Verifiable Cloud EigenCloud: A New Paradigm for the Fusion of Web2 and Web3

Ethereum’s leading re-staking protocol EigenLayer officially launched its revolutionary new platform—EigenCloud today. To demonstrate its firm confidence in the long-term value of the project, a16z crypto purchased up to $70 million worth of EIGEN tokens, further making a strategic investment in EigenLayer.

This is not just a product launch and a round of financing; it marks EigenLayer’s official transition from an underlying security-sharing protocol to a platform-level ecosystem that empowers countless applications.

🧐 Why do we need EigenCloud?

Our current digital life is actually a bit “fragmented.”

On one hand, we have blockchain Web3, whose superpower is “trust”. For example, in DeFi on Ethereum, borrowing and repaying is all based on code, so there’s no need to worry about the platform owner running away with the funds. How cool is that! But its problems are also quite obvious: cumbersome and limited in functionality. Even solving a complex math problem requires a lot of Gas, not to mention running AI models or playing large games. Specific limitations include:

• Too few software: There are thousands of open-source software libraries in the Web2 world, but when it comes to blockchain, sorry, most of them are unusable, and we have to start from scratch.
• Hardware too weak: Want to run AI with a GPU? No way. All computers on the blockchain need to avoid top configurations, otherwise there will be suspicion of “encouraging centralization.”
• Narrow Vision: Blockchain is a “closed” system. Want to know what the weather is like today? A regular web2 application can find out by sending an HTTP request. However, dapps on the blockchain cannot send HTTP requests; they rely on intermediaries known as “oracles” to provide external information. However, the information that oracles can provide is much more limited (most oracles only provide high-value financial market information).

On the other hand, we have cloud computing (Web2), such as the well-known Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud. Its superpower is “omnipotent.” Whatever functionality you want to achieve, it can definitely make it happen, relying on AI, big data, and social media (7). But its Achilles’ heel is equally deadly: you must unconditionally trust that “centralized” big company.

Did you see it? One is secure but “crippled”, and the other is powerful but “untrustworthy”. EigenCloud aims to solve this “division”! Its genius idea is: Let’s move the complex tasks (application logic) off the cumbersome blockchain and onto the powerful cloud (off-chain) to do the work, then use the blockchain’s “trust” magic to stamp these cloud-based tasks with a “verified, trustworthy” seal. This way, we can have the best of both worlds!

🛠️ The three core components of EigenCloud

For example, we want to develop a decentralized delivery platform called TrustEat.

• First of all, since this “takeout platform” involves complex path planning algorithms and calls external data (such as weather APIs), these complex calculations and external data calls cannot be accomplished by on-chain dApps, so they must be done off-chain.
• In fact, this “food delivery platform” also involves how to divide between the platform, restaurants, and riders, as well as how to resolve disputes in the event of a dispute, which needs to introduce the part of “decentralized trust”, which needs to be implemented on the chain to give full play to the advantages of openness and transparency of the blockchain.

So this “decentralized delivery platform” is a typical project that requires the integration of on-chain and off-chain. EigenCloud, as a “verifiable cloud,” provides the following three “core components” to simplify the development process of such projects.

1. EigenDA ( Archive ) 📜

• What it does: A super large capacity, ultra low cost “public data wall.” All off-chain computing inputs, outputs, and processes must be written on this wall, publicly transparent, accessible to anyone.
• Examples of delivery platforms: Every order you place, from the order time, dish prices, to the rider’s GPS route, delivery time, and your review, all the information is recorded on this “wall” of EigenDA. Want to default on payment? No way, it’s all verifiable!

2. EigenVerify ( Universal Court ) ⚖️

• What it does: This is the key to achieving “verifiable” results! A “universal arbitration court” that is available on demand. When there is a dispute over off-chain calculation results, it is called upon to make a judgment.
• Examples of delivery platforms:

• Objective Dispute: You clearly paid 25 dollars, but the bill shows only 20 dollars paid. EigenVerify will act like an accountant, recalculating the accounts to identify the error.
  • Subjective controversy: You give a bad review and say “it’s cold when the takeaway is delivered”. The restaurant was not convinced, saying that you were a malicious bad review. At this point, EigenVerify’s validators will form a “jury” that will go to EigenDA’s “public data wall” to check the evidence: Did the rider go far away? Is it taking too long to deliver? It is even possible to bring in third-party data (e.g. whether it was a rainstorm or not). In the end, they voted to decide whether the bad review was justified. This is the best part of EigenVerify - Verification Subjective Problem!

