Scaling Services Overview

Scaling Services Overview

Ankr Scaling Services is a suite of layer 2 and modularity solutions aimed at bringing Web3 to a new paradigm of blockchain performance.

Our particular focus on providing the Web3 space with a comprehensive Rollup-as-a-Service (RaaS) offering is driven by the fact that Rollups have become a recognized solution in addressing critical blockchain issues of scalability, efficiency, security, and user experience.

"Our goal for RaaS is to make the user experience of launching a layer 2 as seamless as publishing a new website at the mature stages of the dot-com industry." — Kev Silk, Senior Product Manager of Ankr Scaling Services.

Ankr's Rollup-as-a-Service

Ankr's RaaS, a key part of its Scaling Services, equips developers with fast, secure tools for building Rollups and other scaling solutions like Sidechains across blockchain ecosystems. Merging decentralized infrastructure with financial incentives via Liquid Staking, Ankr offers a comprehensive and sustainable development experience, catering to the demand for scalable, Ethereum-secure projects, and establishing itself as a RaaS leader.

What we offer

Ankr distinguishes itself as the sole RaaS provider blending top-tier DePIN-status rollup infrastructure with developer incentives via ankrETH, and a dual token strategy. This mix ensures a sustainable, all-encompassing development setting, backed by a decentralized, superior infrastructure network.

  • Infrastructure and Scalability: As a DePIN provider, Ankr leverages not only their own world-class globally-distributed bare-metal and cloud infrastructure of nodes, but also a worldwide network of elite node providers, including IoTex, Mind Heart Soul, and Tencent. This decentralized, secure, and robust infrastructure guarantees having all the necessary means to cater to the scalability requirements of various Rollup-centric projects. Serving two trillion annual transactions on its own, Ankr has the proven capability to handle and scale to the demands that RaaS requires.

  • End-to-End Support and Customization: With your specific project requirements in mind, Ankr offers end-to-end design, engineering, customization, and maintenance services. This includes everything from design and deployment to infrastructure operations and financial incentives.

  • Architecture Flexibility: By collaborating with blockchain entities like Optimism, zkSync, and Polygon, Ankr has become an approved implementation partner, enabling it to provide specialized solutions tailored to different blockchain ecosystems. This helps in creating a more interconnected and versatile Web3 environment where developers can leverage both ZK and Optimistic rollup architectures for creating dedicated Rollups.

  • Liquid Staking and Financial Incentives: Ankr integrates its liquid staking tech into RaaS offerings, allowing developers to use ankrETH as gas fees while providing staking rewards for token holders. This introduces financial incentives directly into the development process, benefiting both the platform and its users by reducing operational costs and enabling new revenue streams.

  • Comprehensive Developer Tools: Ankr's RaaS solution is designed to reduce development time and allow teams to focus on their unique use cases. By providing blockchain engineering, rollup infrastructure, development tools, and security auditing, Ankr ensures that projects can be launched with the necessary support and resources.

Overall, Ankr offers a robust, scalable, and customizable RaaS solution that meets the evolving needs of Web3 developers and enterprises. This aids in the development of more efficient, secure, and user-friendly blockchain applications, accelerating the adoption and growth of the Web3 ecosystem.

Benefits of Dual Token Economics

Ankr’s RaaS gives clients the opportunity to create and use innovative new tokens as their native currency. Imagine every token on your Ethereum-based rollup offers constant rewards for holders. This is the power of using Ankr’s Ethereum liquid staking token, ankrETH, as your optional gas token.

Key benefits:

  • Share Security: Unlock the massive capital base of staked ETH to be utilized again in securing your rollup with Ankr’s liquid staking assets.
  • Collect 24/7 Rewards: Using ankrETH as your rollup token means a constant stream of ETH staking rewards is delivered to all holders.
  • Put TVL on Autopilot: Multiply the TVL potential of your rollup as the value of tokens on the network grows daily to support every financial function.
  • Achieve Gasless UX: Use the ankrETH liquid staking token as your gas token to cover operational costs or subsidize gas fees.

Supported Technology

Rollup Stacks

A Rollup stack is a set of technologies and protocols used to bundle or "roll up" multiple transactions into a single transaction. This approach allows for more efficient processing and significantly reduces the burden on the main blockchain, enhancing scalability and transaction speed while maintaining security and decentralization.

