On December 12, 2023, Celestia announced the integration of its data availability layer with Polygon Labs' Chain Development Kit (CDK), which once again sparked heated discussions in the community about modular blockchains. Celestia defines "modular blockchains" as blockchains that outsource at least one component of the blockchain's execution, consensus, and data availability to an external independent chain. In addition to the classic concept of modular blockchains, the Cosmos ecosystem L1 project KIRA has also proposed a new concept - hyper-modularity.
New concept: Hypermodularity
Hyper-modularity not only achieves modularity at the software level, but also focuses on the separation between modules at the network level. The software layer focuses on the functions and logic within the system, while the network layer focuses on the communication and connection between system nodes. Many modular chains share a limited number of operators, and the homogeneity between operators will lead to high coupling, making the system vulnerable to attacks and increasing the difficulty of maintenance. Hyper-modular design allows each component to run in an independent module, and modules with different contracts can adopt different security mechanisms and protocols.
KIRA is an L1 built on Tendermint and Cosmos-SDK, using a "super modular" architecture. Investors behind it include TRGC, NGC Ventures, Math Wallet, etc. Its advisor is Alessio Treglia, the engineering director of Tendermint. KIRA provides developers and users with a more efficient and flexible choice through an architecture and consensus mechanism that is different from the current modular blockchain.
MBPoS consensus mechanism
KIRA has launched the Multi-Bonded Proof of Stake (MBPoS) consensus mechanism. Traditional staking mechanisms usually only allow a single native token. MBPoS allows staking of multiple assets, even NFTs. By allowing the staking of multiple assets, MBPoS promotes larger capital inflows and provides a more flexible, secure and incentivized consensus mechanism. When an asset faces risks or market fluctuations, other staked assets can still maintain the stable operation of the network.
Users participate in network security by staking assets and receive income from two sources: block rewards and a portion of transaction fees. An upper limit on the income is set to ensure the stability of the network and prevent certain participants from controlling the entire network by abusing tokens. In addition, KIRA issues Staking Derivatives for staked tokens, also known as LSD, which makes all staked tokens liquid, tradable, and transferable.
Different architectures
Celestia first proposed the concept of modular blockchain, decoupling the blockchain into three layers: data, consensus, and execution. In a single blockchain, all three layers are completed by one network. Celestia focuses on the data and consensus layers, and L2 allows Celestia to be responsible for the data availability layer (DA) to reduce interaction gas fees. For example, Manta Pacific has adopted Celestia as the data availability layer. According to Manta Pacifi's official news, the cost of DA has been reduced by 99.81% after migrating from Ethereum to Celestia.
Monolithic Blockchain vs. Modular Blockchain
Celestia uses light nodes to access data, but light nodes need to communicate frequently with full nodes to obtain data. Although it can reduce node resource requirements, in large-scale networks, communication between nodes may be affected by latency and inefficiency.
KIRA has designed what they believe to be a unique layered structure. This structure involves each modular subcomponent (such as DA, execution, etc.) being operated by the same set of validators/nodes. The same group of people participate in both verifying the security of the entire blockchain and can choose to participate in the verification and execution of specific applications. In this setup, the system knows exactly which nodes are running a specific application and verifies that the application is being executed correctly. By knowing exactly who should own the data and who doesn't need it, the state can be kept at the maximum replication level when replicating data, while avoiding unnecessary replication, thereby improving efficiency.
KIRA Architecture Diagram
KIRA is divided into the user layer, execution layer, and verification layer. These three layers communicate with each other through the content access layer. The content access layer is the cornerstone of KIRA's design, acting as a middleware system between the client-hosted front-end application (static IPFS page) and the back-end (blockchain acting as the settlement layer).
This middleware system KIRA is named INTERX, which is a decentralized API that allows dApps to be executed, interacted, and access data status without relying on any third-party services (such as light clients). INTERX also allows applications to use protocols such as TCP (for reliable and ordered data transmission) and UDP (fast but unreliable communication) for output, providing applications with a more flexible communication method, which is especially important for applications that require high interactivity (such as games).
