Welcome to epicenter of the show which talks about the
Technologies projects and people driving decentralization and the
blockchain revolution. I'm Sebastian cuchillo and to
this is episode 4 89 today. I'm speaking with Barry AKA
Shaolin of Dimension dimension. Is a protocol to build
application-specific Roll-Ups and they are building this as a
Cosmos app chain. I go deep into application roll
ups on Cosmos with Barry in this episode, this episode is
actually recorded on my podcast the interop, which is a podcast
where I dive deep with Founders and builders in the cosmos and
interchain ecosystem. If you want to subscribe to
that, you can find it on YouTube.
Just search for the interop and I record weekly episodes there.
And we're posting it here this week on epicenter because we
thought this was an interesting topic that you guys would also
appreciate. So, without further Ado, here's
my conversation with Barry of dimension Hey Barry.
How's it going? Glad to be on it.
Yeah, thanks for joining me. This is been like trying to plan
this for a long time and I'm glad you're finally getting it
getting to around to it. And like Dimension is, it's a
product and a protocol that like I've seen a lot of.
Obviously, you guys are everywhere on Twitter and, you
know, sort of announcing cool Partnerships.
And but haven't spent a lot of time like Diving deep into the
protocol. I've done a lot of research for
this. I've got it's like tons of
questions and so to really get to the bottom of how to mention
Works, how it scales, how it allows developers to build
scalable applications. But also I want to talk about
how you know how the how the narrative around scaling is
changed over the last couple years.
I think, you know, people don't realize just how much that whole
narrative is change and how much Roll-Ups and interoperability
infrastructures is And that's the truth.
So thanks for coming on and great for we have this
conversation. Yeah, yeah.
I know, we talked about me coming on about like, two months
ago and I was like, wait for test.
Net will schedule something. Then something called through,
we release tested in February. Now, it's at the end of March,
and we're releasing another stage of testing its own.
So we could talk about that as well, but there's so much to
cover. So, like where do we start?
Yeah, well, I think we can start with Yeah, a little bit about
yourself and how do you, how you came to become part of this team
and how you got in the crypto, right?
So, my name is Barry I'm kind of like, I'm a DJ pretty much.
I've been in cryptos for a decade or now or so in the weeds
out of the wheat in the pin like the community aspect in the
technical aspect into business aspect, I starting to crypto in
2013, if I remember correctly mid-2013 in the Dogecoin
community. Those were Good Times where it's
like you're skating by kind of the law with the Silk Road back
then and the Bitcoins and the Dogecoin where we were
fundraising. The Jamaican bobsledding team.
If anyone recalls correctly I do I do that was one of the first
epicenter episodes we really were talking about this.
Yeah we're talking about dos. Go ahead funded.
The Jamaican bobsled team. Oh my God.
That's right. Yeah so like that's what that's
what That's what brought me into crypto like back.
Then when people are just tipping each other on Reddit.
That's what like the community aspect is, what brought me a lot
of people in my, in my position come from the technical aspect
and I studied Engineering in University and different
business courses and degrees. But what really keeps me here is
the community and what brought me here was Community back then.
Over time I worked in different jobs, different protocols And I
came with the team. The team is founded in Israel
with the by a bunch of Engineers phds and business people.
They were working in the ZK space with primarily on the
Stark Stark ecosystem. And then they were like, Hey,
we're moving to the customers ecosystem, and they talked to me
about me coming in as a leading product and for me product is
awesome because I could hear like, what the community wants,
where the tech is, you kind of put the pieces together.
Weather. So for me I think it's a it's
been a great experience. It's been a great learning
experience because there's so much to learn and every day the
protocols are evolving for myself for the community, for
the all of the protocols that are leading, the charge in the
modular space in the role of space, everything's changing.
So rapidly, all this new information and then the quick
reiteration and implementation into the products, is one of
those things that kind of rare in web.
But very A common in crypto is like this rapid pace of
innovation and people may not see it in like the token prices.
But the tech is going crazy. The tech is really expanding and
as you said the roll-up architectures and the role of
idea is really just kind of gone out of proportion now and like
everyone's building roll-ups Yeah it's crazy.
How the narrative is changed in the last couple of years
because, you know, scaling has been sort of a topic that has
followed me and my crippled career.
You know, I started about the same time as you and you
obviously there was like the Bitcoin scaling debates, right?
And a lot of the kind of primitive arguments or The
Primitives for the arguments of scaling began then and then you
Theory, mm started having And it's issues with scaling and
then, you know, there have been multiple conversations and sort
of evolving narratives around a theorem scaling over the last
like 7 years. And and now it seems like There
are people have more ideas about how to scale decentralised
applications, but it just still feels like there's, you know,
tons of solutions for scaling. Nobody has like a clear.
There isn't like a Clear Vision for scaling.
There's like multiple Visions for scaling you how, how do you
perceive this narrative change over the last couple of years
and you know what's been sort of the Excel or the major
accelerator for where we're at now, in terms of scaling, So,
it's an interesting point because customers also scales,
right? You have etherium, which is the
idea of ethereum is like this world computer, where everyone
does the financial transactions and on financial transactions
and there's like this decentralized world computer,
whereas Kosmos comes in a few years later after you theorems
launch and they say, hey, we could have these Sovereign
interoperable communities. None of it doesn't have to just
be one chain and I thought that was Really cool like you have
these interoperable change versus this one computer where
everyone is kind of fighting for Block space and that was the
issue with your theory was like you have like Arbitron come
along at like more recently at least and optimism and they're
doing these Roll-Ups quote-unquote where there are
processing. These transactions off chain and
putting the data and and state on train but it's kind of
different than the cosmos idea. Which was you can have these
Sovereign communities in these applications.
And then interact with each other more a singly or more like
cross chain and this is where it kind of Dimension comes in is
that they look at Arbitron and optimism scaling the idea of one
block chain the main blocking of a theory minute.
Whereas dementia comes in and says hey Cosmos is amazing idea.
It's really incredible. Interoperability the tech that
they built out the tender moment and IBC from the cosmos.
