Progression of the Data Availability Problem

Key Insights

• Regardless of validity, all data must be broadcasted to all participants in a network to allow them to verify if they choose to. Maintaining this guarantee becomes difficult with the reduction in node requirements and responsibilities.
• Off-chain data availability (DA) is much less secure than the on-chain option; depending on the nature of the data, users might choose to post off-chain for fewer fees.
• Ethereum with danksharding, Celestia, Polygon Avail, EigenDA, and zkPorter approach data availability differently, all in search of higher DA throughput.
• With the implementation of danksharding, Ethereum’s data availability rate will jump from 85 KB/s to 1.3 MB/s.

The blockchain stores history and guarantees its veracity. For it to be a trusted network, all participants must be able to view and verify the stored data. This issue is separate from validating data because all data, regardless of validity, needs to be available for the network and not withheld by any party. This guarantee is known as data availability (DA), and it is an active problem as blockchains scale.