data-availability.md

Data Availability

Data availability (DA) ensures that all transaction data required to verify the chain's state is accessible to anyone.

Why DA Matters

Without data availability guarantees:

• Nodes can't verify state transitions
• Users can't prove their balances
• The chain's security model breaks down

Evolve uses external DA layers to provide these guarantees, rather than storing all data on L1.

How Evolve Handles Data Availability

Evolve is DA-agnostic and can integrate with different DA layers:

Local DA

• Use case: Development and testing
• Guarantee: None (operator can withhold data)
• Latency: Instant

Celestia

• Use case: Production deployments
• Guarantee: Data availability sampling (DAS)
• Latency: ~12 seconds to finality

Custom DA

Implement the DA interface to integrate any DA layer.

DA Flow

Block Produced
      │
      ▼
┌─────────────────┐
│   Submitter     │  Queues block for DA
└────────┬────────┘
         │
         ▼
┌─────────────────┐
│   DA Layer      │  Stores and orders data
└────────┬────────┘
         │
         ▼
┌─────────────────┐
│   Full Nodes    │  Retrieve and verify
└─────────────────┘

Namespaces

Evolve uses DA namespaces to organize data:

Namespace	Purpose
Header	Block headers
Data	Transaction data
Forced Inclusion	User-submitted transactions

Best Practices

• Development: Use Local DA for fast iteration
• Testnet: Use Celestia testnet (Mocha or Arabica)
• Production: Use Celestia mainnet or equivalent

Learn More

• Local DA Guide
• Celestia Guide
• DA Interface Reference