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Building On The Cosmos Interchain
Recorded: Oct. 26, 2023 Duration: 1:13:39Space Recording
Full Transcription
We'll see you next time.
Hi, everyone.
super interesting um thanks for sharing these thoughts and i know you also came out of stealth
recently so i'm sure the audience appreciates uh having this additional color into what you guys
have been doing and what you're building at the moment
cool um so avril um i was keen to hear a bit about um you know if you could share some
thoughts about on the security side um how you guys at neutron think about different types of
security solutions and their pros and cons um this is kind of very very important subject
yeah for sure i think you know security is one of the core properties of of blockchain so that that's
something that we thought fairly long and hard um about because you know to to give a bit of
sort of like background story of like how hadron labs at least started working on neutron
um we like our a good chunk of our our team was previously like building um a liquid staking
protocol and which was like launched on terra fairly successful 10 billion dollars of liquidity
of like of tbl um like a couple of years ago until like terra crashed um but the the issue that we
were faced with is that this protocol was deployed on a cosmos chain but it wasn't able to
really scale across the the entire cosmos like sort of like the cosmos vision would would have
right because small contracts were kind of isolated from the ability to really interact with these
kind of like crushing technologies and so the you know while doing our research we realized that
there were like really three three blockers and like crushing interoperability ecosystem alignment
and you know very very importantly like security and the reason why security was so important is
because if you're an ambitious builder and you want to build an application that is going to
like really really scale you need to ensure that your protocol is never going to become like a honey
pot that is like worth attacking essentially and so that was a an issue in that a number of the
platforms that were available in the ecosystem actually didn't have that much of an economic security and so
um it would have been possible to basically you know once the protocol is large enough attack the chain
in order to gain control over the protocol and make a profit out of it and so that's that's sort of what
led us to replicated security as kind of like the perfect solution for you know ambitious crushing
application builders that that want to ensure that they're what they build you know will be will be
like secure like long term um because like replicated security has this like very nice property very
differentiated so like offering when it comes to like security which is that not only does it um
provide you with so like a the the the economic security of a top 10 blockchain in the industry um
so like from day one it also provides very very close alignment with the cosmos hub its community with
the atom token and that that can help massively sort of like bootstrap um the community and the
distribution of of of your your product basically um and so like i think to to sort of like put things
into perspective i think where this differentiates replicated security with other sort of like security
offerings out there um like for example you know inheriting the security of an l1 by building a roll-up
or um going for like other forms of restaking i think one of the fundamental differences is that
when you launch a roll-up on ethereum you're aligning you're going to be aligning with ethereum
in order to court sort of like the the the capital and user base of the inter of the ethereum l1 right
but the ethereum l1 itself will never sort of like make take a stance in in your favor it will never be
aligning with you directly um because its vision its value proposition is to remain credibly neutral
um and and and therefore you know not actively support you any more than it than it does any
anyone else right and as as a result of this what we're seeing is that there's some degree of inertia
on some some of the like most innovative kind of like avenues like adding up codes for certain zk
proofs to enable like zk roll-ups to become a lot more efficient and functional um these things just
don't happen or if they do happen if they will happen um they happen over like the span of like
years right which is not really the the the the pace at which the rest of the industry and particularly
defy really operates um in replicated security on the other hand you have this like very interesting
property whereby the security agreement between the cosmos hub and the partner or consumer chain is
you know explicitly so like a two-way agreement whereby um the hub provides security and it
provides support and then the consumer chain success becomes that of the cosmos hub and the cosmos sub
derives uh benefits from you know accrue like a you know increased distribution for the atom token
um increased value like increased revenue from like the revenue share of the of the consumer chain
um and potentially like you know large token allocations and such and so like i think it
it makes that technology very unique in the sense that it's kind of like this mutual um like alignment
around security but that that goes beyond security um which which is not really a property that you see in
any other of the um alternatives out there i guess yeah i think this is a fairly interesting discussion
topic um and it's something that we thought about a lot when we were designing initia's roll-up layer