Has been built out and it's been standardized and formalized and
we could expand on that, by doing these Roll-Ups on top of
the cosmos. So, instead of scaling one
chain, we're trying to scale a network of chains, so people can
deploy rather than using a validator set up of 50
validators or 100 validators, you can use one or two or three
nodes, but you're tapping into the decentralization of the
quote-unquote base layer, which is the dimension chain, which is
a cosmos chain. And you're, you're inheriting
this like security or inheriting this decentralisation, you're
inheriting, the stake that exist on or the bond is a bond of
capital that exists on the on the cosmos change themselves.
So the idea is pretty much it's Roll-Ups, but instead of scaling
one network, we're trying to scale network of Networks.
Yeah, I think for me, I think the first time I heard of this
idea of app chains was in Cancun.
Sunny was giving like a talk to a small group of people in a
hotel in one of the rooms at this hotel and presenting his
vision for app chains and it like it kind of clicked for me
at that moment. And that's when I think I really
got on board the Hop chené Vision or have to chain thesis
and and started. Added looking at like these kind
of sharding solutions that etherium are these.
Um, Community was discussing at the time as not long-term viable
at least not the right kind of design choice.
And what's interesting is how, you know, I think one of the
prevailing narratives now is the kind of like Sovereign roll ups
or Sovereign zones or you know, even obtain light things even in
the evm world and how things have kind of come back around to
that. Construction Earth at that
design pattern. How does Dimension borrow from
that design pattern? Yeah, so they mention in a way
can be seen as, like, a super modulized and broken apart.
If they're IAM, we have these execution charts which are the
Roll-Ups, then you have a settlement layer in between,
which is the, you know, theorem a net smart contracts.
Then you have these data layers which are could be like data,
availability, committees or Nothing any theorem for
Dimension and how it integrates into Cosmos and how it scales.
The cosmos is that you have these execution charts, which
are the Roll-Ups, and therefore the user, it's just like,
interacting with the cosmos blockchain.
You have the minting. You have the banking, you have
the staking, or a different forms of staking.
And there's some adjustments to the customer says decayed that
we make for the as like the rdk, the role of development kit.
And then you have the sediment layer in between, which is the
dimension Hub and it's Ausmus Block Chain, that connects all
the pieces together, and then you have these da layers and
like a primary one would be like a Celestial, which people are
very familiar with now. And it's going to be the most
scalable da because they're using like client sampling.
And these really cool mechanisms but in Dimensions eyes any
Cosmos chain can be a blockchain.
It can be a DA layer. So all they have to do is be
able to accept that data done from a rollup, just post the
data to that block chain and the state route to the I mentioned
help and then it kind of connects all the pieces with
IBC. So in a way you can consider it
like a super module lies and broken apart if cerium.
But also it's also scaling the network of blockchains of Cosmo
solo. As you said, the idea is kind of
mesh together and you start getting these fuzzy barriers
that you see like Sovereign blockchains on etherea.
You see smart contracts on Kosmos but in truth the the
ecosystems kind of mesh together.
Eventually I think they will enter upper interoperate with
each other when like there's like Starks like clients and IBC
working back and forth. Hmm.
Yeah before we get into Dimension there's there's one
thing I want to talk about and sort of ask you about and so
when we're talking about Roll-Ups you know when we
there's there's all sorts of terms of those thrown around,
like there's The Sovereign roll up.
There's execution Roll-Ups, we were talking earlier before the
show but validity M's. Oh yeah, yeah, I still have a
hard time, wrapping my head around, how these things are
different, in terms of their sovereignty, in terms of the,
the developer experience. But also the use cases, for
which each of these and maybe other, you know, like Celestia
Amanda. Yeah.
How each of these and then also, you know, thinking about that in
the context of app chains and smart contracts.
How do how do you see the differences between these
different things? And From server configurations
and how should developers reason about which Jews when building
an application? Yeah, I agree with you.
I think that's one of the most unfortunate things about
blockchain is that all of the definitions are fragmented.
So you have people on the etherium saying, like a rollup
has to be has to use the same L1, or blockchain for posting
transaction data for posting State updates.
And all has to be contained to get like full security from that
chain. That's arguable.
That's understandable as well. You can also say that a rollup
just processes transaction off chain and post it on chain, and
then that's also a rollup. But in essence, what, what?
Roll-Ups versus Sovereign rule those verses and try and rollers
forces will idioms. It really just depends on where
the X off chain execution, client post, the data and, and
the state. So, for example, on it cerium,
it's considered a rollup. If it uses ethereum a net, full
economic and fold, decentralized security, to post transaction
data, and State updates for a sovereign rule.
Look, there's like these new these new phenomenons that are
arising from like using these specialized block change called
da layers or what's commonly known as Celestia as one of the
protocols building this and it just it post the data on chain
and then it handles the state. And settlement kind of on their
own layer on there. But so it's, you can argue
either way. I think it's much easier to say,
like, what's an L2 and what's an L1 versus, what's a roll of
verses and what's not a rollup. So, Sovereign Roll-Ups pretty
much RL once that post data to select you and etherium
Roll-Ups, don't are l2s because they the smart contract on the
etherium manages, what is the proper Fork?
What is the The the correct State and what is the correct
chain? So for 40 Laps on Dimension,
like that's the that this definition of like.
What's the correct chain is defined on the dimension hub for
Sovereign Roll-Ups and Celestia that definition of like, what's
the correct chain is defined on the roller player and not on
Celestial for etherium that that's defined on the smart
contract? Even though there's a lot of
debate in the Athenian world that I tried did not get into to
but because a lot of people talk about semantics but practically
for the for the developer security matters, a lot but it's
kind of like choosing the toolset from the cosmos with
Dimension included or choosing the toolset from etherium with
like the Opie stack. So I think those are kind of
like the Divergent paths right now which is the cosmos SDK
versus the Opie stack which is getting much more popular.
But in terms of like what, It's Sovereign was not, that's kind
of people could argue semantics all the whole time and whatnot.
But the most important thing is like bringing users and bring
applications and bring a developer's.
Yeah, I think that what I'm, you know, one of the things that
strikes me here is that, you know, we're looking for years,
we've talking about like how to scale blockchains how to skate,
like how do we scale blockchains?
But it almost feels like the wrong target, you know, we don't
need to scale blockchains. We need to scale, decentralized,
censorship, resistant applications.
