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Modularizing The Validator

ยท One min read

This post is in WIP state.

In the current state of Ethereum one team builds the entire validator, Paradigm builds Reth, a consortium including Arbitrum funds Prysm, Nethermind builds the Nethermind Validator, and so on.

Meanwhile on Solana, the Labs (or former labs team Agave) builds the validator, while the Jump Crypto team builds the Firedancer validator.

In each of these cases the validator clients are built by the entities that own the largest stake in the network. The validator client is developed as a 'side business' subsidized by equity ownership or a primary business.

Keeping up with validator updates is high effort, requiring one team to end to end own the entire development process requires lots of financial commitment and is tricky to monetize.

One way to compartmentalize validator development is to split it up into subcomponents and have a different team own parts of it. Teams could even charge the large operators for various features that improve network performance such as preconfirmations.

Here's an example of this: