What is Layer? Introducing Decentralized Control and AVS for Web3

Layer is a technology stack that allows you to build layers. Built on top of EigenLayer, Layer uses WebAssembly (Wasm) smart contracts written in Rust, leveraging the safety and performance of Rust's architecture. (The chain itself is built in Rust). This framework provides a secure and robust environment for decentralized, full-stack applications. Further along the roadmap, Layer will support Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC), making it a cross-chain powerhouse, allowing assets and data to flow smoothly between various blockchain networks.

What sets Layer apart, however, is its support for AVSs (Actively Validated Services), which enable communities to build tailored applications on the network. An AVS allows a service, like an AI-based bouncer for a Discord server, to be run verifiably and governed by the community. This creates an ecosystem where governance and security go hand in hand, with the power to vote on the AI's operations directly in the hands of the users.

Layer is more than an Ethereum Layer 2 solution. It’s a vision of decentralized application control. It empowers users to directly influence AI agents and services in their communities, from content moderation to governance, without intermediaries. This is how we begin to transcend the old ways of top-down control, moving toward a future where networks serve the many, not the few.

This blog post outlines what Layer is, why we care about it, and how we intend to build it from here.

What is Layer?

Layer is a cutting-edge Ethereum L2 solution that combines several powerful technologies:

Wasm… Everywhere: Layer utilizes WebAssembly for smart contract execution, allowing developers to write contracts and services—oracles, code that runs in the browser—in Rust. This approach provides improved safety and performance compared to traditional Solidity-based contracts, as well as easy modularity and hackability for Ethereum L2s. A Wasm Wonderland.

IBC: Layer incorporates the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol, enabling seamless communication and asset transfers between Layer and other compatible blockchains.

AVS Support: Layer supports Actively Validated Services (AVSs), services that run off-chain, but can be verified on-chain. (As we’ll soon see, AVS support enables wild governance possibilities, like collectively governed AI agents!).

Commitments. Layer lets users provide economic security to AVSs in the form of commitments. This allows users to gain rewards from services and let communities better govern the tools that matter to them. (At the ecosystem level, commitments create a mesh of mutually assured secure compute—a topic we’ll cover in a future post!).

Why Layer?

Why are we building Layer?

• Enhanced Security: Rust's memory safety guarantees and Wasm's sandboxed execution environment provide a robust foundation for smart contract development.
• Interoperability: IBC support allows for easy integration with other blockchain ecosystems.
• Scalability: By leveraging EigenLayer's restaking mechanism, Layer can rapidly scale by taking advantage of Ethereum's extensive validator network.
• Flexible Compute: Layer enables the deployment of complex applications, including AI-driven services, directly on the blockchain.

Example: the Discord bouncer

Imagine you run a Discord server with some friends. You want to gate the server—effectively, to make sure new entrants pass a “vibe check” before entering. You need, in other words, a bouncer.

But no one wants to be a bouncer. It’s hard work. And even if someone did, how could we trust them to provide a vibe check equitably to all users? Ideally, it would be great to have a bouncer bot—a large language model that does the vibe check for us. 

But who would host this system? Whoever hosted it would have the ability to tweak its prompts, subtly enforcing their preferences, thus distorting the membership of the group in the long-run! (If you’re thinking, “Who would bother manipulating a Discord server,” just imagine one where there’s money, power, and influence on the line!).

Here enters the AVS. With an AVS, this Discord community can run a bouncer bot directly—and have that bouncer’s prompts subject to DAO governance! Using a DAO, the entire community could vote on what prompts the bouncer asks, and how the bouncer should understand users’ responses. The bot's behavior becomes a reflection of the collective will of the community, rather than being controlled by a single admin or small group of moderators. And, with AVSs, this bot can be run in a verifiable manner—independent of the arbitrary will of any one member.

This concept is meant to illustrate the world of possibilities for AVSs—for decentralized AI governance in particular. Imagine AI agents that can:

1. Moderate content across various platforms, with community-defined standards.
2. Curate and fact-check news and information, guided by community consensus.
3. Provide personalized education or health advice, with ethical guidelines set by experts and stakeholders.

Instead of leaving powerful AI tools in the hands of a few tech giants, we can create a future where AI serves the interests of the communities it operates in. This democratization of AI governance ensures greater transparency, accountability, and alignment with human values. And, as these agents make more and more important decisions, decentralized control can allow human experts to govern their behavior more directly, foster innovation through diverse inputs, and prevent the misuse of AI for manipulative or harmful purposes by bad actors.

And that’s just AI. AVSs could power social networks, sharing economy platforms, and beyond. We’re not just creating interesting applications – we're laying the groundwork for a more equitable and user-centric internet.

The road ahead

As we build Layer, we're not just creating another Ethereum L2. We're constructing a decentralized ecosystem where cooperation is enforced by cryptography rather than courts, and where communities can govern themselves without external interference. Like commitment protocols, Layer allows users to embed trust directly into the fabric of their networks. Whether it’s through staking tokens to secure AVSs or collectively governing AI-driven services, Layer transforms human cooperation by allowing users to dictate the rules of their digital environments.

This is why we’re here in Web3—not just to create faster or more scalable blockchains, but to fundamentally change how we organize and collaborate as a society. Layer, through its AVS framework, commitments, and decentralized governance, represents a step toward a more equitable, transparent, and community-driven internet. It’s not just about building better tools—it's about reshaping how those tools empower communities to control their own futures.

We have an exciting path ahead of us. We’ll be working over the next months to a series of testnets. While roadmaps are always living things, here’s how we see the path ahead of us:

Phase 1: Base demo/devnet

• Browse, interact with, and create (w/ CLI) an AVS
• Create a commitment to an AVS
• Visualize personal commitments

Phase 2: Testnet v1

• Create an AVS (w/ UI)
• AVS manager
• Rewards visualizations & actions
• Designing a framework for AI agents

Phase 3: Testnet v2

• DAO-managed vaults
• Global commitments/ecosystem visualization
• Commit in exchange for things other than rewards (e.g. governance, services)

Alongside building, we’ll be publishing a series of blog posts that lay out various details of the Layer stack and vision.

In the next blog post, we'll take a deep dive into WAVS, Layer's WASI runtime, exploring how it provides economic security across the network of AVSs.
Stay tuned!