WTF is Surge: The ULTRABASED Rollup | Aayush Giri, Nethermind | ETHTaipei 2025

[Music] Hello. Hi everyone. So my name is Aayushkiri. I work as a senior deell at Nethermine. And today I'm here to talk about what we are building when it comes to base rollups.

Okay. So, so the question is what is search? So surge is basically a fully decentralized rollup template based roll-up template which uh has stage to security from day one and it operates with a tokenless design using ETH and it achieves gigas throughput through nethermind client and it employs a 2x3 multiprover security model all while maintaining complete alignment with ethereum's core values uh of decentralization security and censorship resistant. So I feel these were a lot of words. So let me try to explain each one of them one by one.

And uh okay so when we look at Ethereum's scaling journey we face that uh what's often called a scaling dilemma in which we have to compensate one of the two one of the three factors and select only two which is between decentralization security and scalability. So most lay solutions uh make the same compromise and they introduce uh centralization to achieve uh scalability. So this is what they called as a centralized sequencer and um which is basically a single entity which decides how to order transactions and this creates a fundamental tension between Ethereum's core values and the scalability issues that we are trying to solve. So let's first understand how roll-ups work and if by just by raise of hands if uh I can see like how many people know how roll-ups work in the background. So okay so uh maybe we can explain how roll-ups work in the first place.

So let's begin by understanding why rollups uh matter and where the current solution fall short. So Ethereum's base layer can process only a certain amount of transactions right now due to its decentralized nature. So roll-ups emerge as a solution and an alternative to solve this scalability issue by patching transactions offchain and posting compressed proofs back to Ethereum. This approach has been successful at increasing the throughput but comes with a critical uh design choice which is centralization again. So the basic concept is simple.

Instead of executing every transaction on Ethereum, we do that offchain and post the proofs onchain. And um this significantly increases the number of transactions that we can process. But uh it does not inherent the decentralized nature because there is a centralized feature invol involved which I as I said is a centralized sequencer. So most rollups today use a centralized sequencer model. A sequencer is essentially a single entity responsible for um responsible for collecting transa user transactions, determining uh transaction order and producing uh blocks to submit it on Ethereum.

Which brings us to problems which these sequences bring with them. First, it introduces a single point of failure. If the sequencer goes down, the whole L2 becomes broken. Second, it creates a censorship vector which means the sequencer can choose which transactions to be included in the L2 block and uh which transactions to be not included. Third, it concentrates power in the hands of the people who are controlling the centralized sequencer and these guys can take the benefit of the ME uh strategies that we know right now happens on the layer 1 as well.

So it relies on the reputation system of the L2 as well which means many L2s claim that right now we have a centralized sequencer but in future we would decentralize it and this is the promise that they give us but we have seen that it has not happened yet with any of them and this is where the concept of based rollups come into picture so it's not just a theory because many people have already uh established this for example like tao puffer and some of them So a base rollup uh takes fundamentally different approach by eliminating the use of a centralized sequencer which means that Ethereum's own validators are are the people who are responsible for ordering the transactions and block building for the transaction ordering. So the term based refers to based on Ethereum which leverages Ethereum's existing infrastructure for critical function of transaction ordering rather than introducing a separate layer of sequencing. In this model user technically submits transaction directly directly to Ethereum's mempool. Ethereum's decentralized network of uh validators and builders handle the inclusion of these transaction and the rollup inherits Ethereum's security and citizensship resistant property which for other roll-ups is only the security feature not the censorship resistance part so it's fundamentally a different approach instead of creating a separate sequencing rule separate sequencing rule or layer we are using the infrastructure which is already present in the system and using the Ethereum validators and uh This is closely tied to the proposal builder system which is a concept in Ethereum's road map that aims to keep block building open and permissionless. So think of it as a Ethereum native sequencing.

We are leveraging the existing infrastructure instead of creating a whole separate sequencing layer. So the benefits of this approach are uh quite obvious by now which means there's no centralized entity that can censor or reorder transactions. So if your transaction goes into Ethereum, it will be processed by the rollup as well. Second, the security is identical to Ethereum itself. Based rollups inherit Ethereum's decentralization nature.

Third, there is no need for an additional infrastructure or governance mechanism for transactions ordering and you are using what already exists. So there is no separate tooling, there's no uh separate tools that are required. So base rollups are fundamentally aligned with Ethereum's values from day one which means they are as decentralized as Ethereum itself because they leverage the same security that Ethereum has. So this approach represents a return to core principles. Uh so decentralization isn't a in the future road map but it's based inside Ethereum from the beginning and this is where we come to search.

So surge is nethermind's imple implementation of a based rollup template. So it is not basically another rollup but it is a rollup template that anybody can use to roll up a transa uh roll up a L2 which can be used by institutions or any other player who wishes to have an based L2. So it is just a research and experimentation showcase by us and uh it is designed to showcase what happens when you maximize both performance and decentralization without any compromises. So we built search to demonstrate that tradeoffs other rollups make are not technically necessary that we can build systems and scale them without sacrificing Ethereum's core principles and the five key differentiating factors for surge are it is a fully it has a fully based architecture. It has stage to security for from launch and I'll be explaining what a stage to security means.