And the way we end up with applications that That inherent
the properties of blockchains and that their sensors are
persistent. They're secure, they're
immutable, right? Like all the things that sort of
came from Bitcoin. The way we scale those
applications is by having infrastructure that allows them
to retain those properties while.
But while the usable right, and it doesn't really matter what
underlying infrastructure there is, and you might want to, you
might reason about okay, which which are the trade-offs that
your application is going to make on this?
Kind of like watching trilemma for each of those layers, but
you can sort of, you know, you can, you can decouple.
And that's where the modular Block Chain thesis trying to do,
right? You decouple each of those
layers, such that application. Retains.
Those properties, even though there isn't like a one thing
underneath it, that is fully decentralized and then and we
haven't gotten into yet like, you know, decentralizing other
parts of the infrastructure like the RBC like, you know, the
Wallet and this sort of thing. But, but ultimately I think
that's like a good way to look at where things are going is
that we need to keep our eye on the prize, which is the user,
what the user interacts with needs to retain the properties
of a blockchain, the infrastructure itself.
You know, we can we can break that up in a million pieces and
probably will write. If we look at how technology and
like internet technology has evolved over the last 30 years,
that's exactly what happened. And this is probably what it
also is. This also Happening Here I think
decentralization is a scope business Spectrum.
So there is Bitcoin on one end where you can run your full node
from Genesis and be sure. Like, you're on the proper
chain, then there's chains like it cerium where you're kind of
either delegating tokens to a protocol that lives on the
protocol which lives on the term, a net, like light or
rockapulco and you're not really running your notary or you're
running your note from snapshots like from a particular state.
And that's kind of the same thing with Cosmos change where
most people are running their full node to interact with the
system. So you got, you know, you have
to choose as a developer more so than a user because the user
doesn't really know which chain as like a regular user, as a
regular user, they don't know, like which changes decentralized
which chain is it? Like, they're not really
comparing the centralization aspects of our optimism or
Arbitron men, you know, we give it, we let that for the experts.
But for the user like they just want to make sure that they're
secure that they're not going to lose funds that they're not
going to lose funds by like some weird creature attacks or
attacks in general. But decentralization is expect
from for both for developers to understand and core blockchain
developers as well. So depth developers and
blockchain developers like Bitcoin.
Is one of the and probably is the most decentralized protocol
just because you can run a full node from Genesis and know that
you're on the right train. Yeah.
I mean I'd love to talk more about, you know, this kind of
high level Vision stuff and this is the stuff I find often the
most interesting. There's there's one last thing I
want to talk to you about before we get into Dimension and
talking with more technical things is I mentioned at the top
that you you don't think that interchange security should
scale to more than five chains. So of course you're referring to
Cosmos interchange security. Why don't you think that
interests you? Purity should scale to more than
five chains. Interesting, security puts more
effort on the validators. So if I'm Bo validator and I
want to secure or Adam wants to secure, for example, 10 chains,
50 chains. Then in its current version, I'm
not saying the future versions because the future versions.
Kind of partition the the work that each validator needs to do,
but in this current version, I don't think it could scale more
than like five. It's just because you start
centralizing, the applications that you want to make sure
you're not hurting the actual, the atoms value as you're
getting more and more chains. So you don't want to start
deploying a bunch of chains, kind of kind of shit coins that
devalue the Adams efforts because each validator is
staking their that same atom, and that same amount of capital
for each individual chain. So as You grow the amount of
chains, the likelihood for those chains to compensate for that
effort is probably negligible where there's like a negative
expected value. As you increase the amount of
chains but there are chains that I think should be secure from
day, one like USD, see a generic acid acid, issuance chain, a
liquid state, and derivative chain things that really flow in
The Interchange. So you don't want to, you don't
want those to be economically attacked.
But those chains that like, There's no reason for them to be
secured by 5950. They wish three billion dollars
in market cap but you know, that's kind of my opinion.
I think it makes sense especially for validators after
speaking with a lot of validators.
Like they don't want to secure every chain or they don't want
to run the binaries of every chain, just because that team
decided to participate. They want to do things that are
both economic economically, beneficial for themselves.
And by products, the atom token as well.
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean I'm I think you're like,
I think that obviously things like noble some like a liquid,
staking solution things that are kind of core to the cosmos Hub
and more. Broadly, the cosmos ecosystem
and I think it makes sense. Also, those are the things I
think that for validators can make money.
But, you know, I don't see a point for like having a
Chihuahua chain or something. Similar to that or, you know,
some like kind of user. I think I think that interchange
security should be reserved for, Infrastructure or defy
Primitives primarily, you know, for Adam, right?
Because I think other chains are considering you interchange
security as their own chain as well.
So like if you're watching wanted to secure other
chihuahuas or other, your key chains that that makes sense.
But for Adam because Adam is like a special chain, is the
first chain in the cosmos. So I think it should secure as
like as Corps of entertaining protocols, as there are Yeah,
absolutely. All right, so let's let's talk
about the mention. We've gone on long enough here.
Yeah. So can you describe the
different components of, of Dimension and you looking at
each layer? So, you know, we have like roll
apps. There's the dimensions and you
talked about this a little bit earlier, but let's break each
layer down and how they interact with each other.
Yeah. So they mention I consider and
it's kind of like a subjective consideration and point of view
even though I'm not They're of the train.
One of the builders I believe Dimension is the layer 2 of the
cosmos and it's the layer of to of modular block chains.
And the layer, one of Cosmos are the monolithic app drinks.
Now Dimension club with is a cosmos blockchain that is
similar to other customers blockchains like osmosis Juno
and others that they're different Implement
implementation but it at its core is attendants Cosmos, SDK
train or comment FB t, v of T. Sorry.
It's connected via ABC to other customers chains.
And then what happens is on this Dimension layer to our, these
modular block games, the modular block chains and why it, why are
they modular block things are not monolithic block Chains,
It's because they handle execution or transaction
processing off chain. You get very low latency and
then they post the data on chain and the state routes on train.
So someone could easily verify a like this data.
Doesn't match the state route. I downloaded it.
So like what's going on? So they can submit what is
called a false proof or far, proof or invalidity proof
whatever you want to call it. So that's the point of Dimension
is that they mentioned the all the Roll-Ups are modular Block
Chain. So it's a ecosystem of layer to
block chains in the kind of IBC world that those roll apps.