3. EigenCompute ( One-Click Deployment Platform & LEGO Factory ) 🚀

• What to do:

  • First of all, EigenCompute packages all the low-level complex stuff (such as how to write data to EigenDA and how to call EigenVerify). All you need to do is package your code into a “Docker container”, throw it on, and EigenCompute will automatically do all the dirty work of staking, logging, and verifying for you. EigenCompute allows developers to do not need to master complex blockchain knowledge, making the entire decentralized application development process as simple and silky as ordinary Web2 applications.
  • Secondly, the core advantage of EigenCompute is that it allows developers to easily combine and use various AVS developed by others without having to “reinvent the wheel”. These AVS are like “smart Lego bricks” that have been built and have different functions. EigenCompute makes combining these AVSs as easy as building Lego through a standardized interface and a unified payment model. This greatly improves development efficiency and lowers the development threshold.

• Finally, developers only need to build and deploy application logic once, and the results computed off-chain by EigenCompute can be used by any smart contract on L1 or L2 chains, achieving the effect of “build once, deploy everywhere.”

• Examples of delivery platforms:

• In the past, you might have needed to write a complex AI pricing algorithm from scratch or build a rider reputation scoring system on your own. But with EigenCompute, Need AI Pricing? Simply call an existing, verified “AI Pricing AVS.” Need to handle user data? Connect to a reliable “Data Processing AVS.” Need to integrate payments from other blockchains? Integrate a secure “Cross-Chain Bridge AVS.”
• Developers can package their own code (including both their own developed code and code that calls other AVS) into Docker, allowing for “one-click deployment” to EigenCompute, and thus, a decentralized delivery platform is up and running!

What actually happens behind the scenes when you truly pick up your phone and order takeout on “TrustEat”?

1. Step 1: On-chain trigger. You have selected your dishes and clicked “Place Order and Pay.” At this point, you have initiated a request in the TrustEat smart contract on the blockchain. This request will not immediately complete the complex fee calculation on-chain, as that would be too slow and too expensive. Instead, the smart contract will act like a “signal flare,” triggering the off-chain EigenCloud to start working, calculating the total cost of this order and how to allocate the expenses.
2. Step 2: Off-chain computation and verification. The off-chain EigenCompute** immediately received the task. It starts running a complex pricing program and may call other AVSs to get real-time weather and traffic conditions to calculate the fairest delivery fee. The key step is coming: all the inputs (your order, restaurant location, weather data, etc.) and the final output (the total price is XX yuan, of which the restaurant receives A yuan, the rider receives B yuan, and the platform receives C yuan) will be packaged and released to the “public archive” of EigenDA for publicity. In the meantime, EigenVerify oversees it all at all times. By default, it trusts that the calculation is correct. But as soon as anyone (you, the restaurant, or the rider) disputes the outcome, EigenVerify will immediately step in and use publicly available data on EigenDA to review or arbitrate to ensure that the outcome is absolutely unbiased.
3. Step 3: On-chain settlement. When the computation is verified (or after a short public notice period where no objections are raised), a result with a “verified” gold label is securely passed back to the on-chain TrustEat smart contract. Once the smart contract receives the result, it confidently executes the final step: deduct the total fee from your authorized wallet, send the money proportionally to the restaurant, rider, and platform, and complete the settlement. **

💰 EIGEN and bEIGEN: Two types of “currency” that drive the system

To make such a large system run, it definitely needs “fuel”, and this fuel is the EIGEN Token. But it is very special, as it has a “dual-token” model.

• EIGEN: This is the ordinary “cash” that you can buy and sell freely on the exchange, and you can also use it for DeFi financial management. Those who hold it do not need to worry about the complex staking, arguments, and forks within EigenCloud. Life is good, and it has nothing to do with you. bEIGEN: You can understand it as “work card”. When you want to participate in the construction of EigenCloud, such as being a “juror” to earn arbitration fees, you have to pledge your EIGEN “cash” and exchange it for this bEIGEN “work card”. When you get a work permit, you promise to work honestly. If you vote indiscriminately and do bad things, your “work card” (along with the cash you pledge) will be slashed.

This design is very clever, as it separates speculators from builders, making the entire system more stable (29).

So what if, most of the people with “work permits” join forces to do bad things? For example, more than half of the “jurors” received black money and deliberately misjudged the case. At this time, it is time to sacrifice the ultimate weapon - bifurcation (Forkability).

Any honest minority can pay a huge price (such as destroying part of their Token) to initiate a “fork” as long as they firmly believe that the majority is wrong. At this point, the EIGEN Token will split into two versions: an old version that follows the bad guys and a new version that represents justice.

Then, the entire community, including exchanges, users, and project parties, must choose sides and vote with “money” (EIGEN Token). If everyone supports the new version that represents justice, then the old version tokens in the hands of the malicious majority instantly become worthless, and their entire fortunes will be gone in an instant.