Fluent

Using Fluent as a Rollup stack offers several benefits including the ability to build and deploy scalable applications in a variety of programming languages through WebAssembly (Wasm), ensuring compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), and providing flexible app deployment models. These features collectively enhance developer freedom, interoperability, and efficiency in the Ethereum ecosystem.

OP Stack

The use of the OP Stack offers a distinctive approach focused on enhancing scalability and developer experience within the Ethereum ecosystem.

Key aspects of using the OP Stack include:

  • Scalability: The OP Stack helps scale the Ethereum network by handling transactions off-chain and submitting condensed transaction data to the mainnet, significantly reducing gas costs and increasing transaction throughput.

  • Developer Friendliness: It provides a smooth and familiar environment for developers, leveraging existing Ethereum tooling and smart contract languages, which reduces the learning curve and accelerates dApp development.

  • Security: While prioritizing scalability and developer experience, the OP Stack also maintains high security standards, relying on the underlying security of the Ethereum blockchain and additional fraud-proof mechanisms inherent to Optimistic Rollups.

  • Compatibility: The stack is designed to be highly compatible with Ethereum, meaning that it supports EVM-compatible smart contracts and assets, facilitating easy migration of dApps from Ethereum to Ankr's Rollup-as-a-Service.

  • Finality and Cost-efficiency: Transactions processed through the OP Stack have a longer finality time compared to other solutions like ZK-Rollups, but they offer a balance between cost and speed, making it a practical choice for a variety of applications.

In essence, the OP Stack provides a scalable, cost-effective, and developer-friendly platform for building and deploying decentralized applications, all while leveraging the security and interoperability of the Ethereum ecosystem.

ZK Stack

Using a ZK (Zero-Knowledge) Stack has several key differentiators:

  • Enhanced Privacy: The ZK Stack leverages zero-knowledge proofs, which allow for transaction validation without revealing the actual information contained within those transactions. This enhances privacy and security, making it ideal for applications that handle sensitive data.

  • Scalability and Efficiency: ZK-Rollups bundle hundreds or even thousands of off-chain transactions into a single transaction. The ZK Stack compresses this data and generates a cryptographic proof, known as a SNARK (Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge), which is then posted to the Ethereum blockchain. This process significantly reduces the data stored on the blockchain, leading to higher transaction throughput and lower costs compared to traditional blockchain transactions.

  • Finality and Security: Transactions processed through a ZK Stack achieve finality quickly once posted to the mainnet, as the zero-knowledge proof ensures the correctness of all transactions in the batch without the need for multiple confirmations. This not only speeds up transactions but also leverages the underlying security of the Ethereum network.

  • Developer Friendliness: Despite the complex technology underlying ZK-Rollups, Ankr's ZK Stack is designed to be accessible for developers. It provides tools and frameworks that help in building and deploying scalable dApps with an emphasis on ease of use and integration with existing Ethereum development workflows.

  • Compatibility and Interoperability: ZK Stack is built to ensure compatibility with Ethereum standards, facilitating ease of integration with the broader Ethereum ecosystem and interoperability with other chains and layer 2 solutions.

  • Economic Incentives: The ZK Stack is designed to optimize transaction fees and token economics to ensure that validators and participants are fairly compensated, promoting a healthy and sustainable network ecosystem.

In summary, the key advantages of using a ZK Stack include enhanced privacy and security through zero-knowledge proofs, improved scalability and efficiency, fast finality, developer friendliness, and strong compatibility and interoperability with the Ethereum ecosystem.

Polygon CDK

Using Polygon CDK (Chain Development Kit) as a Rollup stack offers unique advantages such as enhanced scalability, flexibility, and developer-friendly tools. It supports various types of rollups, catering to different needs and security models, thereby providing a versatile environment for building and deploying scalable blockchain applications. The integration with Polygon also offers a seamless connection to a broader ecosystem, facilitating easier access to users and assets within the Polygon network.

Arbitrum

The main benefits of using Arbitrum as a Rollup stack include increased scalability for Ethereum applications, reduced gas fees, and faster transaction times, all while maintaining the security guarantees of the Ethereum network. Arbitrum also supports full Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility, making it easier for developers to migrate existing dApps without significant changes.

