NEAR Foundation and Eigen Labs partner to enable faster, cheaper Web3 transactions for Ethereum

The NEAR Foundation and Eigen Labs announced a collaboration today aimed at developing a fast finality solution designed to power quicker, more affordable transactions for Ethereum rollups, including cross-rollup transactions––a first in the realm of Web3.

The teams at the NEAR Foundation and Eigen Labs are collaborating to construct the first-ever “fast finality layer” for Ethereum rollups. This advancement enables transactions to be processed within 3-4 seconds––a dramatic decrease from the current processing times that can stretch into minutes, hours, or even days––and at a cost of 4000 times less than current alternatives. This collaboration also facilitates secure, low-latency cross rollup communication, effectively tackling one of the major obstacles for founders and developers utilizing rollups today.

This innovation will lessen liquidity fragmentation between Layer-2s by promoting efficiency, while also allowing them to make independent decisions concerning the sequencers they choose to handle their transactions, whether on-chain or off-chain. The fast finality layer preserves all Ethereum security guarantees while introducing both NEAR and EigenLayer safeguards, rendering it an appealing choice for any team developing on Ethereum L2s.

Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol, stated: “NEAR Foundation is pleased to collaborate with the exceptional team at Eigen Labs to provide a fast finality layer for ETH rollups. The fast finality layer highlights the capabilities of NEAR’s technology while making the Open Web more accessible, a core objective for NEAR. It will also assist in reducing liquidity fragmentation for Ethereum rollups, resulting in enhanced interoperability across Web3.”

Sreeram Kannan, the founder of Eigen Labs, expressed: “We are delighted to join forces with the highly innovative team behind the NEAR protocol. This mutually advantageous partnership will harness both NEAR and EigenLayer’s technologies, making it simpler, speedier, and more cost-effective for developers to build on Ethereum.”

This collaboration will afford EigenLayer fast settlement for cross-rollup transactions and exhibit the adoption of restaking across the Ethereum ecosystem and beyond. For NEAR, this partnership will also involve transitioning the NEAR-Ethereum Rainbow Bridge to an actively validated service (AVS), fostering a smoother bridging experience between NEAR and Ethereum. Transactions will achieve finality more rapidly, with heightened security guarantees and decentralization.

Bowen Wang, Director of Protocol at Pagoda, the NEAR ecosystem team responsible for constructing the fast finality layer, remarked: “Pagoda is honored to collaborate with Eigen Labs, a world-class team, in the co-creation of the fast finality layer. This solution enhances composability with Ethereum L2s and diminishes liquidity fragmentation within the rollup ecosystem."

A testnet is slated for launch in Q1 2024, with additional details to be disclosed around that time. For the most recent news from the NEAR Foundation or EigenLayer, please visit our websites, follow us on social media, or join our communities:

NEAR Foundation website: https://near.foundation/

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EigenLayer website: https://www.eigenlayer.xyz/

EigenLayer on Twitter: @eigenlayer

EigenLayer on Telegram: @eigenlayer