ethereum‘s Layer 2 scaling network Starknet has outlined plans to improve the decentralization of three core components of its zero-knowledge (ZK) proof rollup solution.
Speaking exclusively to Cointelegraph, Starknet product manager and blockchain researcher Ilia Volokh outlined the company’s intention to address certain centralized elements of its protocol aimed at defending against censorship and making its system more robust.
Starknet operates as a validity rollup that uses ZK-proof technology to bundle transactions, with cryptographic proofs sent to ethereum to achieve security and finality for Layer 2 transactions.
According to Volokh, the Starknet protocol still relies on StarkWare to create L2 blocks, compute proofs, and initiate layer 1 state updates on the ethereum blockchain.
“In this sense, the operation of the network is centralized. This temporary situation, until full decentralization, is not necessarily a bad thing. Although Starkware operates the network, it cannot steal money and cannot perform invalid state transitions because they require running the verifier on ethereum,” Volokh explained.
While Starkware remains a “centralized gateway” into Starknet, Volokh added that the protocol is “100% honest” and cannot falsify transactions or information, as ethereum‘s layer 1 blockchain acts as a filter.
The only tangible way Starknet can “misbehave” is by either remaining inactive by not transmitting proofs to ethereum or by specifically censoring certain parties from including transactions or proofs.
“For example, if the sequencer decides to exclude a transaction from a particular entity, it is free to do so. As long as the other things they are trying to promote are valid.”
For Starknet, this last consideration is part of the main reason for decentralizing parts of its protocol in an effort to combat two main causes of censorship in consensus-based systems.
Intentional censorship is one consideration, while “non-robust” systems that have a single point of failure present another threat to decentralization, since all network participants would be “censored” if this central point caused a disruption. network or system.
“We want to solve both problems and we think the obvious solution to both at the same time is to have as many people operating Starknet as possible.”
Decentralizing these different components of the Starknet system involves varying degrees of difficulty. This includes decentralizing block production through its consensus protocol, decentralizing the proof layer, which is in charge of computing proofs of blocks, and decentralizing the process of L1 state updates.
“I want to emphasize that it is crucial to decentralize each of them because as long as one of them is centralized, not much has been achieved,” Volokh added before analyzing the relevant challenges of each component.
Decentralizing block production has been fairly straightforward given that all blockchains are based on a consensus protocol and sibyl resistance mechanism. Meanwhile, decentralizing the Starknet tester has required a more novel approach.
“As far as I know, we are the first rollup that presents a fairly complete and concrete solution,” Volokh said. He also explained how competing ZK-rollups essentially aggregate transactions in tests and publish them to ethereum, which by extension transfers its own decentralization to rollup solutions.
However, all of these systems rely on respective central entities to create and test blocks, meaning that these layer 2s are “equally centralized.” Whether end users are concerned about the philosophical implications of centralized L2 components is another conversation for Volokh:
“People who appreciate decentralization do so because they understand that it provides more security, and we share those values more than we think people will like them for business reasons.”
Volokh added that Starknet is still in the process of outlining the process of testing and implementing these decentralized mechanisms on its network. This is likely to be carried out through a series of interconnected test networks to test the simultaneous functionality of different components.
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