um i think ultimately what we agreed upon was that ics is incredibly interesting but i think it's
relatively unscalable once you reach a certain number of chains since you're acquiring the atom validator
set to essentially run full nodes for every new chain that is incorporated into ics which um probably
becomes unscalable at some point and so through a roll-up framework which is a vertical integration
rather than horizontal scaling uh what we're able to do is essentially allow these teams to spin up these
optimistic roll-up cosmos sdk based chains they don't have to have any validator sets uh they only need
to have a decentralized set of sequencers and then our l1 validators do not need to be tapped into
anything so you can roll you can have thousands of roll-ups on top of initia without linearly
expanding the hardware cost of the l1 validator set so only through omniscia shared security which is
what we use to essentially secure these roll-ups is you only tap into the l1 validator set when you
need to challenge fraud proofs and change who the optimistic bridge is or who the sequencers are and that
basically allows you to scale in a much more scalable fashion so you can have thousands of roll-ups and
then you only need to tap into the l1 set um if something does go wrong or if you need to challenge
some of these fraud proofs yeah i i agree that that's that that's a strong point like there's definitely a
difference um i would add a few caveats to the fact that you know like sequencers like of course if you're
only going for one sequencer which in which case you know the l2 itself is not really decentralized
um you you can probably really meaningfully reduce the cost of every new sort of like chain that you're
running since like roll-ups uh are already chains um so like while there may be like strong so like
cost improvements there i think when you're going for um a like a well decentralized sequencer set
and and and especially so if you're going for like zk roll-ups the it's it's not as clear to me
whether or not this is like meaningfully cheaper to run than a than a cosmos validator because like
at least in the state of like zk technology today um there is like like proving time and costs are still
like very very high and so you know decentralized sequencer sets may not be that that much cheaper
in the case of optimistic roll-ups like on initia um i think that's a clearer picture so you're you're
like i i fully take your point and i think it's very valid um but but like one final thought would
be i think in the case of the the hub you're right right at least in the current iteration of like the
full validator set being required to run every new consumer chain it's not the the it's definitely not
the most scalable um mechanism but i think that's actually a feature not above right like we i discussed just
before the fact that replicated security is very much like a two-way mutual agreement um to like
partner up very very closely between the cosmos hub this kind of like you know massive chain and
massive value and massive community and it's consumer chains right new projects bringing in
like building new things bringing value features and distribution to adam and the hub and and and
use cases to its community um and and so i think being selective there um eg the you know recognizing
that it's not infinitely scalable and and that it should pick the the chains that will actually bring
the most value to the hub is actually a feature not a buck um but but that being said i don't think
you know like that doesn't negate your point i just think that it's like it's a meaningfully different
approach um and i also think that it's it's mostly true for the current implementations of replicated
security um because there are there are solutions essentially to um to to to making it like a lot
more scalable um and then i guess sorry one final point which is that it's also not mutually exclusive
to vertical scaling like what i would argue is that neutron is actually bringing vertical scaling to
replicated security in the sense that um one you can deploy any number of application um which would
benefit from the full security of the cosmos hub by deploying that by deploying them as small
contracts on neutron where on top of you know the security and alignment with atom like the the value
and distribution that atom brings uh they would also get access to the entire cosmos ecosystems and
like very deep uh interoperability through new transcription infrastructure as well as app specific
infrastructure through the block sdk and other technologies that we mentioned um during during
this call so it allows you to build like very ambitious applications without having to build your
own app chain so basically you get most of the benefits of an app chain the security of the hub and
almost none of the costs of building your own app chain by building on neutron um and you know that
includes building roll-ups on neutron right there's um there's a few projects including like shogun which is
building um a roll-up that would um settle on the neutron l1 and use celestia as da to build a
decentralized interesting market maker which is you know the the combination of a coincidence of once
matching engine um eg like bad batching trades to provide like slippage free execution when there's
like users that have like uh diametrically opposed like trades that they want to take and then settling
the rest through all of the public liquidity um that is available like across the entire ecosystem
right and so like like the points that you're making are really strong completely agree um but i
