Maintaining DA's legitimacy: Behind Vitalik's public endorsement of ENS
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Maintaining DA's legitimacy: Behind Vitalik's public endorsement of ENS
Faced with the increasingly uncontrollable Layer2 landscape, Vitalik will go to great lengths to uphold the primacy of Ethereum's mainnet DA.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Haotian
Many people assume that @VitalikButerin's retweet of ENS's Layer2 data resolution solution is a clear endorsement of a grand new narrative for ENS. But that’s not quite accurate. If you closely examine the Layer2 integration approach provided by @ensdomains, you’ll understand Vitalik’s real intention: to further tighten Ethereum’s control over Layer2 data availability (DA). Why? Let me briefly break it down:
ENS (Ethereum Name Service) defines an interaction logic where users only need to enter a short domain name to automatically connect to the corresponding long address linked to the ENS smart contract—solving the pain point of complex, hard-to-remember and hard-to-verify EOA addresses.
To be clear, ENS’s domain service targets future markets with massive user traffic, especially mass adoption user groups.
And Layer2 is Ethereum’s path forward for scaling and absorbing high traffic volumes. If ENS’s resolution solution fails to extend to Layer2 and remains confined to Ethereum’s mainnet, its potential will be severely limited.
Given this, it’s natural for ENS to develop a full data resolution framework for Layer2, enabling users to perform domain resolution and data lookup directly on Layer2, reducing reliance on centralized gateways operated by individual Layer2s.
In short, this framework allows users to use ENS domains securely and in a decentralized manner across various Layer2s. How is this achieved?
1) ENS has designed an interoperable "layer bridge" that enables each Layer2 to retrieve and verify domain data from Ethereum mainnet in off-chain environments. Through this bridging mechanism, domain resolution functionality between Layer2s and the mainnet is unified, allowing secure use of ENS short domains on Layer2.
2) EIP-3668 ensures that domain usage on Layer2 can be correctly validated by mainnet smart contracts, preventing misuse; while EIP-5599 relaxes the previous requirement that domain resolution must interact directly with the ENS smart contract, allowing resolution tasks to be delegated to external systems (e.g., Rollup contracts), significantly enhancing parallel processing capability for domain resolution.
It’s clear that for users to properly use ENS domains on Layer2, they must first call and verify global data stored on Ethereum mainnet. This means accessing ENS services requires relying on Ethereum’s canonical Data Availability (DA) layer. Consequently, Layer2s built on OP Stack forks that shortcut development by outsourcing DA to third-party platforms like Celestia become incompatible with ENS.
Now it’s easier to understand Vitalik’s intent. As I’ve analyzed in multiple articles before, post-Cancun upgrade, Layer2s are set to explode—sprouting up like mushrooms after rain. Modular design principles and stack-based component services are blurring the original boundary where mainnet provides DA and Layer2 provides scalability.
Faced with this rapidly expanding and increasingly fragmented Layer2 landscape, Vitalik is determined to defend the primacy of Ethereum mainnet’s DA. His earlier advocacy for Plasma+ZK was one such effort to protect DA orthodoxy; his recent high-profile support for ENS’s Layer2 domain resolution scheme serves the same purpose.
Because only when DA resides on Ethereum mainnet can Ethereum validators retain control over the “security” lifeline of Layer2 assets. If validators lose their verification authority, Ethereum risks becoming nothing more than a “bulletin board” for Layer2 results. As Layer2s grow less dependent on Ethereum, there’s no guarantee they’ll even want to remain part of Ethereum’s ecosystem. Thus, Vitalik is doing everything possible to steer Layer2 development back onto Ethereum’s canonical path.
Upon closer inspection, the crypto world has always been deeply political.
Of course, ENS is regarded by Vitalik as Ethereum’s most successful non-financial application. Beyond ideology, ENS genuinely improves blockchain usability for mass adoption and aligns with Layer2’s goal of expanding web3 to broader audiences.
In summary, using ENS to establish interoperability standards across Layer2 platforms while reclaiming control over DA—a brilliant move.
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Haotian | CryptoInsight