It is precisely because of the “mutually assured destruction” nuclear weapons that no one dares to easily commit large-scale evil. This provides the ultimate trust guarantee for solving those most difficult subjective problems (such as “the takeout arrives cold”).

🆚 ZK co-processor: Lessons from the past

It should be noted that this idea of migrating complex calculations off-chain is not original to EigenCloud. There was a very popular concept before called “ZK Coprocessor,” which similarly migrated complex calculations off-chain and then submitted the results to smart contracts on the chain. Accompanying the off-chain results was a ZK Proof, which allowed the on-chain contract to verify this ZK Proof, ensuring that the entire off-chain computation was secure, effective, and reliable. The ZK Coprocessor achieved the integration of “off-chain complex computation + on-chain trust” through ZK technology.

EigenCloud and ZK Coprocessor aim to achieve the same goal, but their technical approaches differ.

ZKCoprocessor**: It is like a rigorous mathematician. It can use cryptography to prove to you 100% that an objective fact is correct. For example, “1+1=2”, or “Your credit card bill is 1,000 yuan this month”. It seeks to be mathematically infallible. But it can’t tell you subjective questions such as “who sings well between me and Jay Chou”. EigenCloud: It is more like an economist and sociologist. It uses economic games (where you lose a lot of money if you do evil) and social consensus (where the community forks ultimately decide what is right or wrong) to ensure that the results are credible. Its core strength lies in its ability to deal with subjectively verifiable questions, such as “who sings well between me and Jay Chou” (because if someone is willing to start the EIGEN fork for this issue, I’m afraid they will lose badly).

Notice that I mentioned that the ZK Coprocessor was “very popular before”, and now the technology has been dormant for a long time. In addition to factors such as the difficulty of ZK technology engineering and the inability to deal with subjective problems, the lack of market demand is also an important reason. The business requirement of complex computing has been well realized by a series of Web2 technologies, and most people don’t see the need to add a “decentralized trust” to this complex computing, and no one wants to pay for it

This is also a lesson from the ZK Coprocessor left for EigenCloud. Using EigenCloud to develop something like “decentralized Uber” or “decentralized Ele.me” has a very slim chance of success. The key to the project’s success lies in whether it can find PMF (Product-Market Fit) and identify irreplaceable application scenarios for “off-chain complex computation + on-chain trust.”

🚀 EigenCloud is now launched, what’s the point?

Finally, let’s talk about something interesting. Why did the EigenLayer team decide to release such a big move as EigenCloud at this point in time?

1. Tell a New Story: To be honest, the recent performance of the EIGEN Token price has not been good, having dropped 79% from its peak. Relying solely on the story of “re-staking” is a bit abstract and the market doesn’t quite understand it anymore. Now with the launch of EigenCloud, the story has transformed into “building a verifiable layer for the next generation of the internet,” and it has attracted a $70 million investment from top venture capital firm a16z, which opens up a lot of possibilities and can effectively boost market confidence.
2. Find something to do with the token: EigenLayer has pooled tens of billions of dollars in staking funds before, but there are not many AVS projects that really need to use these “security services”. There are fewer AVS that need to use EIGEN to protect security, and without sufficient application scenarios, the price of EIGEN will naturally not rise. Now, EigenDA, EigenVerify, and EigenCompute are all powered by EIGEN tokens. This creates a real and massive demand for EIGEN, which can support the price of the coin.
3. Let’s play together: In the past, developing an AVS was as difficult as rebuilding a public chain by yourself. Now, with EigenCompute, the threshold is greatly reduced, which can not only combine the AVS developed by predecessors, but also shield developers from complex blockchain knowledge and technologies such as staking and verification. With EigenCloud, the process of developing a Web3 application is as simple and smooth as developing a regular Web2 application. The more developers come, the more applications; With more applications, it will be easier to develop new applications, and the entire ecosystem will be alive, and the value of the EIGEN token will naturally rise. This is a powerful “flywheel effect”.

Summary

Alright, today’s sharing ends here. In summary, EigenCloud is an ambitious project. It is not just a technological upgrade, but a bet on the future infrastructure of the digital world.

It attempts to cleverly combine the powerful features of Web2 with the reliable trust of Web3, especially its ability to address “subjective issues,” opening the door to the Web3 world for countless complex applications such as AI, social, and gaming.

Of course, the road ahead is long and full of challenges. But in any case, EigenCloud has painted an exciting blueprint for us: a future where all digital actions are verifiable and trustworthy.

Let’s wait and see if it can truly usher in a new era of “verifiable economy”!