do think that these what was interesting about these like the point i'm trying to make is that what's
interesting about these security systems is that they can be combined in very interesting ways right
for example like another like we discussed like combining roll-ups or small contracts with to
vertically scale replicated security by a neutron another thing that is possible to do is um you
you could combine replicated security with you know ethereum uh restaking for example right um to to
further increase like the hub itself might also want to add on top um you know like like let's say
restaking by eigenlayer which would result in that added economic security from ethereum on top of the
security already provided by atom being replicated to an entire ecosystem of consumer chains
of course there are security trade-offs and like technological risks that need to be taken into
account and i don't expect that these things will play out in the short term but but what i think is
super interesting is that we're getting into a space in this industry whereby the like fundamental
technologies are there and they're a lot more mature than they were a couple of years like before
we're getting to the space where we can do like very wide distribution um and so and combine these
technologies to reach better outcomes all right thanks thanks uh just one last question just a
quick one um before we open up to the floor for q a what are you guys most excited about in the next
coming three months six months about like any catalyst or anything that you look forward to for cosmos that
you think will bring it up to the next level yeah just just a short answer will do what are you guys
most excitable uh i think it's pretty exciting uh because like uh for the longest time um one of uh
the most interesting concepts we have was about how like um you know cosmos that kind of has account
abstraction uh with uh you know the capabilities of opsi etc right out of the box but you know with
the new like uh uh development around like uh account abstraction um you know even more intimately
within the native layer that kind of takes it to a whole new level
i think i have to show my own project in this sense um i'm definitely incredibly excited about
initia's launch um we're gearing up for public testnet in the next couple of months and we've
been building for six to eight months in stealth thus far so basically everything is ready and we're
just finalizing some of the product infrastructure that i talked about but incredibly excited to bring
500 millisecond block time 10 000 tps cosmos chains to the masses without them having to run
any validator sets or deal with anything and i think these will be the most product ready
roll-ups possible and because we own the entire tech stack from the l1 to the l2 and the communication
layer i'm really excited to show off some of the improvements we've made to modular systems
and just really integrating the ux between them
yeah i think that's huge that's super exciting um i'll definitely be be like playing around with like
roll-ups on initia for sure um i think yeah i'll probably go for another roll-up oriented milestone
i think like the the launch of celestia is another like very exciting milestones for the the entire cosmos
ecosystem i think and you know there's a number of roll-ups that are slated to be launching there soon
and we have been working with hyperlane and celestia to build kind of like the the the best and first
bridge solution to make sure that they're like all well integrated into the inter-chain economy
basically and i expect that that these new connections this new activity um this new value
entering the ecosystem is going to be like um something that's like going to be tremendously
beneficial for for for for the entire industry basically so i'm looking forward to seeing
like close integrations and and and collaboration between the celestia and cosmos ecosystem and and and
neutron being kind of like a very essential essential part of this as well
i see yeah i see yeah um pretty exciting stuff i think now you can move on to the q and a
yeah so we invite the audience to uh raise your hands um if you have any questions to
our speakers uh feel free to to let us know
you can just raise your hands and uh we'll promote you up to speakers
okay i think i think i think we got a couple right yeah we got two requests um yeah i approve uh
uh i mean nemo are you
do you hear me yeah okay okay my question was uh for spade uh actually what if he could explain a
bit more of why we have seen other custom wasm chains right so what makes uh if you could expand
a bit of what makes neutrons special in that regard like what differentiating from i don't know uh juno for
you know you you get composability out of the box right your small contracts are able to
be able to synchronously compose for instance for instance for instance for instance
yeah for sure that that's a great question thank you um i think the the fundamental difference
between um neutron and other small contract platforms is is two things um first it gives you
um as as a developer it gives you access to two things that you don't normally get which is you know if
you deploy a small contract on ethereum or juno you you get composability out of the box right your
small contracts are able to synchronously compose with other applications and potentially you can build
like interesting products by combining um applications really um now on neutron you get that but you also get two other
things application specific infrastructure and cross-chain interoperability eg you can build one
