Decentralizing Preconfirmations

This article/research is in active development and changing.

We suggest a preconfirmation network design that allows multiple parties to run sidecars on the validator. This prevents one party having monopoly power over preconfirmations on the network. Imagine a situation where one preconfirmation network becomes dominant and all validators run this software (like flashbots today is run by 90% of validators). Unlike PBS which is a competitive process which requires a sophisticated block builder involved in the process, the preconfirmation network has monopoly over block sale rights, they can block off certain parties from being able send a preconfirmation, or even have state locks for multiple blocks on Ethereum state as a whole.

In order to prevent this kind of cabal formation, we suggest that validators run multiple sidecars, allowing multiple parties to auction none, some, or all of the block.

We will further decentralize the gateway access. Gateway is the entity that processes transactions before the sidecar gets access, acting as a load balancer to prevent spam attacks. This is another source of centralization as the gateways are permissioned entities.

The second issue is the potential for gateway centralization. If the same gateway is elected every time, it gives it extraordinary powers over ethereum block building. Unlike the block builders which must compete for this right, gateway earns this right via agreement with the proposer.

Allowing multiple gateways to at least submit inclusion preconfirmations, is in a way implementing multiproposer, allowing multiple parties to submit constraints into the block at once.

More to be added here soon!