INTERX has two modes, execution mode and fishermen mode. INTERX in execution mode acts as an API proxy between the user layer and the execution layer, forwarding the data changes (transactions) generated by the dapp to a single validator (leader) for execution. INTERX in fishermen mode acts as a broadcaster between the execution layer and the verification layer, broadcasting the data changes generated by the dapp to multiple validators (fishermen). If fishermen observe improper behavior or errors by executors, they have the right to challenge. If the fishermen's challenge is proven to be correct, they will be rewarded. On the contrary, if their challenge is wrong, they may face the penalty of losing part of their collateral.
In addition to INTERX, KIRA has two other products
MIRO: The front-end application and web wallet for the KIRA network, allowing users to interact with the KIRA blockchain through the decentralized API INTERX. It provides an easy-to-use interface for managing KIRA accounts and assets, making it suitable for a wide range of users. When the MIRO web application's page is loaded into a browser, all actions performed on the local computer occur locally. No need for any hosted servers or access to the internet other than the IP of any local or public INTERX node.
SEKAI: Responsible for handling all KIRA on-chain application interaction logic, such as processing transactions and state transitions, which are executed by consensus nodes (validators). Validators monitor the operations performed by executors. If they observe improper behavior or errors by executors, they have the right to initiate challenges.
Related technologies
In addition to consensus mechanism and architecture design, KIRA also introduced some new concepts at the technical level. The development of each concept involves more technologies, and the team will need to disclose more details later:
Virtual Finality Gadget (VFG): A mechanism used in applications to verify the finality of transactions, providing developers with the ability to customize verification logic, allowing different validator nodes to use different, private verification strategies to verify transactions. This diversity and privacy of verification strategies makes the system more powerful and difficult to be exploited by malicious actors, because malicious actors cannot predict all verification strategies.
Pessimistic Rolldowns: A type of Rollup that, with the help of VFG, can execute off-blockchain, deterministic, and language-neutral code, while having faster finality and settlement times than zk Rollup and Optimistic Rollup.
Cross-Application Messaging (XAM): Facilitates communication between different Rollups. XAM allows the creation of decentralized validators, governance DAOs, and minting tokens directly on L1, and seamlessly combines the functionality provided by other applications.
Metafinality: The core concept of Metafinality is to establish consistency between multiple blockchains to external networks and systems through some mechanism or protocol, thereby simplifying cross-chain and cross-application integration. Users or systems can more easily obtain a unified view of the entire multi-chain system without having to run nodes on each chain.
challenge
In terms of the economic model design of blockchain systems, modular blockchains such as Celestia have simplified their design compared to traditional monolithic blockchains such as Ethereum. However, this modular design has not been fully verified over time, so its long-term economic benefits remain to be seen. Ethereum's Gas mechanism covers the consumption of block space and computing resources, while Celestia itself does not include a computing layer, which allows the pricing of computing costs to be borne by downstream protocols. On the other hand, KIRA, which represents the concept of hyper-modularity, needs more time to verify the effectiveness and rationality of its token economic design.
In addition, from the perspective of terminal applications, Celestia's downstream applications and end-user products will take longer to build and develop. As an emerging platform, KIRA needs more time to build its ecosystem and applications. The demand and development of these applications are the key to real value capture and the value of KIRA's protocol layer. Only when application needs are realized can KIRA's protocol layer value be truly transformed.
Mainnet to be confirmed
In July 2023, KIRA launched the test network Chaos Network. Unlike traditional test networks, ChaosNet has the property that account balances remain consistent or do not change significantly between new iterations. In the initial stage, ChaosNet will be operated by the core team. Over time, the community will gradually be granted more autonomy, including proposing upgrades, organizing governance, recommending changes, and electing new validators and governance members.
Regarding the launch of the mainnet, although the core part of KIRA has been completed, without sufficient infrastructure support, the startup cost and coordination work will be very high. The KIRA team said that they are actively working to reduce the cost of launching applications. And it is not economically reasonable to launch the mainnet under KIRA's current market value (28 million). Founder Asmodat said that the launch time of the mainnet will be affected by the attention and demand of the KIRA project.