set of small contracts that provides services not just on one domain where it's deployed but across the
entire ibc and and and like network of interconnected blockchain so like 60 plus different blockchains right
you build an application once and then you're able to provide services and onboard users anywhere
and the other thing is you can build applications on neutron that you can't build on other networks
because of neutrons crushing infrastructure like sorry in protocol um infrastructure basically like
what what neutron focuses on is it makes sort of like the value the fundamental value proposition of
of the cosmos stack eg low-level access to the blockchain itself available to to small contracts what that
means is that you know through modules like duality decks you're able to shape to shape um the execution
and liquidity the market itself in which your tokens or or assets are being traded you're able to shape
the block creation process through the block sdk so that you can have you know for example you can have
free gas free transactions to onboard users you can have top of block oracles or liquidations to ensure that
you're always using the best prices that they're they can't be manipulated and that your protocol is
safe from bad debt and and things like this and all of these things combined like those are a few
examples but you know automation as well like on ethereum if you want automation you have to deploy
a keeper network and deploy incentives for third parties to come and trigger your contracts
in neutron you can just register a message in the end blockers of the network so that the valider set itself
will execute this message with no gas cost to ensure that your application is running in a very
predictable very efficient way for all of the kind of core functions that it has that need to be
automated um so all these things like combined allow you to basically build an application that has
the power of an app chain but without having the cost and overhead associating with building an app chain
um and and to onboard users from from basically anywhere um so i think that's that's sort of like the
the the the the kind of like core difference awesome thank you thank you
okay dan um you can go next
um dan you're now um promoted to speaker uh feel free to to go ahead with your question um hi thank
you guys so much for the ama i had a quick question regarding security how do you plan to address that
do you plan to do security audits how often do you plan to do that and in general if you could talk
about the security issue a bit is is this a question for um for everyone or is this like for a particular
project um everyone is free to address that um you know who wants to go first
yeah i guess i'll take a quick quick stab like you mentioned security audits obviously that's important
um neutron and i assume injective and and linear as well like um i've also been um like audited very
thoroughly we audit like the chain every time there's a new release um but there's also like
components about like pushing for you know best practices within the ecosystem so there's a subdao in
neutron that basically focuses on like putting together recommendations for how to best approach
um you know security practices um and and you know like we have an audit sponsorship program bounty
programs and all these things that help not just the platform but the ecosystem as a whole
the uh be as secure as as possible um and i guess the the the yeah i guess the other thing that's
interesting is like like um you know just like on injective we use cosmosum and cosmosum is actually
not vulnerable to most of the attack vectors that are usually um exploited when it comes to like
hacks on the uh on the on the ethereum ecosystem um so i think that's uh that's probably yeah that's
probably a good start for an answer um so i'm sorry i said linear it was a initial of course
um no problem yeah of course i think um every cosmos chain of course takes security as an extremely
important thing um almost everyone does multiple different audits from various partners and i think
both on-chain audits but also audits of back-end systems front-end systems etc are also incredibly
important to ensure that you're not getting hacked from not smart contract related things and then
cosmosum and move which are both uh capable on minutia's are of course security first languages they
don't have re-entrancy or any problems like that um and then the initia team has been building in cosmos
and ethereum for many many years we have hundreds of commits to both cosmos core and cosmos and repos
so we've been following security best practices since early 2020 um and we're definitely looking forward to
keeping a tight ship
thank you so much um for the answers i was really curious to know if you get any support from cosmos
itself uh when it comes to you know the security front um do they propose someone you know companies
to work with or partners to to go with when it comes to the security of your projects
i think it generally depends on the ecosystem um i think cosmos as a whole doesn't have a system for
that but there are some grant programs issued by various teams and then many ecosystems and cosmos
chains themselves typically offer help for the teams building within them to pay for audits really
subsidize those um and then there's many many great uh auditing firms that exist um one of my favorites
particularly is halborn zelek and otter sec um they're amazing guys and they have lots of experience both
with cosmos as well as just crypto in general