For example, they're not using the cosmos SDK and 10 different
of what a cosmos blockchain actually does or uses.
They use what is called the roll-up development kit or the
rdk for short and replaces, or changes, a few of the modules of
the Confluence SDK for not having validators.
Instead of they have a sequencer, so it's kind of like
this block producer that post the data off chain and then they
use diamonds, which is a fork of Ten tournament on 10 different
optimization, which was initially a year ago, forked
From that protocol, that protocol Optimum is built by
dyslexia team for building Sovereign Roll-Ups.
But instead of that, we decided to remove that aspect of
sovereignty on the, on the roller player and it post the
data to a dealer like Celestia and it post the state to
Dimension. So in shrines Dimension, as a
settlement layer. Now once this provide, why not
use a stubborn roll up instead of a rollup?
Is because the, the speed, you get a significant speed
increases when you're using enshrined sediment layer versus
a sovereign, roll up. So, Sovereign Roll-Ups, they
gossip the blocks to each other per block per block.
So like there's a sequencer opposed to a DA layer and then
all the nodes in the network communicate with one another and
like they see if like the updated state is the correct
one. It's like one block, one block,
one block, you can imagine it's much slower than what it
Roll-Ups doing. What Roll-Ups do is that there's
a sequencer that batches all these mini blocks together.
So you get very low latency of like right now, we're running a
test out of 0.1. Second finale, SL finality on
the roll up and it both the batch of blocks to the DA layer
and the post the state routes to the set of a layer.
And a set of new layer has a period of x amount of blocks to
say, hey, someone can submit a fraud proof or a dispute and
say, hey, like this block producer Xbox ago, said it was
that the state was supposed to be wide, but it's really X.
So, the dimension help is the arbitrary or between the
ecosystem. And this is like the difference
between several types and what are roll ups which is kind of
like enshrinement of the sediment layer. okay, so I've
got a couple questions here about a basically, like why
you're building this. So what I was reading.
So I read through the white paper and it sounds like this
roll-up development kit. This rdk is a fork of the cosmos
SDK or which has new modules that enable Roll-Ups to be
deployed. I guess you're in terms of
efficiency, and You a leveraging existing infrastructure.
What makes it? Maybe I'm missing something
here. You like maybe this is a stupid
question, but why why not just build those modules into the
cosmos SDK? And allow basically any existing
cost was to seek a chain to support role apps so that you
could have like Roll-Ups on the cosmos chain and you'll benefit
from its security or Roll-Ups on on osmosis and benefit from it
security. Why why build an entirely new
infrastructure to do this? When we already have things that
are A highly secured that can provide data availability and
settlement just, you know, building those modules into
those chains. Or is there some is that
possible or like my totally missing something here?
I think it's possible. But what dimension provides is
the ability to arbitrate and to prove a different environments.
That is the correct environment. So for example, if you have a
roll up onto injective If I'm not mistaken and it's a salon of
roll up and injective is a was mm, then the objective has to be
able to understand the what's going on in the state machine
logic and everything. What's going on the roll up?
So what we say like, yeah, change, don't need to go crazy
and start beefing up their there that minimalistic app chains and
become sediment layers and da layers because it's quite a
complicated process. For actually Lee understanding
different execution environments to actually handle the proofs to
verify the proofs of either, ZK, proofs or Bolivia or proofs.
So it Dimension does. It's two things.
One, it says the cosmos chains. They don't have to do anything.
All they have to do is be able to accept data and then the
roll-up can post the data to that Cosmos blockchain.
So the demand for the token and the demand From the Block space
of the car, Was Block Chain increases.
So, it inherits a part of the security from the da layer.
And that's because all the transaction data doesn't go to
Dimension. It goes to the DA layer and
that's either osmosis osmosis Roll-Ups F.
Most for Emily. Evm.
Roll-Ups Celestia for generalized.
Roll up that don't want to pick a specific app chain because
that's kind of like the core is dimensioned.
People say it's Roll-Ups, it's really.
More similar to the lithium's in the sense that the role of
sequencer decides. Hey, which change.
I posted data which block space is gonna which block space.
And am I going to pay for? So the, for the actions that
already exist, they don't have to change much, you don't have
to change anything for a lot of them, but for why is dimension
build in the middle? Is because it handles those
different virtual environments. Those different execution
environments that handles the proofs The ZK proves, the
optimistic, proofs, and that's the purpose, and then it becomes
a bridging Hub between all of it.
But the ropes themselves, they still inherit a lot of the
security from whichever person respective da layer that they
choose. Okay, I think that makes sense.
So, just to recap here at the top, we're going to have
Roll-Ups and we'll get into the different types.
But here you can, you can currently there is, there's an
evm environment. There's a Kazim awesome
environment. So people can deploy contracts
there, they can deploy apps as evm or or cause a Moslem, the
dimension chain, which is a cosmos sha.
And that has a valid or set what it does.
Is it is able to understand proofs from each of those
environments and potentially other environments in the
future. You want to build like Salon a
VM or you want to build. I don't know, like, whatever
your goal, any deity of any VM on top of that.
It's agnostic. And then it's agnostic.
And then, Data availability, the, that, that will post.
So that's basically the settlement layer and then it'll
post to data to data, availability chains.
Like Celestia could be one of us generalize data availability,
but it could also post to the cosmos Hub to have most to any
to. It doesn't need any specific
permission from osmosis to like post data to us.
Moses, anybody that that chain can post it there, the disposal
change for each option. They will need to either include
a module. Or a smart contract that accepts
the data because they're captions at the cord.
It's like Bitcoin wise Bitcoin, a dealer.
Now because they accept like in the script or whatever it is,
autumn turn the bill. Yeah, they have the ability to
post arbitrary, bytes of data and that's the same thing for
any chain. So any change could be a delayer
and what happens is dimension, Hub, Bridges, all the, all the
Roll-Ups to the IBC world and why I mean, why couldn't like
Cosmo Sabor Moses or any other chain, just integrate, whatever
module like whatever logic that Dimension to HUB, has to
understand, you know, these like to understand the proofs from
from from higher layer Roll-Ups. What is preventing say osmosis
and when we like what there is there, an would there not be an
incentive for osmosis to also or the cosmos have to also
integrate that logic in order to support an ecosystem of
overlaps? Yes, we just haven't been
finished building so they have to wait.
