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Ephemeral Rollups are All you Need

Gabriele Picco, Andrea Fortugno

TL;DR

The paper tackles the scalability and composability challenges of fully on-chain games by leveraging the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) and introducing Ephemeral Rollups (ERs) as on-demand, configurable runtimes that temporarily host delegated state. It adopts an Entity-Component-System (ECS) pattern to enable modular, reusable on-chain components and maps between on-chain state and rendering engines, supported by a Public Components Registry. Security is addressed through a hybrid optimistic computation with zero-knowledge verification and DePIN-staked provisioners to ensure trust and verifiability, while preserving base-layer composability and avoiding state fragmentation. The proposed framework enables high-throughput, low-latency multiplayer gaming at scale and is applicable to Autonomous Worlds and beyond, potentially transforming how on-chain experiences are built and experienced.

Abstract

In the realm of open and composable gaming, we envision platforms where users actively expand, create, engage, and immerse themselves in a rich world of entertainment. One promising avenue for achieving this vision is through fully on-chain (FOC) games, where both game state and logic reside on the blockchain, maximizing composability. However, we must grapple with inherent limitations and trade-offs, particularly in terms of costs and scalability. This paper proposes a framework that leverages the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) to scale FOC games without state fragmentation or compromised trust assumptions. The framework introduces a systematic approach for discovering, utilizing, and publishing modular pieces of logic as components deeply rooted in the Entity-Component-System (ECS) pattern. To enhance scalability and resource optimization, we introduce the concept of Ephemeral Rollups (ERs) that overcome the tradeoffs of L2 horizontal scaling. These dedicated runtimes can be customized to provide higher operational speed, configurable ticking mechanisms, provable sessions and gasless transactions without composability-scalability tradeoffs.

Ephemeral Rollups are All you Need

TL;DR

The paper tackles the scalability and composability challenges of fully on-chain games by leveraging the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) and introducing Ephemeral Rollups (ERs) as on-demand, configurable runtimes that temporarily host delegated state. It adopts an Entity-Component-System (ECS) pattern to enable modular, reusable on-chain components and maps between on-chain state and rendering engines, supported by a Public Components Registry. Security is addressed through a hybrid optimistic computation with zero-knowledge verification and DePIN-staked provisioners to ensure trust and verifiability, while preserving base-layer composability and avoiding state fragmentation. The proposed framework enables high-throughput, low-latency multiplayer gaming at scale and is applicable to Autonomous Worlds and beyond, potentially transforming how on-chain experiences are built and experienced.

Abstract

In the realm of open and composable gaming, we envision platforms where users actively expand, create, engage, and immerse themselves in a rich world of entertainment. One promising avenue for achieving this vision is through fully on-chain (FOC) games, where both game state and logic reside on the blockchain, maximizing composability. However, we must grapple with inherent limitations and trade-offs, particularly in terms of costs and scalability. This paper proposes a framework that leverages the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) to scale FOC games without state fragmentation or compromised trust assumptions. The framework introduces a systematic approach for discovering, utilizing, and publishing modular pieces of logic as components deeply rooted in the Entity-Component-System (ECS) pattern. To enhance scalability and resource optimization, we introduce the concept of Ephemeral Rollups (ERs) that overcome the tradeoffs of L2 horizontal scaling. These dedicated runtimes can be customized to provide higher operational speed, configurable ticking mechanisms, provable sessions and gasless transactions without composability-scalability tradeoffs.
Paper Structure (23 sections, 2 figures)

This paper contains 23 sections, 2 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Game Logic, State, and Transactions
  3. Outline
  4. Framework Architecture
  5. SVM runtime
  6. Ephemeral Rollups
  7. Avoiding Fragmentation and Benefits
  8. Reading and Modifying the state
  9. Account/programs lazy loading and Data Availability
  10. Security and Computation Trustworthiness
  11. SVM as a Multiplayer Game Server
  12. ECS, Mapping and Registry
  13. Mapping and State listening
  14. Public Components Registry
  15. Game Loops, Ticking and FRP
  16. ...and 8 more sections

Figures (2)

  • Figure 1: The figure showcases the architecture of the Ephemeral Rollups scalability solution, focusing on how a game program manages its state across multiple accounts. The example illustrates two PDAs, each responsible for recording a state, which could be the position of players. These PDAs are then delegated to the Ephemeral Rollup delegation program (DLP). In the background, the Provisioner constantly observes the DLP program, watching for provisioning requests. Upon detection, it dynamically launches an SVM runtime, adjusting to specific configuration parameters like block time, ticking, and others. Within the Ephemeral Rollup (ER) framework, transactions using these delegated accounts are accelerated. After validation, the account state is updated and finalized on the L1.
  • Figure 2: The RPC router module routes both HTTPS and WebSocket requests either to the base layer RPC or to the Ephemeral Rollup RPC, based on the accounts being accessed or utilized.