The fast finality layer will solve communication and latency issues for L2 builders while also improving usability and security

LISBON, Portugal, Nov. 10, 2023 -- NEARCON: The NEAR Foundation and Eigen Labs today announced a collaboration to build a fast finality solution that will soon power faster, less expensive transactions for Ethereum rollups, including cross-rollup transactions––a first of its kind in Web3.

The NEAR Foundation and Eigen Labs teams are working together to build the first-ever "fast finality layer" for Ethereum rollups, which enables transactions to be processed within 3-4 seconds––rather than minutes, hours, or even days––and 4000x cheaper than the current options. This will also enable secure, low-latency cross rollup communication and solve one of the biggest challenges for founders and developers using rollups today.

This advancement will reduce liquidity fragmentation between Layer-2s through increased efficiency while also allowing them to make individual decisions around the sequencers they use to process those transactions, either on-chain or off-chain. The fast finality layer retains all Ethereum security guarantees while adding both NEAR and EigenLayer guarantees, making it an attractive option for any team building on Ethereum L2s.

Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol, said: "NEAR Foundation is proud to partner with such an excellent team as Eigen Labs to offer a fast finality layer for ETH rollups. The fast finality layer showcases the strengths of NEAR's technology while making the Open Web more usable, which has always been the core goal for NEAR. It will also help defragment liquidity for Ethereum rollups and make all of Web3 more interoperable as a result."

Sreeram Kannan, founder of Eigen Labs, said: "We are thrilled to partner with the highly innovative team behind the NEAR protocol. This is a mutually beneficial partnership that will leverage both NEAR and EigenLayer's technologies to make it easier, faster, and cheaper for developers to build on Ethereum."

For EigenLayer, this collaboration will provide fast settlement for cross-rollup transactions and showcases adoption of restaking across the Ethereum ecosystem and beyond. For NEAR, the collaboration will also extend to transitioning the NEAR-Ethereum Rainbow Bridge to an actively validated service (AVS). This will create a better bridging experience between NEAR and Ethereum. Transactions will reach finality faster, with stronger security guarantees and decentralization.

Bowen Wang, Director of Protocol at Pagoda, the NEAR ecosystem team building the fast finality layer, said: "Pagoda is proud to work with Eigen Labs, a world-class team, to cobuild the fast finality layer. This solution improves the composability with Ethereum L2s and reduces liquidity fragmentation within the rollup ecosystem."

A testnet is expected to launch in Q1 2024, and more details will be shared around that time. For the latest news from NEAR Foundation or EigenLayer, please check our websites, follow us on social, or join our communities:

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

NEAR Foundation X/Twitter: @nearprotocol

NEAR Foundation Telegram: @cryptonear

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

EigenLayer X/Twitter: @eigenlayer

EigenLayer Telegram: @eigenlayer

About NEAR Foundation

The NEAR Foundation is a Switzerland-based non-profit foundation whose mission is to enable community driven innovation to benefit people around the world. One of its core areas of focus is the NEAR ecosystem, which includes a fully operational decentralized Blockchain-based platform for building decentralized applications.

NF carries out its mission, primarily through the allocation of support and resources to other nodes in the near ecosystem, rather than via direct intervention or operations.

NF's ultimate goal is to minimize its own scope and footprint by continuing to divide functions and resources to the ecosystem; and support the development of decentralized infrastructure necessary for those ecosystem functions to operate in a self-sufficient manner. For more information visit the website, follow us on social, or join our communities:

NEAR Foundation X/Twitter: @nearprotocol

NEAR Foundation Telegram: @cryptonear

About Eigen Labs

EigenLayer provides developers with access to the Ethereum staked capital base and decentralized validator set. Access to this trust network can make previously impossible mechanism designs possible.

Media contacts:

Georgia Hanias

NEAR Foundation

press@near.foundation

+44 (0) 7812211403

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