Preconfs Evolution: From "Patches" to "Infrastructure", How Does UniFi AVS Impact the Game Rules of Based Rollup?

Written by: Web3 Farmer Frank

Why has Based Rollup, regarded as the "orthodox" scaling solution for Ethereum, always been "well-received but underutilized"?

On one hand, it achieves the most thorough alignment of security and decentralization with the mainnet by returning the ordering rights to L1, but on the other hand, it has to endure a confirmation delay of up to 12 seconds, which almost deters high-frequency trading and real-time financial scenarios.

Therefore, Preconfs have been proposed as a necessary patch for Based Rollup, attempting to smooth out the delay with sub-second transaction commitments, but for a long time, Preconfs have mostly remained in a small-scale, non-standardized exploratory phase, lacking a unified mechanism and stable returns, and have never truly scaled.

Recently, Puffer Finance's Ethereum security infrastructure product "UniFi AVS" has finally attempted to upgrade Preconfs from a temporary performance patch to a reusable standardized infrastructure, aiming to bring sub-10ms confirmation speeds and introduce institutional design at the security and economic incentive levels.

This article will analyze the core capabilities, technical paths, and ecological impacts of UniFi AVS from the perspective of an industry observer, and discuss whether it can truly become a key variable for Based Rollup—and even the broader Ethereum Rollup ecosystem.

1. UniFi AVS: Preconfs, No Longer Just a "Patch"

To understand the significance of this upgrade, we need to revisit the core logic of Based Rollup.

In the narrative of Ethereum's scaling, Based Rollup completely aligns with the mainnet in terms of security and decentralization by returning the ordering rights to L1 validators, but it also brings an unavoidable trade-off—while inheriting the security of the mainnet, it also incurs about 12 seconds of block confirmation delay.

As a result, Preconfs have become a necessary patch for Based Rollup, responsible for providing users with transaction execution commitments in advance before the transaction is truly submitted to L1 (see further reading: “Understanding Puffer UniFi AVS: From Preconfs to the Next Decade of Ethereum?”), it can be said that to fully unleash the potential of Based Rollup, a permissionless, neutral, and flexible pre-confirmation service must be realized.

However, for quite a long time, Preconfs have mostly remained in a "small workshop" stage (non-standardized, peer-to-peer solutions), typically run by a few nodes or project parties, lacking unified standards and stable revenue models. If the nodes responsible for pre-confirmation go offline or act maliciously, transactions may fail or even suffer from MEV attacks, leading to serious deficiencies in reliability and sustainability.

Puffer's UniFi AVS is a systematic solution to this dilemma, it no longer treats Preconfs as a temporary patch but upgrades it to a callable infrastructure layer, with the core idea being to reconstruct Preconfs as standardized cloud services akin to AWS.

Specifically, UniFi AVS starts from three main lines, not only allowing Based Rollup to run faster but also ensuring sustainable returns and institutional guarantees in security mechanisms:

• Performance-wise, it compresses transaction confirmations to sub-10ms, providing an instant user experience comparable to Solana or even centralized exchanges;
• Economically, through a protocol-level profit-sharing mechanism, it allows Rollup to no longer "work for L1," but instead share profits with validators and gateways;
• Security-wise, relying on a guarantee of up to $13 billion in Restaked ETH and a slashing mechanism, transforming "verbal commitments" into "costly contracts," creating institutional constraints;

For developers and Rollup projects, the emergence of UniFi AVS means they no longer need to design and maintain complex ordering and confirmation logic themselves, but can directly access a verified pre-confirmation infrastructure like calling AWS cloud services—plug-and-play, on-demand scaling, allowing more focus on product and user layers.

This modular design also makes it possible for Preconfs to be further productized and generate spillover effects—not only can Rollup project parties avoid reinventing the wheel, but in the future, wallets, DApps, and upper-layer protocols can also access standardized APIs to uniformly enjoy the capabilities of "instant confirmation + economic alignment + security guarantees," truly turning "speed and stability" into a public foundational service of the Ethereum ecosystem.

From this perspective, UniFi AVS allows Preconfs to transcend the positioning of a mere performance patch, standardizing performance, returns, and security all at once, promoting its leap from an additional feature to a middle-layer infrastructure for Ethereum scaling, paving a more sustainable path for the scaling of Based Rollup.

It is worth noting that Puffer also emphasizes that the applicability of UniFi AVS is not limited to Based Rollup; from a design perspective, its registry mechanism can also provide sub-10ms instant confirmation capabilities for any OP Stack Rollup and plans to support more Rollup architectures in the future. In other words, it is positioned as a universal pre-confirmation infrastructure with cross-architecture potential.

Of course, whether all Rollups are willing to cede Sequencer profits to AVS remains uncertain, and it can even be asserted that it will be difficult to achieve in the early stages—after all, the sequencer is never just a technical issue but a deeply intertwined problem of interest distribution:

In the L2 economic system, who is responsible for dividing the pie, who is planned to receive it, and how should it be divided?