so thank you so much i guess i will leave the floor to the next questions thanks then
cool cool so um big ace uh we promoted you to speaker go ahead
also in line with uh security right um before neutron right i believe the whole inter-chain security
should i say meta was actually very so i had a very good momentum right and so far i think there's
only neutron that's you know taking a stance on inter-chain security so the question is
is directed to the other chains injective initial what is your stand on inter-chain security and of course
you see yourselves being part of that ecosystem moving forward thank you
yeah oh go for it eric oh no you can go ahead i was just gonna say it's like really really exciting
and i think it's like one of those things that we've been waiting for uh cosmos uh you know for
a long time it was like you know we were looking for like a solution like uh uh ics um it's both
valuable for you know help to accrue more value to you know alleviate the economic cost of uh bootstrapping
and chain but more importantly you know as a generalized tool to uh create more you know like experimental
grounds and having that extra flexibility you know with that tool like you are turning effectively
like uh what's an already extremely flexible infrastructure to a whole new level
oh um big ace thank you um we'll go with the next question from joe
joe joe go ahead uh hi uh can you hear me so yep loud and clear go ahead i have a question for zon
it's like i know an issue is uh making um also making initial tokens um i want to know what the
role of initial token and aligning like the goals of the general ecosystem of initia
yeah that's a great question joe um so i think in general um a lot of chains what this is or at
least l1s that we see thus far um underutilize their tokens in very interesting ways most of them
typically see it as a way to do governance along with maybe distribute some grants but those typically
are are ineffective and then you know aside from like using it as gas um i think gas is while it's
interesting um there's no like problem for block space these days so ultimately gas unless you're on
something like ethereum um probably won't be the biggest value accrual mechanism for your token and
on minutia's especially uh you're allowed to use whatever types of gas tokens you want so
minutia layer twos don't need to use init for gas they can use things like usdc or eth or their own
native token for a project so what we've done is essentially incorporate multiple different economic
mechanisms that incentivize layer twos and these minutia's to directly use the initial token within their
their their applications and their systems and then built layers on top of that to um as like a
retention mechanism to encourage users to be aligned with the initial token and continue to hold it and
use it across these layer twos over time so we've built basically alignment mechanisms using the initial
token and this modular system of roll-ups and these layer twos to ensure that all participants in the
ecosystem whether they're the l1 the l2 operators or the users across this entire system are all
marching in the right direction and uh attributing value to initia holding it and using it and i think
that's um something that's fairly different from the atom token and cosmos at large is that like
atom doesn't particularly have a use case aside from things like interchange security although it's
becoming more and more important with that in the atom economic zone but we've taken lessons from that
and directly included it in multiple different economic systems that i'm excited to release soon
to show the public about
thanks on thanks joe um we'll do one last question um
um probably we're promoting you to speaker and uh we can wrap up after that
probably go ahead yeah thanks for the promotion man um i just wanted to ask about the token and joe asked
about it thanks for the explanation um um i would really like to have uh docs like uh gitbook um those
things available anytime soon i would really like to i will dive in those docs also uh the person don't
like uh who is brave enough to ask zon about notes so zon you need to answer this question tell us
uh something about notes on india will there be or not that's it sorry do you mind repeating your
question i think there's a little bit of background noise yeah sure um i just uh would like to have
docs like gitbook uh will those things available anytime soon also uh one community member wanted to
ask you about nodes so tell us something about nodes on india um for docs i believe is your first
question yes docs on initia will be released soon probably in line with our public uh testnet which is
coming in the next couple of months um so that should be uh everything that you want there as well
as we'll be continually posting updates on our twitter as we have some awesome partnerships and
announcements and infrastructure to share over the coming weeks and then i believe you're talking
about nodes um we will have likely a program for our initial validator set on the l1 um and happy to
address any further questions in our discord if you hop in there you can definitely message me
sure great thanks for your time
thanks everyone so that concludes our session today and thanks again to our speakers um we had
uh great great insights uh shared by eric from injective avril from neutron and zon from initia
thanks a lot again i know you're all over different time zones and appreciate uh taking the time
uh thanks for having us everyone bye thank you very much thanks guys good luck good luck to the team
thank you sir adios folks
thank you
