamless interoperability for constrained self-determination.

EigenLayer's restaking model centralizes economic security around Ethereum validators, creating a single point of failure and governance capture. Rollups become tenants, not landowners.

• Risk: Security slashing is governed by the Ethereum social layer, not the rollup's community.
• Outcome: Rollup revenue funnels back to Ethereum stakers, capping L2 token utility to pure governance.

Celestia decouples data availability (DA) from execution, enabling truly sovereign rollups that control their own settlement and governance. This is the antithesis of shared security.

• Benefit: Rollups can fork, upgrade, and define their own security model without permission.
• Trade-off: They must bootstrap their own validator set and consensus, a non-trivial coordination problem.

Cosmos's Interchain Security (ICS) allows a provider chain (e.g., Cosmos Hub) to secure consumer chains. It solves bootstrapping but replicates the landlord-tenant model.

• Reality: Consumer chains sacrifice sovereign tokenomics; inflation and fees are paid to the provider chain's validators.
• Result: The provider chain's validator set becomes a political bottleneck for upgrades and governance.

The endgame is not pure sovereignty or rented security, but strategic hybrid models. Use shared security for bootstrapping, then migrate to a dedicated validator set.

• Example: A rollup uses EigenLayer for initial launch, then uses its fees to incentivize a native, purpose-built staking system.
• Outcome: Captures long-term value, maintains upgrade autonomy, and tailors security to application needs (e.g., fast finality for gaming).

Generalized shared security turns validators into commoditized compute. This drives down costs but eliminates differentiation. Rollups that outsource security compete only on execution performance and UX.

• Implication: The real moat shifts to application logic, distribution, and user experience.
• Investor Takeaway: Bet on stacks with superior dev tooling (e.g., Eclipse, RISC Zero) and apps with non-security network effects.

Arbitrum BOLD is a permissionless validation protocol that allows anyone to challenge state roots. It provides strong security without a centralized, rented validator set.

• Mechanism: Leverages Ethereum for dispute resolution, but relies on a decentralized set of watchtowers for liveness.
• Verdict: A sovereign model that uses Ethereum as a court, not a landlord, preserving the rollup's economic and governance independence.