Omni is an integrated Rollup layer for Ethereum, enabling developers to build unified applications across all Ethereum scaling solutions. It employs a novel blockchain architecture to achieve sub-second finality and ensures security by re-staking ETH.
Omni is constructing an Ethereum interoperability layer using the EigenLayer stack to facilitate effective communication between Rollups. Currently, the industry grapples with the high costs and slow confirmation times of Layer 1 blockchains. Rollups offer a solution, but remain isolated and fragmented. As the founder of Omni stated, Omni is built as a cohesive whole, paving the way for a modular future for Ethereum.
Omni’s network leverages validator re-staking of ETH to form a security foundation, creating new security standards among modular blockchains. Omni plans to open-source this technology, allowing other chains to tailor development and ensuring robust interoperability. The protocol combines the re-staking mechanism with Tendermint PoS consensus to quickly reach consensus on Rollup states, thus acting as a settlement layer for Rollups. Tendermint ensures Omni's speed, while the re-staking mechanism provides a higher level of security. Since Omni's execution layer is compatible with the EVM, developers can build native cross-Rollup applications, marking a significant advancement in interoperability. Additionally, developers can use Solidity and leverage built-in functions to access state, messages, and applications from other Rollups. By deriving security from Ethereum/EigenLayer and leveraging Tendermint for cross-Rollup functionality, Omni is poised to become the future of interoperability for Ethereum and other networks.
Security
Interoperability protocols have always struggled with security challenges. First-generation protocols relied solely on a trusted group of participants who verified and relayed messages across networks. Over the years, these protocols have been breeding grounds for numerous vulnerabilities, causing losses exceeding $1 billion.
Second-generation protocols improve on this design by applying cryptoeconomic security to networks. In this approach, participants stake the protocol's native assets to partake in the validation process, a step in the right direction. However, relying on native assets makes the security assurances of the protocol less stable.
Utilizing EigenLayer, Omni introduces a new security model for interoperability protocols. Omni protects its validator set by re-staking ETH, allowing the protocol's security to scale according to Ethereum's L1 security budget. Ethereum's current security budget exceeds $100 billion, an order of magnitude larger than any other PoS network. By utilizing re-staked ETH—a highly liquid and low-volatility asset—Omni's security is more stable than its predecessors. Furthermore, by deriving security from Ethereum, Omni aligns its security foundation with connected Rollups, achieving a security model that grows synchronously with the Ethereum modular ecosystem.
Omni is setting the standard for EigenLayer's Active Validation Service (AVS). Omni became the first protocol to agree with a Liquidity Re-Staking (LRT) provider, renting $600 million worth of re-staked ETH from EtherFi. The Omni team has reached agreements with several other LRT providers, pushing its initial security budget above $1 billion. This allows Omni to offer industry-leading security at launch without excessive network startup costs. As the only AVS besides EigenDA running on testnets, Omni is positioned as the most production-ready AVS on the market.
Sub-second Verification
Compared to modular systems, one of the key advantages of integrated blockchains like Solana is low-latency transactions. Users are increasingly accustomed to sub-second transaction times, reflecting the superior user experience of today's cloud-based web applications. For Ethereum to compete with these alternative platforms, cross-Rollup message latency must match the transaction speeds of integrated systems.
Omni employs a novel protocol architecture to bring this experience to Ethereum Rollups, achieving sub-second cross-Rollup message verification. After processing 7.5 million transactions from 550,000 wallets on earlier testnets, Omni Labs has thoroughly reformed the network architecture. The design's core component is Octane, a new open-source framework that combines the EVM with CometBFT consensus. Octane uses the Ethereum Engine API and ABCI++ to create a clear separation between the execution and consensus environments on Omni nodes, isolating component bottlenecks in the existing EVM<>CometBFT architecture.
Native Global Applications (NGAs)
Beyond providing cross-Rollup message verification, Omni also offers a dedicated execution environment, the Omni EVM, which supports developers in centrally managing all Rollup application deployments. Utilizing the Omni EVM as a coordination layer, developers can deploy Native Global Applications (NGAs). NGAs are a new category of applications capable of dynamically propagating contracts and interfaces to any Rollup, inherently supporting their access to all of Ethereum's liquidity and users. By employing NGAs, developers can leverage the scalability of Ethereum Rollups without needing to manage distributed states across multiple Rollup environments.
As the Rollup ecosystem continues to evolve, projects will develop more tailored Rollup solutions, each customized for specific functionalities and performance requirements, employing unique virtual machines, programming languages, and data availability architectures. Omni has been deliberately designed to support any Rollup architecture, achieving seamless application management through the Omni EVM.
Backward Compatibility
To accommodate existing Rollup applications, Omni was designed with backward compatibility in mind. Applications can integrate Omni without needing to modify deployed contracts. Applications utilize modified front-end commands to aggregate cross-Rollup messages, allowing Omni to serve as a wrapper for existing application deployments. Additionally, Omni introduces a universal gas market, facilitating the transmission of cross-Rollup messages to target networks, thereby eliminating the need for users to maintain different gas tokens.
Summary
A roadmap centered around Rollups has been dedicated to scaling across isolated execution environments. While this method is actively addressing the network's scalability challenges, it has also increasingly dispersed capital, users, and developers across numerous Rollups. To address these issues, Omni has emerged—a native Ethereum interoperability protocol that establishes low-latency communication within Ethereum's Rollup ecosystem.
Omni creates a new design framework, prioritizing security as the foundation of the protocol. Through re-staking, Omni derives cryptoeconomic security from Ethereum L1, using it to protect its external validation network architecture. The integration of a dual-staking model further strengthens this security architecture, positioning Omni as a new benchmark for secure interoperability.
With a robust security framework in place, the Omni designers have shifted their focus towards optimizing Omni's performance. The team aims to achieve a consensus mechanism capable of handling cross-Rollup communications with minimal latency. By developing a unique protocol architecture that combines technologies like CometBFT, ABCI++, and the Engine API, Omni validators deliver sub-second verification for cross-Rollup messages.
In terms of global compatibility, Omni was specifically designed with minimal integration requirements, ensuring compatibility with any Rollup architecture and application design. The introduction of a universal gas market simplifies the user experience for cross-network applications, while the addition of the Omni EVM provides developers with a global platform for deploying and managing cross-network applications.
Omni represents a comprehensive interoperability solution for Ethereum Rollups, preparing to reunify the Ethereum ecosystem. With Omni, Ethereum can once again provide a single, unified operating system for decentralized applications.
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