Equilibrium Infra Bulletin #40: DoubleZero, The Cypherpunk Endgame, L1 Composability, and more...

Equilibrium designs, builds, and invests in core infrastructure for the decentralized web. We are a global team of ~30 people who tackle challenges around security, privacy, and scaling.

Happy holidays to everyone who is celebrating! 🎅🏻🎄

🔍 DoubleZero Protocol

⚡️ Topic Summary

• The main bottleneck for high-performance L1 blockchains and other distributed systems today is communication, not computation. While we’ve optimized the software side of blockchains, the physical networking layer has remained unchanged since the advent of Bitcoin. DoubleZero aims to change this by creating a high-performance, permissionless network optimized for distributed systems (a “new internet”).

• The core mission of the DoubleZero protocol is to accelerate communication in high-performance distributed systems to increase bandwidth and reduce latency. Its benefits can be split into two main parts:

  • Communication: DoubleZero plans to tap into underutilized fiber links and connect them to create a dynamic and expansive network. This will enable faster and more predictable communication between validators (and other network participants). Compared to using the public Internet, it also gives validators more power to control latency and reduce jitter (variance in the time it takes to deliver packets between two endpoints).

  • Filtration and Verification: Specialized hardware allows the network to edge-filter inbound transactions more efficiently before sending them to the DoubleZero network (removing spam and duplicates). This reduces the network's total communication burden and makes it a system-wide filtration resource rather than each validator having to provision sufficient resources for this. 

    

    DoubleZero network architecture and different components (source)

• DoubleZero is not a new L1/L2 blockchain, but rather they’ve coined the term “N1” to represent a base layer of neutral and performant physical infrastructure (lowest level of the stack). On top of this “N1”, other distributed systems and applications can be built.

  

  DoubleZero aims to improve the lowest levels of the stack (source)

🤔 Our Thoughts

• While high-performance blockchains create the most immediate demand for a shared transport layer, other use cases within distributed systems also benefit. Since blockchains are only one part in creating expressive, verifiable compute, anything accelerating the broader vision is even more exciting. ZKPs fall into this same “larger than blockchains” category.

• Private networking is a largely solved problem in Web2, but relying on one centralized party doesn’t work in a blockchain context. In addition, building out the network from scratch would require a lot of capital. By instead leveraging crypto-economic incentives, DoubleZero lets the supply side monetize underutilized private networks. On the demand side, validators, RPC, MEV nodes, etc., can permissionlessly tap into a fast and expansive transport layer.

• The DoubleZero team is building out the initial network on existing fiber links, but there is potential to fund and build their own hardware in the future. The team is also considering other forms of networking infrastructure, such as satellites and even spinning up a neutrino research lab.

💡 Research, Articles & Other Things of Interest

📚 Commonware: the Anti-Framework: A new blockchain stack for application developers that want maximum flexibility and specialization, rather than a generalized framework.

📚 Solana Consensus - From Forks to Finality: Deep dive into the current workings of Solana consensus, including code references of the Solana Agave validator.

📚 The Cypherpunk Endgame & Real World Ethereum: What happens to cypherpunk ideas when they scale? How likely are the “Black Mirror” bad scenarios presented in the post?

🤌 Personal Recommendations From Our Team

📚 Reading: Rogue Agent - James Crossland: Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart was a British diplomat, intelligence agent, conspirator, journalist, and propagandist who played a key role in both world wars. The biography explores his time as Britain’s ‘Agent’ in Moscow, his role in a plot to bring down the Russian communist regime, and leading the Political Warfare Executive (a secret body responsible for disinformation and propaganda during WW2).

🎧 Listening: Spin The Wheel - Mick Wingert: Soundtrack from Arcane Season 2.

💡 Other: The Equilibrium HQ got a Christmas update last week (on Gather)! 🎄