But the truth is it's open source ecosystem and at the end
of the day as I know very well that a lot of it is community.
So if the customers Hub decides to take a module and if I was
most has to take some module and we take a module from us Moses,
it's open source Community. The tech is a small part of it.
It's not a small part, you know, it is the corner.
It's the foundational part, but anyone could take open source
code. We have very open licenses.
We open source, everything. We've been building in open from
day one. Pretty much.
We don't closers anything people could take our modules and then
the day you can't take intellectual abilities and like
focus, our Focus. The team's focus on this
particular core Mission from day one.
We've been really focused on so we understand the ins and outs
and things that people don't talk about in the public, we
understand and things that people do talk about in the
public. So I think they, you know, you
can take modules. That's pretty easy.
It's almost as easy as copy and paste but there's much more core
things to building a blockchain protocol.
Then take a module Yeah. And what is the, I mean, does
the dimension chain? Have any particular interest in
posting data to the hub or Celestia, or osmosis, or is that
a function of the application at what it's doing and what it's
interacting with? Or although State ability or
sort of I didn't, you know, an equal level or like offering
similar security. So, the mentioned chain is a
tender moment chain, it doesn't post data anywhere.
It's like it's their own validators, but the Roll-Ups do
Post two different chains, right?
So there's the dementia cup, which is a tender meat chain and
it's like osmosis, you know, you don't, it's not a rollup of
anything that mentioned Hub. Is not a rollup, Dimension Hub,
is the chain. It Has the, this is why it's IBC
connected from day one. This is why people could go to
test net and interact with a rollup and also interact with
IBC. Because all of the IBC goes
through the dimension Hub, which is tender Mentor, comment B, of
T soon, okay? That's like a core aspect.
A lot of people don't get people think of, like, dimensions of
roll up on Celestial or people. It's a different, whatever, it's
not. It's a seven-layer to settlement
chain. The The Da gnostic Is where the
Roll-Ups can post to whichever obviously connected that chain
that is connected to mention. I hope that's okay.
So roll up, I roll up. I mean in choosing and like say
you've got a rollup, why like what goes into choosing which
chain, they would post their proofs to so where they would
post their data to write because they're posting their data
systemic. Yeah.
So they're posting the Data first has to be approved by
Dimension Hub, governance. The dimension that has to, they
have to say hello. Like this da is secure enough,
like we believe that is decentralized.
It's like, it's a community thing.
So, the first one that will be, of course, use this Celeste, you
the less yet has been proven to really be experts in this field.
They've been proven to show how they could scale the da parts
and they're very, it's very easily verifiable where the data
is especially when you're talking about.
The Mist cross chain communication.
So like that's a core protocol that's going to be a part of
Dimension but we could also say, hey like eventually F.
Most wants to have some da as well to fill up their block
space. So then Dimension up, get
approved MOS and now roll ups have two options.
They could post data to F most, or they can post data to
Celestia now. Which one are they going to
choose one of the core decision processes is which one is
cheaper? That's because Does the
sequencer is that run? The Roll-Ups actually paid for
transaction B and which one's going to be cheaper is like it's
a market or eventually will be a market.
And that's probably like, which one's the most scalable.
Interesting. Okay, yeah, so so it comes down
to then yeah, the availability of block space and and, and the
cost of storing that data and and posting that data to to
change in terms of interoperability.
So, you mentioned that the dimension chain is IBC
compatible. Do the chains do the roll apps
themselves, interact directly with other IBC apps.
Etc, or does it have to go through Dimension?
How does interoperability work? Broadly, so they mention Hub,
has a diamond select client, which is the light client of the
roll-up and the role of sends that message, the sequencer
sends a message, to the dimension Hub, the IBC and the
damage and home looks internally.
And says, hey did this dispute period end?
Is there a fraudulent State and by looking internally, they
could then allow Ow people to bridge out.
So IVC goes through the dimension Hub, because the
dimension Hub looks at the internal State and says, okay,
like this roll-up is good to go. This role of something happens.
We're not allowed bridging, you know, depends on what the
internal state is and then by being IBC connected and you can
use like pack a middle where you can get these one hop IP c--
transactions or one IPC transaction from evm chain, or a
customized training to a Rolo. Interesting.
But in your white paper there is this IRC this this inner chain
roll up communication. How is that different from IBC?
So, IRC is pretty much not different than IBC.
There is no difference between IBC, uses the IBC protocol.
It just adds a client type to the IBC protocol IRC was
formulated a year. Ago.
But now that we've kind of ossified are beginning to
ossify, what is the IBC protocol for Roll-Ups?
Then it's just we've made some adjustments where we could one
of the core aspects in our decision and design process is
to be as compatible with the community as it as it is of
being as compatible with the cosmos SDK being as compatible
with IBC. Those are two critical things
that we want to keep and we were able to keep I beseech.
See as it is. So eventually you could use
interchange accounts if the interchange queries, all the
applications that are built on, top of IBC will be able to be
used in Roll-Ups as well. Okay, that's very cool.
So talk about the, what other the the what's the role of
sequencers? Where do they sit in all of
this? And how are they incentivize to
act honestly? So the sequencers post Capital
to the dimension Hub and this could be in the form of dime
token, which is the dimension protocol token Superfluous
taking from osmosis which uses the LP of dime and the The role
of token or the role of token itself when approved by
governance. So the sequencer publisher post
Capital on the dimension hope and then they get this block
production time. They get allocated x amount of
blocks. So if there's a Marketplace or
if there's a permissionless sequencing, then whoever post
more Capital than they get more block production time, similar
to like a delegated proof of stake.
They those guys they get a portion of the revenue from
operating this This roll-up. So they post the data, they pay
for publishing the data, they post the state, they pay a
little bit for updating the state but then they get all the
revenue and it could be in terms of minting and could be in terms
of transaction fees, it can be in terms of Meb.
However, the protocol decides to capture this, a lot of the
rewards can go to the sequencer to pay for the operating cost.
