We often admire a project's bottom-up construction. For example, AXS games to RONIN game public chain, UNI from DEX to Unichain L2, and today Puffer from the leader of the liquidity staking track to the leader of ETH infrastructure, its valuation and development require us to re-price and evaluate, and its potential from staking protocol to infrastructure platform has undoubtedly opened up investors' imagination. Next, let's take a closer look at the potential of Puffer (@puffer_finance)!

Project Introduction

Puffer Finance (@puffer_finance) is a native liquidity re-staking protocol developed based on EigenLayer. Its core technologies, Secure Signer (remote signature tool) and RAV (remote verification), as well as the advantage of being able to run the Ethereum validator with just 1 ETH, make Puffer stand out among a number of re-staking protocols, achieving a TVL of $1.4 billion, a pledged volume of over 500,000 ETH, and attracting the support of over 10,000 node operators.

If you only regard Puffer Finance as a liquidity re-pledge agreement, you are wrong! At present, Puffer UniFi (flagship Based Rollup solution) and UniFi AVS (the first Rollup-based pre-confirmation configuration service) are becoming the core infrastructure for reshaping ETH's greatness again, and are expected to lead ETH to glory again. Its value and significance are undoubtedly extraordinary!

uffer UniFi

The current multitude of ETH L2s has led to severe liquidity fragmentation. Although there are various cross-chain bridges and chain abstraction solutions, they still cannot solve key issues such as liquidity and centralization at the underlying level.

As the ideal of ETH unification, Puffer UniFi adopts the ultimate solution of Based Rollup to solve the key problems of liquidity dispersion and centralization to unify many ETH L2s. It aims to meet the challenges of fragmentation by enhancing value return to L1 and ensuring trusted neutral transaction ordering.

The unique combination of decentralized sorters, pre-confirmation schemes, TEE technology, and atomic composability makes the UniFi Rollup stack a key solution for Ethereum expansion, providing developers with unprecedented opportunities to build more integrated and powerful decentralized applications. And bring users a faster, safer, and smoother transaction experience!

Here is an extension of why Based Rollup will be the ultimate solution among many Rollup solutions (such as OP-Rollups or ZK-Rollups). The core is that both OP and ZK solutions rely on centralized sequencers, which causes users to worry about the dependence on centralized sequencers and the fragmentation of cross-chain liquidity. This has become the biggest difference between Based Rollup and other Rollup solutions, and it is also the sexiest part.

So the core advantages of Based Rollup are:
1. Security and decentralization. Based Rollup does not rely on a separate centralized sorter. It uses Ethereum itself to sort transactions. As long as L1 can run, Rollup can also run, avoiding the single point failure and malicious problems of the centralized sorter.
2. Maintaining consistency with the ETH economy, the economic model of Based Rollups establishes a mutually beneficial relationship with L1, and the sorting priority fees and MEV of Rollups naturally flow to ETH.
3. Cost efficiency, since sorting is outsourced to ETH itself, it reduces development costs and improves efficiency.

UniFi AVS

UniFi AVS is the first fully decentralized AVS pioneer based on EigenLayer AVS that implements preconf technology. It will completely change the future of Ethereum.

UniFi AVS solves the key challenges in the field of ETH pre-confirmation. UniFi AVS provides near-real-time, secure and neutral pre-confirmation for L1 and Rollup-based transactions. Its fully decentralized sorter solution is significantly different from the centralized sorter of traditional Rollup, effectively avoiding the risk of single point failure and malicious behavior.

Imagine: you don’t have to wait 12 seconds to confirm a transaction, it only takes 100 milliseconds to complete, a near real-time transaction experience, which will greatly improve the user experience, and this has become Puffer UniFi’s killer feature.

A complete decentralization + solution to the ETH L2 fragmentation problem + real-time confirmation speed, this will undoubtedly be the holy grail in the field of ETH expansion!

Let’s expand on what is ‘pre-confirmation’ and why Puffer can achieve pre-confirmation before a block is produced:

‘Pre-confirmation’ is a mechanism that allows validators to confirm the success of a transaction almost instantly before the transaction is fully processed on the chain. As a result, the transaction you submit will receive almost real-time feedback and be included in the next block to ensure its execution.

