For rollup developers seeking decentralized sequencing and fast finality, Radius AVS and Nuffle Fast Finality Layer (NFFL) provide a powerful, unified solution.
This article introduces how Radius AVS and NFFL, both AVSs (Actively Validated Services) using Eigenlayer’s restaking protocol for economic security, work together to improve decentralization and speed up transaction settlement in rollups—two critical components for scaling rollups.
What is Radius AVS?
Radius AVS is a decentralized sequencing solution designed to address the common challenges often seen with centralized sequencers, such as censorship and system failures, while maintaining optimal performance.
Radius AVS integrates directly into the rollup and works within the rollup itself. This internal integration allows the rollup to have more control and independence (sovereignty) over block building processes while promoting decentralization.
Currently live on testnet, Radius AVS is collaborating with external operators as it moves toward mainnet launch. Once launched, rollups can adopt Radius AVS for decentralized sequencing and leverage Eigenlayer shared security.
Key Benefits:
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User protection: Protects users against censorship, frontrunning, and sandwiching attacks through an encryption-based mechanism.
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Liveness guarantee: Keeps the rollup operating even if a sequencer fails, preventing network downtime.
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High Performance: Offers high transactions per second (TPS) using a leader-based sequencing model, ensuring decentralization without compromising performance (See Figure 1).
What is NFFL (Nuffle Fast Finality Layer)?
NFFL is currently live on testnet.
The Nuffle Fast Finality Layer (NFFL, formerly SFFL) aims to provide a fast settlement layer that allows participating networks to quickly access information from other networks in a safe way.
To achieve this, NFFL leverages both NEAR and EigenLayer, giving protocols a way to provide interoperability features by verifying state attestations secured by restaked ETH.
The architecture is comprised of two off-chain actors, the Operators and the Aggregator, the AVS nodes, and multiple on-chain contracts:
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on Ethereum Mainnet, there's the NFFL AVS contract set, which interacts directly with EigenLayer contracts.
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on rollup networks, there are NFFL verifier contracts to check network state attestations.
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on NEAR, there is a NEAR DA contract for each participating rollup network which serves as a medium for providing data availability.
Key benefits:
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Faster finality for rollups through crypto-economic security: Rollups participating in NFFL can provide crypto-economically secured state root attestations to applications that want to leverage it for fast finality.
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L2 - L2 interactions: Applications could utilize the Nuffle Fast Finality Layer to build cross-chain logic. This opens a new design space that allows any app developer to build applications as if it is one chain with 3-4 seconds finality. The applications have a broad range from cross-chain lending to very fast bridges.
Bringing It All Together: Decentralized Sequencing and Fast Finality
By integrating the unified solution Radius AVS and NFFL, rollup developers can improve their existing infrastructure with the combined advantages of decentralized sequencing and fast finality. This helps rollups scale effectively.
Here's how these two protocols work together to decentralize rollups and speed up transaction settlements.
How it works: The Architecture
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Rollups build blocks using Radius AVS and submits the blocks to NEAR DA for block finality. Once blocks are confirmed, the state is executed, and the state execution is finalized by NFFL.
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NFFL nodes verify the updated state, aggregate signatures off-chain, and submit them to Ethereum ensuring fast finality, or other L2s so that state roots could be used from anywhere.
For detailed documentation, see: