Pioneering the Future of Restaking: Unleashing Demand-Side Innovation Solutions Part 3

6 min readAug 11, 2024

Part 3: Unveiling the Mechanisms: A Deep Dive into the Core of Verisense

In the previous posts, we explored the landscape of staking for pooled security, the challenges of onboarding Actively Validated Services (AVS), and the unique features Verisense offers to support diverse AVS. We also highlighted the limitations of EigenLayer’s underlying design, which hinders the full potential of AVS, in contrast to Verisense’s ability to onboard and support a true variety of AVS.

In this article, we’ll delve into the core mechanics of Verisense, providing more detailed insights into how it operates. At the heart of Verisense lies the Monadrings protocol, a foundational element that enables both pooled security and enhanced performance.

The Monadring Protocol

Monadring, serving as the backbone of the Validation-as-a-Service (VaaS) module, is a protocol that enables scalable and lightweight consensus within the Verisense network. Drawing inspiration from the token ring architecture, Monadring allows nodes within an existing blockchain network to form smaller, lightweight subnets. These subnets can perform computations more efficiently and cost-effectively, all while maintaining the robust security guarantees of the main blockchain.

To better understand Monadring, it’s important to first grasp the concept of a token ring network.

What is Token Ring Network

A Token Ring network is a type of local area network (LAN) where devices are connected in a logical ring topology. This network design, developed by IBM in the early 1980s and standardized under IEEE 802.5, uses a token — a special data packet — that circulates around the network. Only the device holding the token can send data, a method that prevents collisions that might occur if multiple devices try to transmit simultaneously, as seen in architectures like Ethernet.

This token-based approach to managing access to the network shares similarities with the consensus mechanisms in blockchain networks, where a specific method determines which nodes can produce blocks.

How Monadring Adopts Token Ring Design

As mentioned earlier, a token in a network functions like a boat carrying data to the next station. In Monadring, all involved actors are organized into a circular structure where a token is passed around. Each actor is a process running on a physical node, dedicated to one active AVS validation cluster. As the token circulates, it collects and carries data from each actor it encounters.

For example, when the token starts at Actor 1, Actor 1 executes its task and records as Data 1 (D1), and the token then carries D1 as it moves clockwise to Actor 2. Actor 2 will execute both D1 and D2 in sequence, attaching the D2 data package to the token before it continues to Actor 3. This process repeats for all actors in the subnet.

The diagram below illustrates the first round of circulation, detailing steps 1 through 5:

The first circle round of token and data

But what happens when the token completes its first circle and moves from the last actor (Actor 5) back to the first actor (Actor 1)? In the second round of circulation, something different occurs. The following diagram demonstrates the second round, covering steps 6 through 10:

The second circle round of token and data

As shown, when the token moves from Step 5 to Step 6, the payload of the token changes. The D1 package is consumed, and a new D1 package is attached to the token’s data string. This deliberate design ensures that all actors in a subnet execute the same data package (including raw requests and directives) once, and update their local state (stored in a key-value database) to achieve final consistency across the subnet.

According to the Monadring paper, the data packages like D1, D2, D3, etc., contain a list of modification events from pending request queue, the actor’s digital signature, a digest of the actor’s local ledger after applying the modifications, a q value indicating how many times this group should be delivered, the signer’s nonce, and a ct value representing voting data using FHE (Fully Homomorphic Encryption).

You don’t need to grasp the full details of this formula right now, but it’s important to understand that each data package contains crucial information.

With this understanding of the Monadring subnet topology, we can further explore the dynamic mechanisms of Monadring.

The Mechanism of Monadring

According to the Monadring paper, when a new AVS is registered on Verisense, Monadring initializes a set of nodes (actors) to join this AVS’s subnet. There is a candidate node pool from which Monadring uses a Verifiable Random Function (VRF) to select nodes. These nodes are then configured as a token ring network, marking the start of the AVS subnet’s circulation.

The concept of an epoch is central to this process. In blockchain, an epoch is a defined period during which specific activities occur within the network. At the beginning of each epoch, Monadring uses a randomness algorithm to rotate the node set of the AVS. This means some nodes (actors) are swapped out, and new nodes are invited in, creating a fresh validator set for the AVS subnet in the new epoch. This rotation enhances the security of the subnet.

This process is fundamental to Monadring’s implementation of pooled security.

If a node detects any malicious behavior during the token ring circulation, it uses an FHE-enabled (Fully Homomorphic Encryption) algorithm to report the fraud. FHE ensures a blind voting thus the reporter’s identity remains confidential to avoid the bribery yet the whole voting process can be traced as the proof of invalidity for the role of Resolver or Auditor with a private key, further enhancing the subnet’s security.

FHE effectively transforms a perfect information game into an imperfect information game, a powerful and critical feature for Monadring’s fraud tolerance and slashing mechanism.

The workflow can be summarized in the following pseudo code:

Conclusion

In this article, we unveiled the mechanism of Monadring, an innovative consensus protocol at the core of Verisense. Monadring is the driving force behind Verisense’s performance and shared security. We believe these innovations will help us explore the forefront of Web3, bringing new types of real-world AVSs into focus.