So it's kind of like It's similar to block producer on the
on the, on the blockchain and regular blockchain, but instead
of everyone downloaded their own data, the sequencer is trusted
for that period. And then they post the data on
chain and then someone else could come and download that
data and say, hey that was incorrect, and I can prove it to
the dimension, hope. And by this, you have this one
of n trusted sumption, instead of like a 2/3.
Trust in some Ocean and say like if the sequencer is doing
something invalid, if they post like a invalid State transition,
then someone, we just need one actor to prove that they're
actually posting something that doesn't make sense.
Okay. So it's an optimism is an
optimistic. Roll-up can consider design to
an extent. We use the k for parts of the
protocol, but because ZK has inherent Layton sees and just
the tech. Isn't there to fully integrate
into showing the correctness of State updates.
Then we are focused on doing optimistic Roll-Ups and
integrating ZK and less stateful things.
Okay, can you expand on that a little bit?
Yeah so one of the aspects is so there's two aspects.
One is a sequencer with holding a text, which it's a bit in the
weeds where I'd like to see even though the DEA raids.
Yeah, that that so ID a sampling and what people are are aware of
is that how do you avoid data with holding a text by block
producers on the unlike the data?
Ability chain or the L1 chains, for L1 change, for regular, like
etherium all of the validators, download the data and they check
the end result for DA's change. The light clients sample, the
block producer, because the what happens on, like Celestia, for
example is the, the consensus network is very light that a
sequencer. So on post the data.
But there's only like a commit to the data on the consensus
Network and all the data it goes to the DA Network.
The DNA idea that were Well, sampling goes on to
probabilistically determined like the sequencer there.
The Black producer on the on the consensus network of Celestia
isn't hiding any data or like that commits and contains all
the data. But that doesn't prevent a
sequencer from acting maliciously.
So sequencer is not the same as on as operating on different
layers than the celestial Network.
So sequencer could gossip blocks to their peers, which it may not
be the same block to their to the DA layer.
Or vice versa, whatever it is. So we have to make sure that the
sequencers that are operating on Dimension that when they post
data to a chain that they have to prove to the dimension chain.
That all the data that was posted was actually posted by
them. So we could kind of ZK, proofs
ZK, proof that they were actually posting the data.
We, there's another way to if you have a proper proof.
Stead of rerunning the whole state machine, like someone
comes and the dimension table instead of actually virtualizing
the machine. And then re running the whole
states against the logic in the context, you can do a ZK proof
of the front proof which kind of shows.
Hey, like this input is not the correct output of what the
sequencer did. And these are also things that
we're just only researching, but at The end of the day, the ZK
protocol or the CK aspects of Dimension will be there and will
be integrated. There will be an aspects that
don't require low latency. So for example, the Rolex
required low-latency one of the, one of the main selling points
of roll-up is to have very low user experience latency 0.2
seconds, you can go lower and it's configurable.
So that's because it's a, it's a mixture of optimistic design.
For publishing data and also the batching the matching process of
quick blocks. But when you have ZK B, the
latency becomes much slower or a much larger.
Even if you increase like the approver requirements or
decrease the program requirements.
So for us, we integrate, ZK and aspects that don't need
necessarily to be low latent or very fast.
Okay, so when you when you're dealing with aspects that that
don't require low latency, you can leverage DK.
But in another aspects you're leveraging this optimistic
design that has much higher latency or much lower link.
Yeah. Right much lower.
And at the end of day, it's a sediment layer so it will be
able to take in ZK proofs of roll.
Oops that are run by by provers sequencers that are actually
running on the executing the ZK logic.
But that's not, that's not scalable or the tech, isn't
there for everyone to just run the ZK approver and to have this
kind of a system, it's much much much more scalable in the near
future and the the midterm future as well as to have all
these Roll-Ups to have just regular dodes operating the
sequencers. Instead of These provers.
So indicate any event of a dispute?
What's the resolution time that's expected?
Or is our, is that variable, depending on like the type of
application? You mean like the dispute
period? Yeah.
Yeah, that's so it's configurable in the dimension
Hub right now, for in Shrine settlement, for contracts and
insurance met sediment layers. Optimization Arbitron we're
using seven days. We can use that.
It's not unlike an empirical study to show that you need
seven days to actually secure an optimistic chain.
It's more about the crypto economic incentives and
disincentives that exists. So we one of the things that we
do is we were building a protocol called VIP see, which
is just like an application layer on top of IBC where a
relayer would confirm a transaction prior to the dispute
period. So they would help in bridging
out. So for example, if I'm a user on
roll up X and I want to bridge our tokens, but I don't want to
wait the seven days. Then I just do the fast
withdrawal and someone else. Yeah.
Takes that transaction to risk. Yeah and once they take the risk
they're assumed to also be verifying the chain.
So that's kind of like that fast withdrawal.
Market-maker stuff that we've integrated in a trust minimized
way within IBC. Okay, that's cool.
Is it can, can can do mention also settle to etherium data
availability? Or is it is something
prohibiting that from? It is like, yeah, how does that
work? So, for you cerium main notes to
be communicating with Dimension. There needs to be like clients,
that understand the etherium may not tender moments, not the
problem sentiment has already like Clients.
But because of the constraints of what is the consensus network
of the etherium is kind of like their issue.
But once they kind of figured that out and maybe you kind of
take, maybe, greater economic risks or less economic security
with. I can layer of with people at
like different nodes, only like a selection of nodes using or
giving like the lividity or giving the attestation, then you
can for example potential use. Those that are built on top of a
theorem, but to use the whole theorem security for da, you
would need to really have kind of like snark, the consensus of
the etherium protocol and then put it into like client.
The, and this is the same issue that a theorem runs into for
interacting with IBC, right? I mean, it's, it's the same
thing sense this. Yeah, because damage senses
isn't fine, and finality is an instant.
And so therefore, there is a delay between In the moment that
say, like a rollup would post data on chain, etherium, would
take some time to catch up. Yeah, I don't think I've
finality is definitely one aspect.
I think there's other aspects in terms of the way that the
consensus network of medium is structured because I know if
Syria IBC is connected now with composable and they from my
understanding polka dot also has kind of maybe not a
probabilistic finality, but maybe they do.
So I don't think finality is the only or probabilistic consensus
is the only problem with connecting with IBC but I'm not
in the weeds of net. Yeah, that's the dream, right?