It improves transaction speeds and reduces costs due to efficient batch processing. Moreover, Arbitrum's optimistic rollup technology provides a unique dispute resolution mechanism, ensuring the integrity of the rollup while maintaining high throughput and low latency. This makes Arbitrum an attractive choice for developers looking to leverage Ethereum's security with greater efficiency.

Data Availability Layers

Data Availability (DA) layer is specifically concerned with ensuring that the data necessary to reconstruct the state of the blockchain is available to all nodes. This is crucial because, in a decentralized network, if data becomes unavailable, it can lead to problems like censorship, loss of funds, or network splits. The Data Availability layer aims to ensure that data is spread throughout the network in a manner that makes it recoverable even if some nodes go offline or act maliciously.

Ethereum

Ethereum serves as a data availability layer for Rollups by ensuring that transaction data is accessible for verification, which is crucial for maintaining the integrity and security of the network.

  • Data Availability for Light Nodes and Rollups: Ethereum addresses the data availability problem by enabling light nodes and Layer 2 rollups to operate effectively without needing to download all transaction data. Solutions like Data Availability Sampling (DAS) and Data Availability Committees (DACs) ensure that all network participants, especially those with limited resources, have assurances that full transaction data has been made available for verification.

  • ZK-Rollups Interaction with Ethereum: ZK-rollups operate as off-chain protocols that periodically commit transaction batches to Ethereum's Mainnet. These transactions are recorded on-chain, maintaining immutability and allowing anyone to reconstruct the rollup's state independently. Data availability is crucial for ZK-rollups since it enables permissionless verification of the Layer 2 chain's state and ensures that operations such as user withdrawals are based on accurate and up-to-date information. Ethereum's role is to ensure the availability of data behind every update to the rollup's state, thereby maintaining the security and integrity of transactions executed off-chain.

In essence, Ethereum's structure and consensus mechanisms provide a secure and transparent foundation for rollups by ensuring that data needed to validate transactions is available to all participants, which helps prevent fraudulent activities and enhances the overall security of the network. This system enables Ethereum to support various scaling solutions, including both optimistic and ZK-rollups, by providing a reliable layer for data availability and transaction finality.

Eigen Layer

EigenDA serves Rollups as their data availability layer by storing rollup transactions until they are finalized. It scales linearly with the number of operators, ensuring security and decentralization. EigenDA operates without a separate token, reducing risks and complexity for Ethereum Layer 2 solutions. It integrates with rollups through a process involving operators, a disperser, and retrievers, facilitating efficient data storage and retrieval within the Ethereum ecosystem

Near

NEAR DA serves Rollups as their data availability layer by offering a secure and cost-effective solution for Ethereum rollups and developers. It provides an infrastructure where 100kB of calldata costs significantly less compared to Ethereum L1, making data storage for rollups vastly cheaper and more reliable while maintaining Ethereum's security. This service is part of NEAR's broader efforts to support modular blockchain development and help developers reduce costs and enhance the reliability of their rollups.

The architecture of NEAR DA leverages the unique aspects of NEAR’s consensus mechanism, Nightshade, which utilizes sharding to improve scalability and cost-efficiency. This allows for a more decentralized system, increasing the available block space without overwhelming the network with excess data. NEAR DA ensures that data is available for a sufficient amount of time, making it especially useful for rollups with high transaction volumes, such as gaming chains. This structure supports an easy-to-use environment for developers, offering out-of-the-box solutions for integrating with Ethereum rollups.

NEAR DA offers tools like the Blob Store Contract for storing arbitrary data, the Light Client for accessing transaction and receipt data trustlessly, and the RPC Client for submitting data blobs to NEAR, all aimed at lowering data availability fees for rollups. These components facilitate the integration of NEAR's data availability services with layer-2 rollups, making it an attractive option for developers looking to enhance the performance and cost-efficiency of their platforms.

Celestia

Celestia is a modular data availability (DA) network that securely scales with the number of users, making it easy for anyone to launch their own blockchain.

Rollups and L2s use Celestia as a network for publishing and making transaction data available for anyone to download. For them, Celestia provides high-throughput DA that can be verified easily with a light node.

Using Celestia as a data availability layer for Rollups presents several advantages:

  • Decoupling of Consensus and Execution: Celestia provides a platform where the consensus mechanism is responsible only for ordering transactions and ensuring their availability, not for transaction execution. This separation improves scalability and efficiency.