It has a tokenless design. It has giggas gas performance because of the nethermind execution client and it has a multiprover security model which brings us to a 45 uh uh 45day window. So let's deep dive into what stage security means. So basically by L2 beat there's a definition given of what a stage stage 2 rollup should look like which means it should have no training wheels and this is the final stage where the rollup becomes fully managed by smart contracts instead of having any centralized entity or any fallback mechanisms. So a 45day exit window for any upgrades would be required giving users ample of time to withdraw their funds if they disagree with any changes uh of the L2 and no emergency powers which means there's no ability for anyone to force changes without going through the time lock and limited governance which means the multisc can only cue upgrades not execute them immediately.

So this means that from day one search provides the strongest possible security that is possible when it comes to building a based rollup and we are not asking users to trust us but we are building a system that doesn't require trust itself and this is in um smart contracts to uh it is in contrast to other rollups which often start with extensive admin powers and they say that they would be removing these training wheels as they progress in the journey and uh so the next term is a tokenless design which means search uses ethereum exclusively for gas fees and protocol bonds and protocol bonds come in the consensus part of uh the search rollup and so basically and these roll-ups which will be deployed using this template would not uh have a new token which uh which means they use ETH excl exclusively. And this isn't just a philosophical choice. It eliminates misaligned incentives uh that often come with token economics which other L2s do usually. And um this is the best use case that any institutional level player can have because usually these institutional level players don't have any uh tokconomic incentives to uh take benefit from. So basically it would be using ETH as a gas and uh for protocol bonds.

Uh so the next part is gigas performance. So what does it mean? It means that it is uh powered by the nethermind execution client which we have in the L2 level. uh so surge achieves extraordinary throughput and we are talking about processing one gigas per second as actually which is actually proven on base mainet by the netherment execution client. So this isn't just a theoretical claim uh it's been demonstrated and um in the version 130.

0 release of nethermind execution client. So the technical improvements that make this thing possible are uh faster memory pr pruning that runs in parallel, optimized storage processing and special speed enhancement for cryptographic operations using advanced CPU instructions. So these are some jargon words. I mean I don't want to bore you by repeating those things. So the next part is a multiprover security model which means that surge relies on one of these three two of these three provers which are involved which means there is uh 2x3 consensus model agreement from multiple independent proving systems.

Uh one is an SGX based TE other is SP1 and the last one is risk zero's um RIO. So this removes single proof point of failure uh for the system and uses different security assumptions and common vulnerabilities. So the system remains secure even if one prover is compromised. I mean it depends on the L2 which is deploying this rollup template. They can have more than three provers.

It's a choice that they have to take depending on the trade-offs they want to do. So together with these innovations, we create a rollup that's both high performant and highly secure without compromising on Ethereum's core values. And I repeat these things again and again, but we we have this mission to not compromise on the Ethereum core values for whatever we build at Nethermind. So unlike traditional roll-ups that chase mass adoption, Surge is not meant for attracting any users. To be honest, search is intentionally designed for a specific technical audience of researchers and builders and uh we are not focused on onboarding any users or million people onto it.

We are focused on uh showcasing how the state of rollup technology should advance in the future. So this is a research focused approach by us which allows us to make design choices rapidly and prioritize technical efficiencies rather than onboarding uh millions of people. So we don't need to make any compromise to attract users. we can build the ideal system from first principles and the uh it's already pretty perfect right now but uh we we we still feel that there are some optimizations that we can do and um so surge serves two key uh constituencies which uh first one is builders and the second one is researchers so the includes uh the builders part includes blog builders and me searchers exploring clause cross layer opportunities for them. Surge offers a predictable environment for transaction inclusion and direct integration with Ethereum's block building process and new MEB strategies or opportunities across layers and search also comes with a cross layer composibility feature which I'll be explaining later in the slides.

So the second part is researchers where technical teams working on rollup optimizations can work and collaborate with us in terms of protocol design. For them, search provides a clean implementation of what a base rollup should look like when it aligns to all Ethereum core values. And this is an open- source code that can be studied and modified uh on GitHub if if you would like to see that. So, so let's talk about another thing which comes along with SER which are called search power-ups which are basically plugins for your base rollup which you deploy using this template. When I say plugins I I I want to say that these are some of the features that not every base rollup would require or the the deployers of the T2 would not want.

for example pre-confirmation and efficient proving and block building and cross layer composibility because it depends on the use case of the base rollup that is trying to be deployed. So the first power up is reconfirmations. Uh I can go on to explain what preconfirmations are but it would require a separate 30-inut workshop. So think of it in this way that your transactions are being included on Ethereum L1 as we said in base rollups. So you would feel that all these transaction would take the same block time which is 12 seconds that Ethereum takes because the Ethereum validators are the one who are including these transactions.