It's the dream that the theory. I'm and, and IVC, just work hand
in hand. Without any middle men or
middleware or anything like that.
It's the dream so we could get more liquidity off of it cerium,
I think. Yeah, the more liquidity on die,
be seen, Carter called a better for the whole block chain world,
but right now it's just siloed, the, on the polygons, on the
theorems of the world, which in my opinion are Worth tech
product products and worse economic products than what
Cosmos allows you to build. So, speaking of building, I want
to, I want to go back to the developer a little bit, so there
is, there's the there's different ways of building a
role app. So we've got the evm rolap.
Thus the kazim, awesome roll up with the also have this rdk
which is this role app, development kit.
It is from what I understand. It's kind of like the cosmos SDK
and that it has a module that allows you to build a, you know,
custom block. Chain is the idea here to just
kind of like build Cosmos, SDK chains on top of on top of
Dimension. And, you know why?
Why have evm and kazem Waseem specific modules?
When You know, I we already have kazim wazza modules for the
cosmos SDK that could also sit within this rdk and we also have
ether mint, which could sit within.
So, it's because it feels like these are three separate
products there. One product, are they just
different? There's okay, it's just one
product. Okay?
Yeah. So the rdk is a custom us SDK
Fork, where you integrate in ether.
Mentor wasn't so it's the same stuff, like where we don't
rebuild anything. We changed the second module, we
change this taking module because what happens is the
second module is tied with tender mints validated changes,
whereas the sequencer is different for.
And when we replace Diamond attendants with diamonds, we
have to change some of the Integrations, or the coupling
between the business logic of a, of a, a train.
And the, unlike the networking logic or the like the rdk is a
PCI compatible. But we change some of the
things. One of the things that we change
is say we we have validators and Cosmos and there's a coupling
between governance and computation.
So a validator also validates the network.
So they make sure that all the blocks that are being proposed
are aligned with the state logic.
So they are all on the same chain but they also participate
pretty much the fact though, as as governors of the chain.
So people delegate tokens and they don't really the delegator
is don't pay attention. We separate this into two parts,
under on the rdk. The compute is handled by the
sequencers but because the sequencers can be centralized.
What would the idea of the are decaying one of the idea of
Dimension 4 for people who are watching is that hey we want
people to build Cosmos blockchains just with a few
notes. But with that, inherent the
security of the decentralized base layers.
But when you have this kind of aspect of where you only have a
few nodes, Or one note, even then you start to centralize the
computes and the governance. So if it was a validator, that
means I everyone's about delegating to one person and
that sucks. So we say, hey, we cannot allow
that. We can't allow a centralization
to one party of governance and computes, we can allow a
centralization of computes because you only need one person
to disprove that that sequencer was actually doing the correct
state. But Decentralize the governance
by using at the end of TS. So each roll up can distribute
however, many entities that could have one end of tea.
They could have 1000 and of these are they could have
different functions of Distributing creating the end of
T's and then you delegate tokens to those end of team members.
So it's similar to what people are using spt tokens as
soulbound tokens on different etherium chains, but here you
can actually trade And you could actually start to accrue more
value to the end of T's and also to the tokens.
So we separate into our DK2 aspects that governance and the
computes because we don't want. We also don't think it's like
economically aligned for a sequencer to decide how much
rewards he gets. So it's kind of a, it becomes a
negotiation and becomes more of like a real world corporate
structure where you have the employee, which is a sequencer
could be the CEO. But he is operating the
ecosystem. Then you have board members,
which are the n and it's and of team members.
And then you have shareholders, which are the token holders that
delegate to the end of team members.
And there's also Roll-Ups, for example, don't need their own
token, so you can have like just pure 11 user one vote so you can
get like these different structures and different.
Hopefully, very novel, govern instructors on the, on the road
player because they already inherent the We of the base
layer. That's the core difference
between the cosmos SDK and the rdk.
You inherent the developer tooling you inherit the gov.
The most, most of the goal modules.
We try to stay up to date even though we're moving through the
version 46 right now. So a lot of the tooling, a lot
of the protocol is very similar in tied to the cosmos ecosystem.
At the end of the day, it is a layer 2 on top.
Of a layer 1, which is the cosmos.
And you guys are just like, constantly refactoring or sort
of merging back into the rdk. The cosmos SDK module, so that
there is always this compatibility whichever ones we
see fit tour. Roll-Ups.
So now that maybe like anything that's up streamed from the
staking module. For example, that we may not
want to use it but if there's something that's new like the
group module I think the group Module, which allows kind of
these Sub sub Dows. And with now you include like
the end of teas as Governors and the sub dials.
I think that's a great integration between kind of like
the main community pools and the sub Dows.
So like these things are upstream or Downstream to the
rdk. But there's things that are that
don't necessarily need to be changed.
Very interesting. Yeah.
We're Arts of the rdk. You know, when when developers
are building applications here, what what, kinds of like
compared to building in that chain?
What are the, what are the key differences that developers
should keep in mind? And what kinds of applications?
Do you think are just not suited for roll apps?
Like, if you were talking, Developer and they're telling
you hey like we're going to build this new app.
You want to build it on roll out.
Like what kinds of applications would you consider not
well-suited for this construction and sort of steer
them towards building, like a nap chain or energy security or
some like that. Yeah, so when you're developing
a rollup, you're getting very low latency and you're getting
easy bootstrapping. So instead of bootstrapping 50
or 100, validators, get one or two or three nodes that you
really need to. Top rate as sequencers.
So you have this constant reduction of nodes operating
system because you're inheriting that these centralization of the
base layer. So, with this reduction of
operators, you get a very fast experience for users.
So if you want to do on chain games or whatever, or defy
products, then it's amazing. It's amazing because there's two
aspects, one, you never the users never get increasing data
costs. So the cost are always
maintained because You could choose one the, a layer that you
could choose another dealer as long as you can balance your
cause and then you also have this latency the detriment or
the other side is, like, why would you build an app train
over roll up? Is because your protocol really
needs that instance censorship resistance.
So, and a decentralized protocol like, like a nap chain
especially with new 10 German style or new Forks of tender
minutes called. The new Lucas out me.