  • Enhanced Scalability: Celestia utilizes data availability proofs and erasure coding, which helps in scaling block verification similarly to sharded blockchains but without the complexity of managing multiple shards. This makes it possible for systems built atop Celestia to achieve very high transaction throughput.

  • Flexibility and Modularity: Celestia's approach is modular, allowing different blockchain components to be optimized and scaled independently. This modularization leads to reduced costs and increased rates of innovation, as it allows builders to swap modules as per their requirements.

  • Sovereignty for Rollups: Rollups on Celestia can operate independently without enshrining a settlement layer, providing them more control and autonomy over their operations while still leveraging Celestia for data availability.

  • Cost-Effectiveness: By focusing solely on data availability and ordering, and not on execution, Celestia provides a more cost-effective solution for rollups compared to using traditional, monolithic chains.

  • Increased Transaction Throughput and Reduced Costs: The architecture designed by Celestia allows for increased transaction throughput while also reducing the costs associated with transactions, beneficial for applications needing high on-chain data throughput.

Interoperability Layers

Interoperability layers refer to frameworks or systems that enable different blockchain networks to communicate and interact with each other. These layers are crucial because they allow for the transfer of data, assets, and value between otherwise isolated blockchain ecosystems, facilitating a more integrated and functional global blockchain infrastructure.

Interoperability layers are essential for the practical and widespread adoption of blockchain technology, as they allow for a more connected and efficient ecosystem where different platforms can share information and value seamlessly.

Celer

The Celer interoperability protocol is designed to connect siloed blockchain environments, offering several benefits that can significantly enhance the functionality, efficiency, and user experience across different blockchain networks. Here are some of the key benefits:

  • Enhanced Scalability and Efficiency: Celer's interoperability protocol utilizes state channel technology and other layer-2 scaling solutions to facilitate high-speed, low-cost transactions across different blockchains. This can significantly reduce the congestion and high fees associated with traditional on-chain transactions, leading to more efficient cross-chain interactions.

  • Seamless Asset Transfer: Celer enables seamless asset transfers between different blockchain networks. This interoperability allows users to move assets such as tokens or NFTs across blockchains without the need for complex and costly bridge mechanisms, promoting liquidity and asset utilization across the ecosystem.

  • Generalized Inter-chain Communication: Beyond simple asset transfers, Celer supports generalized inter-chain communication. This means that beyond transferring assets, it can also facilitate the execution of complex smart contracts and cross-chain dApps interactions, broadening the scope of possible applications and use cases.

  • Enhanced Security: Celer's approach to interoperability emphasizes security, aiming to provide secure and trust-minimized communication between different blockchains. This is achieved through innovative cryptographic methods and secure multi-party computation, reducing the risk of hacks and malicious activities associated with cross-chain operations.

  • Decentralization and Trust Minimization: By enabling direct communication between blockchains without relying heavily on centralized intermediaries, Celer promotes a more decentralized blockchain ecosystem. This minimizes trust and reduces potential points of failure, aligning with the foundational principles of blockchain technology.

  • Developer and User Friendliness: Celer provides tools and frameworks that are designed to be accessible to developers, lowering the barrier to entry for creating and deploying cross-chain applications. For users, this translates to a smoother and more integrated user experience when interacting with applications that operate across multiple blockchains.

  • Network Effects and Ecosystem Growth: By facilitating interoperability between different blockchains, Celer can help foster a more interconnected and collaborative blockchain environment. This can lead to network effects where the value and utility of each connected blockchain are enhanced, contributing to the overall growth and development of the blockchain ecosystem.

Axelar

Axelar delivers secure cross-chain communication for Web3, enabling you to build Interchain dApps that grow beyond a single chain. Secure means Axelar is built on proof-of-stake, the battle-tested approach used by Ethereum, Polygon, Cosmos, and more. Cross-chain communication means you can build a complete experience for your users that lets them interact with any asset, any application, on any chain with one click.

Key benefits:

  • Universal Interoperability: Axelar is designed to provide universal interoperability, meaning it can connect any blockchain, regardless of its underlying technology or consensus mechanism. This inclusivity ensures that a wide range of blockchains, from major platforms like Ethereum and Bitcoin to newer or less common networks, can communicate and share resources.

