Madara: High-performance Starknet sorter, the cornerstone of personalized application chain

Featured Quick Facts

• Madara is a high-performance Starknet sequencer that provides the ability to create customized and efficient application chains.
• Madara enhances the performance of Cairo VM by using the Substrate framework, resulting in provably safe and flexible programs.
• There are many benefits to implementing Madara, such as scalable infrastructure, high throughput, and unprecedented control over applications.
• Madara's unique features include support for potential on-chain privacy, smooth cross-chain interoperability, and robust execution.
• Madara is paving the way for dApp development in the blockchain space, providing cost-effective, scalable and customizable solutions.

Introduction

Imagine if you could tailor a blockchain to the unique needs of your application — that's exactly what Lisk provides. Lisk is an application-specific blockchain that provides developers with the flexibility to fine-tune aspects of the chain to meet their application's needs, such as choosing a different hash function or custom consensus algorithm. Best of all, an application chain built on a strong L1 or L2 and inheriting the security of L1 or L2 provides developers with the best of both worlds.

Madara is a game-changing sequencer that combines flexibility with lightning-fast performance. A sequencer is an entity responsible for executing transactions and grouping them into batches. As an entry point to start your own Starknet AppChain, Madara opens up vast possibilities for experimentation in the Starknet ecosystem like never before.

Before we delve into how Madara endows Starknet application chains with powerful functions, we need to answer a question: Why would developers choose to build application chains on Starknet instead of directly using Starknet effective Rollup? One might wonder if Starknet is good enough for most scenarios.

Let's first understand why Lisk is an attractive way to expand the Starknet ecosystem.

Why choose Application Chain

Madara, developed by the StarkWare Discovery Team (also known as Keep Starknet Strange), was designed to fulfill StarkWare's vision of fractal expansion. There are many reasons why developers choose to build a Starknet application chain (or L3 layer) instead of directly relying on Starknet.

Throughput

Application developers face significant challenges when it comes to the scalability of existing blockchain infrastructure. Scalability consists of two key points: high speed and low cost. By reducing the cost of each layer by a thousand times, developers can significantly reduce the overall cost from L1 to L3 by up to a million times. Throughput is unaffected by third-party app activity, as the app is equipped with a dedicated blockchain and does not compete with it for resources, ensuring a consistently smooth experience.

Customization

Universal chains such as Starknet and Ethereum have taken various measures to ensure that everyone can use the network, resulting in a restricted environment. Through Lisk, developers can fine-tune aspects of their applications and infrastructure to create custom solutions. If you don't like a certain feature of Cairo VM, you can remove it in your application chain.

Innovation

Lisk's customizability also enables developers to use features that are currently unavailable or risky in environments such as Starknet. Lisk gives autonomy to all teams, allowing them to freely write and authorize any code hints they need. This enables Lisk to unlock many use cases, such as enabling on-chain KYC without revealing private information.

Madara's impact on Lisk stack

Next, let's understand the interaction between the various layers that drive the application chain, and Madara's role in it.

• Execution: The execution layer defines the execution of blocks and the generation of state differences. Madara has the flexibility to switch between two execution packages (blockifier for StarkWare and starknet_in_rust for LambdaClass). Regardless of which package is chosen, the underlying framework uses the Cairo VM. The Cairo language facilitates the creation of provable programs, enabling the demonstration of correct computational execution.
• Settlement: As a Validity Rollup, the state of the Madara application chain can be reconstructed just by checking its settlement layer. By more frequent settlement on Starknet L2, the L3 application chain can achieve faster hard finality, and the decentralization of the ordering layer can achieve stronger soft finality. Thus, settlement is enhanced in both aspects (hard and soft finality).
• Sorting: Madara takes care of the sorting process, which can be changed according to the needs of the application, whether it is a simple FCFS, PGA or a more complex Narwhall & Bullshark scheme. Some application chains may choose to deploy encrypted memory pools to ensure fair ordering and mitigate the impact of MEV.
• Data Availability: Data Availability guarantees that the full state tree is always accessible, giving users confidence that they can prove ownership of their funds even if there is an outage on Madara. Madara will provide developers with a range of Data Availability (DA) options to choose from.
• Governance: Each Madara application chain can choose its governance model. Snapshot X provides a fully on-chain governance system that relies on proof-of-storage. Other governance mechanisms are still being explored, such as the native Substrate governance tray. On-chain governance is the core value of Madara.

Enter the application chain: Madara

Madara leverages the Substrate framework and integrates Cairo VM to execute Cairo programs and Starknet smart contracts, thereby enhancing Cairo VM. Substrate is an open-source Rust framework known for its flexibility for building customizable blockchains. The Cairo VM, meanwhile, is specifically designed to efficiently generate validity proofs of program execution. Lisk ensures secure integration with Starknet by employing state tracking and smart contracts to verify proofs on L2. As a result, Madara can take advantage of Cairo's powerful capabilities to achieve provable program execution.

The inherent modularity of the Substrate framework allows developers to easily customize application chains. No assumptions are imposed, allowing you to integrate your own consensus protocols, hash functions, signature schemes, storage layouts, etc. into your application, while still leveraging Cairo to generate proofs. Developers are free to do whatever they want without restriction while remaining provable, and inherit the security of the underlying chain (be it Starknet or Ethereum).

Initially, Madara will be highly similar to Starknet, enabling the composability of smart contracts within the Starknet ecosystem. There are even bigger plans for the future as Starknet integrates with Herodotus to leverage proof-of-storage for interoperability. The integration of proof-of-storage will also allow the Madara appchain to take into account the state and liquidity of other chains.

Get ready to witness a new era as Madara opens up the possibilities of the Starknet kingdom!