Luca see, or one of the 14 Duality they okay.
I don't know what's this. Yeah.
So so their product their ideas like there's a few block
proposers, and then like one block Builder, and then each
one, the block Builder has to have transactions from each
block proposer based on steak. So, there are applications that
really need or inherent or should inherence the The instant
censorship resistance from a, from a train but that's also
it's a spectrum. Like, maybe you could wait like
a couple of days or a day for censorship resistant.
So it depends on how sensitive that transaction is to type.
I think that's kind of like the critical decision Factor if your
application should be built as a nap chain or if it should be or
should be built as a rollup. And is there a like I've been
talking to a lot of people about this idea and I'm starting to
see this idea, you know, in a lot of places.
And and so this this idea that, you know, smart contracts
Roll-Ups app. Chains are not so much in
opposition to each other but exist more on a gradient and and
so that we should see things as applications evolving or sort of
graduating Steps up that ladder, is there an upgrade path for
applications? That may be start as a roll up?
And at some point for reasons that you mentioned need to
upgrade or transition to building their own app chain or
some other form of consensus is there is is that something you
think will happen with applications as they grow or and
is there a way an easy way for applications to do that?
I don't think will happen Because the core aspect of a
rollup is you're getting very low latency which you just don't
get the same latency of, like, Point, 01 seconds.
Like there's a reason why you're a roll up, and then you also
have this coupling, you have to kind of change Destructor to fit
the validators of an app change. So you have to reconfigure
things. Is it possible?
I think everything is possible and blockchains very fluid,
especially when you get into, like the social layer of things
and social consensus, but I like a practical level, I don't think
that's going to be. Be very common.
I think it's more common for interchange security consumer
change should move to a sovereign chain.
And I think that's actually, one of the great product Market fit
for comes for interchange Securities that it can secure by
chains. But it, maybe eventually those
things kind of should recycle But in terms of Roll-Ups like if
you're if you're building a rollup, then you're probably
wants the like super low latency and that kind of aspect of and
flexibility of roll up instead of an option.
Cool. Well what's the roadmap?
And when can I think you guys already I was I was in the
horrible while ago and sort of fiddling around there so there
is something that's live. Can people already build on this
and what are some of the early projects that are building using
demand. So we're building the first.
We built the first test next which is going to, it's a
staggered tested. So in February we released the
first rolled up and the dimension chain, the role of
post the data So to celestion the state routes to, to the
dimension chain. It's connected via IBC, we're
integrating next week or in two weeks.
The evm roll up with with collaboration with the upmost
team and the celestial team. So it post it.
It's going to reuse the IBC token for gas of f most.
So F, most you people are gonna take their MOS.
Faucet token. IBC through the portal to the
evm chain and then interact with.
Well, we're going to deploy is a UNICEF.
For so people could trade on this test set.
So it's going to be the first evm roll up and that's obviously
connected. And the cool thing is that it
uses a different token. It doesn't have its own native
token. That's going to be in
collaboration with MMOs and Celestial and and so after that,
we're going to move to incentivize tested.
We made throw in a few one or two more surprises in between.
But other collaborations like a gaming doubt that were that were
very close with. And then we're going to deploy
it incentivize Testament where people can deploy their own
Roll-Ups and this is going to be in the second quarter likely in
the latter half like towards the end of the second quarter and
people will be incentivized to deploy their own chains.
People will be incentivized to participate in ecosystem and
then we'll move on to meyneth main at is going to go from
permission to permissionless over time.
Very cool. And yeah, we're can be.
I think people can go to Dimension dot x y, z and you've
got everything there. The documentation the light
paper, they can learn more about building a roll up on Dimension,
right? Yeah, check out the Discord.
We're pretty awkward. Definitely active.
We have a very active community, so sometimes it's hard to get
into our community, but we do that on purpose, we want to make
sure that people really kind of have heart and we really,
really, really really value. The people Who are building the
community because it's decentralized chain.
Is there chain? That were building?
Where we're taking a centralized idea, an idea that was someone
in someone's head to an actual product.
So it's decentralized protocol that's, you know, it's going to
be autonomous and we need people all around the world to operate
these nodes and we need two people to just spread the
gospel. Awesome.
Well yeah, it's really really fun chatting with you and
learning more about Dimension and yeah looking forward to
seeing more more coming from this ecosystem and certainly you
know a decentralized applications being developed as
Roll-Ups. Definitely, definitely I look
forward to as well. Thank you for having me.
Thank you, and to our listeners. Thanks for tuning in.
I go live every week, so if you want to hear more of this sort
of content, you can follow the interop on YouTube and also on
Twitter and I do want to announce that.
We have announced the dates for nebular Summit 2023.
So nebulous Summit is the inner chain Builders conference.
It'll be the second edition is happening in Paris, right after
ECC. And this year, it will be on
July 24th and 25th. Last year's event was a huge
success. It was like, people loved it.
It was really cool Vibes, but this year, we're going even
bigger. We're going to do two days were
expecting up to 800 people. And nebular, Simon is really
about bringing the brightest Minds in The Interchange
together for technical talks and developer workshops.
It is a technical conference so you can expect to learn lots
about how to build on the inner chain.
We have an amazing Seeing new venue is this place called the
Albert school. It's a historical site in the
sense, in central Paris, and the 10th district.
And it is formally a ceramic Factory.
So it's got this very cool kind of art, deco, Vibe and the sort
of modern elements. So, check out the Twitter
Twitter's nebular, Builders and yeah, and this is going to be
happening in July. Also, check out the website and
Billiard Builders and you can see here, The initial list of
speakers, there's about 15 so far but we're soon going to be
expanding. We will have somewhere around 80
speakers for this conference and many many faces, I'm sure you're
already familiar with here and so tickets.
Go on sale on Monday, April 3rd. So if you want to get notified
when tickets go live early bird tickets, you can enter your
email on the website or you can follow us on Twitter to get more
information and yeah certainly if you guys Guys, if anybody
from the dimension team is going to be in Paris for ECC would
love to have one of you or at least you, or at least more or
as many people from the team as possible, you know, to
participate or even give a talk. Cool.
Sounds good. We'll let you know, all right?
Thanks so much. Have a good one and we'll talk
to you next week. Thank you for joining us on this
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