A Quick Look at Starknet’s Upcoming Volition

原文：Volition on Starknet: Your Data, Your Choice

Translation and proofreading: “Starknet Chinese Community”

Featured Quick Facts

• Starknet presents Volition!
• Volition will allow developers to adjust the availability of data on Ethereum (L1) or Starknet (L2). Reducing data on the L1 chain can radically reduce costs.
• The flexibility of the data availability model will again give Starknet developers and users greater freedom to cost-effectively choose the most appropriate level of security for their specific needs.
• Volition is planned to be implemented on the testnet in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Effectiveness Rollup: Increase throughput and reduce cost

As Ethereum continues to grow, the need for scalability and cost reduction becomes more pressing. To this end, Validity Rollups was born as a scalable and efficient solution running on Ethereum.

Starknet is a Rollup that proves the validity of the inventors of STARK. As an L2, Starknet only submits the necessary data for each transaction to Ethereum (L1), and uses a shared prover (SHARP) to distribute the verification fee on the proof chain to all transactions in a given batch, thereby achieving large While computing at scale, it can also reduce computing costs.

In Q4 2023, Starknet will again significantly reduce costs, solving the main challenge developers face in terms of transaction fees, namely the high cost of data on the L1 chain.

Among the various factors that determine transaction costs, on-chain data availability alone accounts for 95% of the average transaction cost. Finding ways to reduce data on the L1 chain can have a significant impact on reducing overall costs for users and developers. Starknet’s solution to this challenge: Volition.

Understanding Volition

Currently, Starknet operates in Validity Rollup mode, which means that Starknet’s data and commitments to state are committed on Ethereum. With Volition, data can be stored on Starknet L2, and developers can optimize their contracts by choosing their data availability mode at the individual storage variable level.

As the name suggests, Volition will provide the ability to choose the availability of data for an application or transaction. Developers of Starknet will be able to flexibly adjust across the entire range of data availability, dynamically choose their data availability solutions, and decide whether their application’s data is available on Ethereum (L1) or Starknet (L2), which is determined by Users of the application are free to choose.

Volition is implemented by treating Starknet’s state as two distinct storage commitment trees: one for L1 data availability mode and another for L2 data availability mode. L1 data availability mode tree data will be published on the Ethereum mainnet, while L2 data availability means that transaction data will be updated on L2 and delivered to the Starknet network. Only commitments of data (referring to the “root” of the commitment tree) are sent to L1.

It’s up to you to choose

The security of the data publishing layer determines the level of certainty of data availability. Data published on L1 will benefit from the level of security provided by Ethereum and will be available like any other data on Ethereum. On the other hand, thanks to the lower cost on L2, the data published on L2 will be transmitted to all Starknet L2 nodes. Doing so ensures that the risk of minimizing failure or malicious behavior that could block withdrawals or deny access to data stored on L2 is prevented.

While these necessary measures are taken to ensure high security of L2 data availability, we acknowledge that for maximum security it should be up to you to choose L1 Data Availability (DA), which provides Ethereum-level security guarantees. L2 data availability should only be used if the developer and user trade off L2 cost against L1 security. We also recommend that developers write contracts that use L2DA so that in the event of an L2 data availability crisis, the contract will still function properly (eg, loss of L2DA assets). Also, while launching Volition, we realized that perfecting innovations takes time. Therefore, Volition will be running on the test network for a while first. In this stage, we will actively listen to the feedback from the community, optimize it, and gradually make it meet the needs of builders.

Introducing Volition on Starknet will improve efficiency and developer experience (DevEx). The ability for developers to autonomously find the optimal trade-off between security and cost will allow L2 applications to adapt their design to user needs and reach a wider audience.

Volition use cases and applications

To best demonstrate the effectiveness of Volition, let’s look at a few real-world examples.

Imagine you’re in a high-profile Web 3 game on an application built on Starknet. You successfully bid and purchased a premium crossbow NFT. Given the importance of this transaction, you might choose the on-chain data availability model. Thanks to Ethereum’s extensive decentralization, this ensures that the ownership of the crossbow is securely recorded on the Ethereum blockchain. Then, you decide to buy 150 Arrow NFTs, and due to their lower value, you can opt for L2 data availability to complete the transaction, saving cost.

The same concept applies to high-value decentralized exchanges, where the top priority of the DEX is to ensure the safety of funds and minimize transaction fees. Users can reserve partial funds in their L2 data availability account to optimize trading operations. Using funds in L2 data storage allows traders to execute large volumes of trades at low fees. When the funds in the L2 data availability account reach a higher amount, the DEX prioritizes safety over cost and transfers the funds to the L1 data availability account. This transfer ensures that the majority of funds are safe and available on L1.

As can be seen from these two examples, Volition enables developers and users to choose the data availability mode of each contract, giving them more control, while Volition also enhances the user’s transaction experience.

When will Volition launch?

Volition will launch on the Starknet testnet in Q4 2023. It will run in the testnet for an extended period of time, so that various security aspects can be understood and strengthened based on the feedback and experience of the community. Volition is expected to save costs for many users and dApp developers. In the future, Starknet will define other data availability models, such as Adamantium (a model that uses committees to provide data availability, and users can choose trusted parties to provide data availability).

Summarize

Starknet’s Volition addresses security concerns and high on-chain data costs. By allowing data to be stored on Starknet L2, developers can reduce costs and increase scalability while maintaining the trusted security of Ethereum. There are many benefits to using Volition on Starknet, potentially opening the door to innovative application development. If you’re curious about Volition, watch a detailed talk from StarkWare Product Owner Avihu Levy, and join the in-depth discussions on our community forums.