As blockchain ecosystems mature, the pace and effectivity of the infrastructure for nodes have change into extra than simply technical concerns —they’re strategic imperatives. Main the cost on this area is Austin Federa, former Head of Technique on the Solana Basis, who’s gearing as much as launch DoubleZero, a protocol designed to redefine how blockchains talk and scale.
In a wide-ranging dialog with CoinDesk, Federa delved into the motivations behind DoubleZero, the challenges it addresses and which will come out of it, and why its imaginative and prescient for a high-performance networking layer might be the muse for the following technology of decentralized techniques.
DoubleZero was first introduced in December 2024 as a blockchain layer aimed to be quicker than the web and subsequently essential for crypto trades. Since then almost 12.57% of SOL staked is working on the DoubleZero testnet. The mainnet launch is predicted to occur someday in September.
This interview has been edited for brevity and readability.
CoinDesk: Clarify how DoubleZero works to somebody who’s new to crypto.
Austin Federa: I believe one of many best methods to clarify what we’re constructing is we’re constructing crypto’s model of Flash Boys.
That basically was this transformational second the place folks type of realized that your edge in execution on a centralized buying and selling venue, was not your precise commerce logic or the pace of the pc that you’ve hooked as much as the market, it’s how shortly you will get information between totally different factors the place market occasions happen. That was type of a very huge change within the business, as a result of transit time was not [previously] thought-about to be terribly essential.
You possibly can return and watch System 1 races from the 80s, they’re simply taking a cigarette break throughout a pit cease, after which somebody realized “oh man, we’re really leaving plenty of time on the monitor by these pit stops not being optimized.” And it truly is one thing fairly related within the buying and selling area.
So for crypto, the concept of utilizing one thing that is quicker than the general public web (that you need to use a community that you need to use applied sciences on that aren’t obtainable on the general public web), it isn’t essentially a brand new concept. The issue was, till DoubleZero got here alongside, it must have been run by one centralized firm and never permit for a number of impartial contributors.
The primary expertise, philosophy and financial unlock of the DoubleZero protocol is that it permits a number of contributors which have their very own fiber networks to contribute parts or all of that fiber community to the DoubleZero community. It builds an enormous, extraordinarily excessive efficiency fiber mesh community that connects folks all all over the world.
CoinDesk: Why construct for Solana?
Federa: We’re not really constructed on Solana. We do have a separate ledger system, but it surely’s not a community that anybody ever deploys a sensible contract to, it truly is simply an accounting database.
The explanation that we’re supporting Solana first…is as a result of Solana is fairly distinctive. Should you have a look at quick blockchains, and you then have a look at node rely, there is a ratio of transactions per second to variety of nodes, nobody comes even near Solana.
Any community that’s wherever close to the efficiency of Solana has a 1/fifth to a 1/tenth of the variety of precise nodes. And so the communications drawback is an exponential drawback. The extra nodes you’ve got within the system, and the extra locations you should get information to go, the extra bandwidth you want, the extra the communication turns into a bottleneck.
So the larger and the quicker you get a blockchain community, the extra communication turns into a bottleneck for that community transferring shortly. And so the true purpose behind what we’re doing is to permit blockchains to go quicker than the general public web, with out having to drop node rely or add centralization.
We expect DoubleZero has much more functions than simply Solana, and much more functions than simply blockchain. However it’s the place the place there’s the largest want in the meanwhile. You have a look at the opposite blockchains on the market, they usually simply haven’t got these issues but.
CoinDesk: How does staking on Solana tie to DoubleZero?
Federa: We have now a stake pool that’s staking to nodes on DoubleZero. As a proportion of stake, it is fairly small, it is about 3 million SOL, (there’s 500 million SOL), so it isn’t an enormous quantity of SOL. That was initially conceived of as a approach to assist subsidize the price of validators operating on our testnet, however turned out folks had been simply very desirous about operating on testnet, and in order that’s been a very nice device for getting extra folks on board with the community.
Once we launch mainnet information in September, that is going to be over 50 totally different fiber hyperlinks proper now. At the moment its at eight. Most of the hyperlinks will likely be 10 instances quicker than the connections that now we have in the present day by way of their capability. So going from 10 gigabit to 200 gigabit connections.
We see a future the place, while you get sufficient stake working on the DoubleZero community, protocol designers at Solana are actually in a position to jack up limits approach increased than they’ll on the general public web, as a result of there’s extra capability provided on DoubleZero than is offered to validators working on the general public web in the present day, and it is a decrease latency connection. So the information transmission really, not solely are you able to ship extra information, however that information arrives extra shortly than it might in any other case.
CoinDesk: So in your world there are two situations right here: you’ve got the general public web, or you’ve got one thing like a DoubleZero. If you wish to get one thing completed quicker, faster, or different advantages on your commerce, you go the DoubleZero route. Does that then create a efficiency inequality between validators on Solana?
Federa: We get a model of this [question] rather a lot. And the query to ask your self is, is the web a centralizing pressure? The web is mainly simply 20 corporations which have a lot of the connectivity. And in the present day if all the OECD nations all of the sudden mentioned, “no extra crypto,” mainly every part however bitcoin is hosed.
So after we’re trustworthy about what we’re feeling about right here, the significance is to not do away with the web totally. It’s to verify the web is there as a fallback, as a censorship resistance path. And so if DoubleZero is offline, or if there’s a dangerous actor within the DoubleZero community that decides to attempt to censor blocks or one thing together with censored information transferring by means of it, two issues will occur:
One, because of this now we have 9 impartial contributors on the community, so information will simply route round them, and we are able to mainly kick a contributor off the community. And the second factor is, we at all times have the general public web to fall again on. Now which will require Solana dropping from 500,000 transactions per second to 10,000 transactions per second. However that is not a foul failback state.
That is type of your traditional, “there is a site visitors jam on the freeway, I am going to take the county highway in the meanwhile.”
CoinDesk: So mainnet is coming very quickly. What’s taking place between from time to time?
Federa: It is plenty of testing, it is plenty of ensuring that we’re totally able to go. After which it is clearly a token-based venture. So there’s a token launch that may go together with that as nicely, additionally within the month of September.
Learn extra: DoubleZero’s ‘New Web’ for Blockchains Nabs $400M Valuation from High Crypto VCs