So preconfirmations can be thought of like uh a bond which someone gives saying that okay your transaction is going to be included in on L1 and this is the guarantee that I am giving you. So you get the trans transaction confirmation within like 200 milliseconds or like 100 millconds or maybe even less than that. So the sec and then the second power up is actually uh optimized proving. So this consists of advanced zk proving systems that improve efficiency and reduce cost which will be tailored specifically to the needs of that particular L2. hand zk proofs require typically uh too much effort when it comes to building the circuits.

So by optimizing this process we significantly imp improve the performance of the L2 while maintaining security. The third power up is advanced block building. This provides tools for builders to optimize value extraction and transaction ordering across layers. uh search based architecture creates unique opportunities for block builders to coordinate across L1 and L2 creating more efficient markets and reducing negative MV effects which actually all of us don't like and the final power up is uh seamless layer composibility which in simple words means that we are increasing uh uh we are increasing the efforts in reducing the fragmentation across Ross L1 and L2s. This provides a framework for us to have cross rollup communication allowing participants to work seamlessly through all the templates that are being deployed using this.

All the roll-ups that are being deployed using this template. So in simple words, I would say that all the base rollups that are deployed using this template can communicate with each other without any bridges or any messaging protocol between them. So surge uh isn't actually a product that we want to build and attract users with it but it's just a again I'm repeating this but it's just a technical showcase of how good u uh good team of researchers and engineers we have atm uh it is one of the truly decentralized high performant scaling solutions. Uh so we invite you to join us in this journey. So there are many ways in you can in in which you can get involved.

So you can explore the code on GitHub. Uh you can visit the website using this QR code which is search.wtf and um you can participate in discussions about the future of base rollups because that is what we feel the future would look like and we can continue to push the boundaries of what's possible. So I think like I'm a little ahead of time. So thank you for your time today and uh I believe surge represents an important step forward in realizing the actual uh principle that Ethereum has when it comes to future road map and I'm excited to see how people react to this technical showcase by nethermind and um and this is what we feel the next generation of blockchain would look like.

So thank you [Applause] Uh, I think we have a little bit of time for questions. Is there any questions? Hey, one. Yes. All right.

Hi. Uh, may I understand like search what language is it based on? And uh if it's based on Go then uh uh which uh stack did you actually pull up from? Yeah. So uh it is actually based on Go and uh I would like to point this out that this is something which we built in partnership with Tao which means that we have modified the Tao stack to be relevant to the changes that we require.

For example, the tokenless design which I said the multiprover security model and the all the other features which I mentioned are something which we modified from the tao stack. So basically whatever applies to the tao stack applies to us. So this rollup template would deploy the L2 which is EVM compatible. Solidity would be used as a uh language for programming uh any smart contracts on it and uh yeah I mean like are you asking about what is the actual text tag behind it like in which language? So it is in go and u you can contribute to the code on GitHub if you would like to.

So we are actually looking for people who are good at researching and engineering and yeah right uh I actually do have a question. Okay. So um you know like recently there you mentioned like one of the benefits of like this base rollup is that it doesn't require bridging between all these base rollups right and recently the super optimistic kind of ecosystem are al Ostack is essentially also talking about the same thing. I was wondering whether because obviously that's another stack right and is there a pathway that is very clear for you guys to see like whether these operups essentially that are adopting other architectures at this moment to be able to upgrade into base rollups in a simple manner because ideally that's if that is kind of like present and it's just a matter of decision then it's kind of like easier to gather all the liquidity hence the question. Thank you.

Okay. So I I feel it would not be possible for these OP stack rollups to shift to a being a base rollup because from an architectural point of view these are two separate things and they still need a centralized sequencer when it comes to optack. The only thing which optack has similar to this is the crosschain composibility feature which we talk about but in them it is the the crosschain composability component is coming because all of them are built on the same stack but in this case all of these transactions are going through Ethereum validators and that is the reason it is having this cross composibility feature which means that technically we did not do anything we are using the infrastructure which is already there and we don't want to create overburden for creating an L2. So to answer your question, it I don't think it would be possible for the OP stack to convert to being a base rollup if they don't make changes on the architectural level. Yeah, I agree on that one.

I was mainly thinking whether it would be a easy change or not because if it's an easy change then or like some sort of like module for like hey you know just give up on the sequencer then suddenly you are based and ultra based. May maybe we can try creating a module for the sequencer part but technically that is the part which is entirely different between these two systems. So it is again a techn architectural choice that these guys would have to take that if they want to do this thing or not because right now the the plugins which I was mentioning about like preconfirmations are still something which is under research by many people in the ecosystem. So it is not something which they can adopt right away. So yeah, sounds good.

We still have a little bit of time. Another question. One more. No, we're good. All right, seems like we're good.

Thank you, Aush. Thank you. [Music]