  • Decentralized Security: Axelar employs a decentralized network of validators to secure cross-chain communication. This approach ensures that the system is not reliant on a single point of failure and aligns with the decentralized ethos of blockchain technology. The security model is designed to be robust against attacks, providing a trustworthy environment for cross-chain interactions.

  • Simplicity for Developers: Axelar is designed with a focus on developer experience, providing APIs and SDKs that abstract away the complexities of cross-chain communication. This makes it easier for developers to build and deploy decentralized applications (dApps) that can interact with multiple blockchain ecosystems, without needing to understand the intricate details of each connected network.

  • Seamless Asset Transfers: The protocol facilitates the seamless transfer of assets across different blockchains, enabling users to move cryptocurrencies, tokens, and other digital assets between networks effortlessly. This can significantly enhance liquidity across the blockchain ecosystem and open up new opportunities for users and developers alike.

  • Interoperable Smart Contracts: Axelar extends beyond simple asset transfers, enabling smart contracts on different blockchains to interact with each other. This capability allows for complex, cross-chain decentralized applications and services that can leverage the unique features of various blockchains, creating more versatile and powerful applications.

  • Scalability: The Axelar network is designed to be scalable, handling a growing volume of cross-chain transactions without significant increases in costs or delays. This scalability ensures that the network can accommodate the needs of a growing ecosystem without compromising performance.

  • Ecosystem Growth and Integration: By connecting different blockchains, Axelar facilitates a more integrated and cooperative blockchain ecosystem. This can lead to new types of applications and services, increased user adoption, and a more vibrant and diverse blockchain landscape.

  • Governance and Upgradeability: Axelar includes mechanisms for governance and network upgrades, allowing the community to propose and vote on changes to the protocol. This ensures that the network can evolve in response to new developments and challenges in the blockchain space.

In summary, Axelar offers a comprehensive solution for blockchain interoperability, providing security, simplicity, and scalability. By enabling different blockchains to communicate and interact, Axelar aims to foster a more connected, efficient, and innovative blockchain ecosystem.

Hyperlane

Hyperlane is another notable player in the blockchain interoperability space, designed to enable secure and efficient communication between different blockchain networks. Its architecture and approach offer unique benefits for the interconnected blockchain ecosystem:

  • Secure Messaging: Hyperlane provides a robust infrastructure for secure, inter-chain messaging. This allows blockchains to share information and execute transactions across different networks securely, ensuring data integrity and preventing unauthorized access.

  • Modularity and Flexibility: One of the standout features of Hyperlane is its modular design, which offers significant flexibility in how it can be used. This modularity allows for the customization of security models, messaging formats, and other key components to meet the specific needs of different blockchain applications and ecosystems.

  • Cross-Chain Applications: With Hyperlane, developers can build sophisticated cross-chain applications (xApps) that can operate seamlessly across multiple blockchains. This opens up new possibilities for dApps, allowing them to leverage the unique strengths and features of various blockchains, enhancing their functionality and user experience.

  • Decentralized and Trustless Operation: Hyperlane operates in a decentralized manner, reducing reliance on central authorities or single points of failure. This aligns with the trustless nature of blockchain technology, providing a more secure and resilient framework for cross-chain interactions.

  • Efficiency and Scalability: The protocol is designed for efficiency, with a focus on minimizing transaction costs and improving throughput. This makes it more viable for applications that require high volumes of cross-chain transactions and ensures that the system can scale as the number of interconnected blockchains grows.

  • Interoperability with Sovereignty: Hyperlane respects the sovereignty of individual blockchains, allowing them to maintain their own governance and operational models while still participating in the broader interconnected ecosystem. This ensures that blockchains can remain independent and true to their original design principles while benefiting from cross-chain capabilities.

  • Ecosystem Collaboration: By facilitating easier and more secure cross-chain interactions, Hyperlane encourages collaboration between different blockchain projects and communities. This can lead to the development of new partnerships, integrations, and innovations within the blockchain space.

  • User Experience: For end-users, Hyperlane can provide a more seamless and integrated experience when interacting with applications that span multiple blockchains. This can include simpler asset transfers, unified application interfaces, and more cohesive overall interactions with blockchain-based systems.