This UniFi AVS pre-confirmation function mainly benefits from the solid foundation that Puffer has laid in the field of Restaking earlier. By seamlessly integrating Commit-Boost technology with EigenLayer's security infrastructure, using re-staked ETH as pre-confirmation collateral, and using a certain penalty mechanism, the security and reliability of the pre-confirmation system are guaranteed, thereby achieving the credibility and safe operation of the system.

In Puffer Finance’s latest roadmap, the Puffer V2 upgrade was announced, which is very worth looking forward to!

Puffer V2 will be released in early Q4 as a milestone upgrade, aiming to enhance the user experience and introduce several key features:

• Fast Path Rewards (FPR): Extract consensus layer rewards directly from L2, solving the problem of high EigenPod extraction costs, and providing users with faster, cheaper, and more convenient ways to obtain rewards and L2 liquidity.

• Globally enforced anti-slashing: Puffer V2 will implement a protocol-wide anti-slashing system to prevent PoS slashing risks.

• Reduced margin requirements: Puffer V2 will significantly reduce the margin requirements for NoOps, requiring only minimal pufETH collateral to waive inactivity penalties and provide a more inclusive environment for validators.

In the latest Puffer AMA, I learned about Puffer’s huge ambitions and the prospects for a rich Puffer ecosystem in the future from Puffer founders Amir Forouzani (@AmirOnchain) and Jason Vranek (@jasnoodle).

Puffer Finance's strategic direction has remained consistent and focused from the beginning, committed to building the infrastructure needed to support Ethereum's growth and resilience, and actively laying the foundation for the future of decentralized infrastructure.

If you are interested, you can listen to it.

Investment institutions

The total financing scale is as high as 24.15 million US dollars.
Investment institutions include: @ElectricCapital, @FactionVC, @Lemniscap, BH Digital, @jump_, @BinanceLabs, @cbventures, @animocabrands, @GSR_io, @FTI_DA and other excellent and well-known institutions!

What is thought-provoking is that Coinbase, Fidelity and Franklin Templeton are all project investors, and they are key participants in the ETH ETF, which will undoubtedly bring more imagination to the future!

team

Amir Forouzani is the co-founder and CEO of Puffer Finance, a former researcher at the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics and a graduate of the University of Southern California.

Jason Vranek is the co-founder and CTO of Puffer Finance and was previously a research engineer at Chainlink Labs. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Token Economics
Token Code: $PUFFER
Total Supply: 1,000,000,000
Initial supply: 102,300,000 (10.23%)
Ecosystem and community: 40%
Investors: 26%, 1-year cliff period, 2-year vesting period
Early contributors and advisors: 20%, one-year cliff, two-year vesting
Airdrop: 13%, 7.5% in the first quarter, 5.5% in the second quarter
Donation: 1%, to support the Ethereum Foundation's development of ETH

$PUFFER Token Usage
1. Governance token, $PUFFER will play a role in the decision-making of UniFi AVS, UniFi Rollup and Puffer LRT, and users will be able to directly participate in protocol governance and development.
2. Ve model voting custody mechanism, $PUFFER tokens can be used to mint vePUFFER NFTs and gain greater voting rights, which can be redeemed at any time without a lock-up period.

Data performance

Puffer Finance currently has a TVL of 1.41 billion US dollars, 533,000 ETH pledged, and a node number of 11,326.
The key point is that even though Puffer has already achieved TGE, the data has not decreased, but has continued to grow. This is very rare compared to other liquidity staking protocols, and it also highlights the long-term value of Puffer Finance!

Summarize

Puffer Finance has grown steadily from a leader in the liquidity staking track to a leader in blockchain infrastructure through its innovative technology and strong capital support. Through UniFi AVS and Puffer UniFi, the two core pillars of the future, it is expected to lead the future of ETH development and reshape the glory of ETH. The future of Puffer is worth looking forward to and long-term attention!

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