Introducing Restaked Interop, Powered by the Hyperlane AVS

The next leap in cross-rollup interoperability is here with Restaked Interoperability.

Now live on mainnet, the Hyperlane AVS powers a fast and affordable cross-rollup interoperability solution secured by EigenLayer restaked ETH.

Rollups gave us cheap & customizable blockspace, but also increased fragmentation as more of them launch. Today, there are existing attempts at cross-rollup interop — but none offer a clear path to securely scale in a many rollup world. Upcoming framework-driven solutions like OP Superchain and Polygon AggLayer are a step in the right direction, but don’t work across ecosystems.

Rollups need a universal interoperability solution.

To get there, we start at the shared base layer: Ethereum. With its Actively Validated Service (AVS) secured by many of the top EigenLayer restakers & operators, Hyperlane now solves this by tying all cross-rollup interop to stake on Ethereum. ETH-secured interop is now seamlessly available between any rollup across any framework.

So how did we get here?

Rollup Bridges Are Secure, But Slow

Rollup bridges are commonly used and highly secure: they work by making L2 transactions verifiable on the L1. That means if any validators try to steal bridged funds on the L2, you can prove it and slash them for their ETH stake. Your funds are secured by the economic security of Ethereum.

But this design comes with a major trade off — there’s a 7 day window to challenge transactions, leading many users to seek other options.

TLDR rollup bridges are the most secure but also slowest option.

3rd Party Bridge Tradeoffs

As users looked for a faster way to bridge, alternatives emerged — each with distinct security & UX tradeoffs.

Proof of authority (aka multisig). Trust the reputation of the multisig owners/validator set. Think Wormhole’s 13/19 Guardians. One of the key drawbacks of this design is that this singular validator set becomes the bottleneck for chain expansion, requiring all to agree to add a new chain.

LP bridges. LPs lock up capital on each chain and front funds instantly to bridge users. Think Hop’s LP pools and liquidity bridge. This requires a high degree of trust in the system and also involves lots of capital, which isn’t scalable as new rollups launch every day.

ZK. A computation-heavy method that actively validates each bridge tx. Think Polyhedra’s ZK bridge. While Hyperlane’s modular security supports ZK, this is not a viable solution for rollups today due to proving time and costs.

Users need a middle ground. They don’t want to wait forever or pay a lot. They would also prefer strong Ethereum-verifiable security and peace of mind. This is where Hyperlane AVS comes in:

Restaked Interoperability

Restaked Interoperability is an interop design enabling cross-rollup messages to be economically secured by restaked ETH.

Hyperlane’s modular security architecture allows validators to observe and validate messages on an origin chain, such as an L2. If a validator signs a message not found in the chain’s block history (usually to steal funds), it is committing fraud, and the message serves as evidence.

Most systems use a social slashing mechanism where the evidence of fraud is sent through the validator’s own network to where their stake is held. In other words, the validators act as judge, jury, and police, identifying and punishing their fraud themselves.

In contrast, Hyperlane’s AVS allows fraud evidence to be sent to the shared L1 (Ethereum), enabling permissionless slashing. Anyone can identify fraud, while unbiased smart contracts automatically handle judgment and punishment. This ensures robust economic security and defined consequences for fraud.

Next: Permissionless Expansion

Hyperlane is focused on enabling the expansion of rollups. Rollups can permissionlessly connect to other chains and VMs with fast & affordable bridging. And now with the addition of the Hyperlane AVS, to any rollup on any framework without needing to source liquidity or validator sets.

The interop endgame is coming with Hyperlane. Permissionless expansion backed by the economic security of Ethereum. Only possible with Hyperlane.

The Hyperlane AVS is live on mainnet with EigenLayer.

Check out the AVS docs or follow the Operator guide to validate and register. Speak to our BD team about bridging solutions here.

More details to come over next few weeks!

More about Hyperlane

Hyperlane is the permissionless interoperability framework connecting the modular ecosystem. With Hyperlane, anyone can connect any blockchain, rollup, appchain, on any VM. Additionally, Hyperlane’s modular security stack gives developers the power to customize their interchain security to their needs.

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