Blog

The NEAR Foundation has introduced a strategic partnership with Eigen Labs, a startup centered on constructing the Ethereum restaking protocol Eigen Layer. 

While addressing the challenges of liquidity fragmentation between Layer 2 (L2) options, the collaboration goals to reinvent Ethereum (ETH) roll-up transactions, making them “more cost-effective and efficient.”

Rapid And Affordable Ethereum Transactions? 

In a joint statement launched on November 10, the NEAR Foundation and Eigen Labs unveiled their plans to develop a “fast finality layer” to energy speedy and cheap transactions for Ethereum rollups, together with cross-rollup transactions. 

Per the announcement, the collaboration seeks to considerably scale back transaction processing instances to a mere 3-4 seconds, a notable enchancment in comparison with the minutes, hours, and even days it presently takes. Moreover, it goals to make transactions 4000 instances cheaper than present choices, offering a price benefit for customers.

Furthermore, one of many partnership’s key aims is to determine “secure and low-latency” cross-rollup communication, resolving the challenges confronted by builders and founders working with rollups. 

As introduced, the Fast Finality Layer will preserve the “security guarantees” of Ethereum whereas introducing further ensures from the NEAR and EigenLayer applied sciences.

Both protocols consider this answer guarantees to reinforce liquidity by lowering fragmentation between Layer-2 options, empowering builders to make knowledgeable selections relating to the sequencers they like for transaction processing.

NEAR And Eigen Labs Partnership For ‘Seamless Web3 Integration’

Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol, expressed satisfaction in partnering with Eigen Labs, emphasizing that the quick finality layer showcases the technological strengths of NEAR whereas making the Open Web extra user-friendly. Polosukhin additional said:

NEAR Foundation is proud to accomplice with such a superb workforce as Eigen Labs to supply a quick finality layer for ETH rollups. The quick finality layer showcases the strengths of NEAR’s know-how whereas making the Open Web extra usable, which has at all times been the core aim for NEAR. It may also assist defragment liquidity for Ethereum rollups and make all of Web3 extra interoperable in consequence.

For his half, Sreeram Kannan, founding father of Eigen Labs, shared his enthusiasm for the partnership and highlighted the mutual advantages it brings. In his phrases, the collaboration will leverage the progressive applied sciences of each NEAR and EigenLayer, enabling sooner, cheaper, and simpler improvement on the Ethereum community.

The collaboration between NEAR and Eigen Labs marks a major milestone for EigenLayer, because it allows quick settlement for cross-rollup transactions and demonstrates wider adoption of restaking throughout the Ethereum ecosystem and past. 

For NEAR, the partnership extends to enhancing the NEAR-Ethereum Rainbow Bridge by transitioning it to an actively validated service (AVS). This transition is predicted to reinforce bridging capabilities between NEAR and Ethereum, enabling sooner transaction finality, elevated safety ensures, and improved decentralization.

The collaboration is predicted to launch a testnet in Q1 2024, and additional particulars can be shared then. This partnership between the NEAR Foundation and Eigen Labs holds nice promise for advancing Ethereum rollup transactions, enhancing liquidity, and driving the broader adoption of Web3 applied sciences.

Featured picture from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com