Therefore, whether Preconfs will ultimately evolve into a public standard for the entire Rollup ecosystem or primarily serve the Based path is not only a choice of technical route but also a game of business models and interest distribution, which will undoubtedly be a question that needs continuous observation in the coming years.

2. How to Reconstruct Preconfs as Standardized Infrastructure?

Objectively speaking, since the concept of Rollup was proposed, Ethereum's scaling has not lacked concepts but rather the engineering capability for implementation.

After all, for a technology to evolve from a clever "function" to a robust "infrastructure," it usually needs to meet three core conditions: clear service commitments, reliable security guarantees, and sustainable economic models.

In other words, it must transition from a technical concept to "engineering" implementation, which is essential for it to truly have the conditions for scalable operation. Puffer's UniFi AVS approach is largely similar—transforming Preconfs from scattered small-scale attempts into reusable, scalable, economically incentivized infrastructure.

In other words, how to make Preconfs no longer a "temporary commitment" of certain nodes but designed as a standardized network service.

1. Execution Preconfs: From "Inclusion Guarantee" to "Execution Guarantee"

The first step is to achieve an upgrade from Inclusion Preconfs to Execution Preconfs.

In the traditional Inclusion Preconfs model, users are only promised that their transactions will be included in a block, but the state during transaction execution cannot be guaranteed, so users may still encounter price slippage or even MEV front-running.

Execution Preconfs further upgrade to "execution guarantees," ensuring that transactions will be executed in the state at the time the user submits them—once a user places an order, the state will be locked, and the transaction will only execute in that state; otherwise, it will not be valid.

For example, if you place an order to buy ETH at a price of 4400 USDC:

• In the Inclusion model, by the time the transaction is executed, the market price may have risen to 4410 USDC, and it will still be executed, but the execution price is not what you expected at 4400;
• If it is the Execution model, regardless of market fluctuations, the system will guarantee the execution price of 4400 USDC, and the transaction will only execute if this condition is met;

This upgrades Preconfs from "advance tickets" to "certainty of execution," significantly enhancing user experience and providing stronger reliability for price-sensitive financial applications such as DeFi, derivatives, and payments.

2. Gateway Architecture and Frags Technology: Compressing Delay to Below 10 Milliseconds

Puffer also introduces a Collateral-backed Gateway architecture (pioneered by the Gattaca team), allowing L1 proposers to delegate pre-confirmation execution rights to more specialized Gateways.

With the help of frags (block fragments) technology and lookahead mechanisms, Gateways can process transactions in advance before the actual block is produced, shortening the window of state switching. Theoretically, under optimal configurations, transaction delays can be reduced to below 10 milliseconds (sub-10ms).

This brings the user experience to a theoretical level comparable to high-performance public chains like Solana.

3. Restaked ETH Security Endorsement: Making Commitments "Costly"

Past Preconfs largely relied on the "self-discipline" of nodes; once they went offline or acted maliciously, users had almost no compensation mechanism.

Puffer's upgraded version uses EigenLayer's restaking mechanism (Restaking), ensuring that each Gateway is backed by staked ETH from validators (phased implementation)—if a node becomes inactive, it may be penalized 1 ETH; if it maliciously extracts MEV or violates commitments, it may trigger slashing at the level of 1000 ETH.

Unlike PoS penalties, the slashed ETH from Preconfs will compensate users who use Preconf services, directly enhancing economic alignment and transforming the previously soft commitments reliant on node reputation into hard commitments constrained by clear slashing mechanisms, significantly improving institutional constraints.

At the same time, Puffer has established a Canonical Preconf Gateway Registry to ensure that all Gateways enter an orderly, public, and verifiable registration system.

4. Programmable Profit Sharing: Institutionalized Multi-Party Value Distribution

Having speed and security is not enough; for Preconfs to become infrastructure, they must also operate sustainably.

To this end, the upgraded UniFi AVS includes a Rewards Distributor, allowing flexible profit distribution among Rollup teams, Ethereum proposers, and Gateway providers, achieving programmable profit sharing at the protocol level:

• Rollup teams: Retain a portion of transaction fees, no longer "working for L1";
• Ethereum proposers (validators): Earn additional income by providing Preconfs;
• Gateway providers: Receive incentives for running the network, ensuring service stability;

Thus, profit sharing is no longer a temporary agreement but a system written into the protocol and executed automatically, forming a long-term closed loop of economic alignment among Rollup, validators, and Gateways.

This multi-dimensional mechanism design is key to Preconfs transitioning from a single-point solution to a scalable, trustworthy public infrastructure.

3. The Beneficiary Landscape Under Multi-Party Games

Any infrastructure upgrade is not just a technical evolution but also a redistribution of interests.

The uniqueness of UniFi AVS lies in its binding of performance, security, and economic incentives together, allowing multiple ecological roles to find value within the same mechanism—from Rollup project parties to Ethereum validators, developers, and end users. It transforms Preconf from a patch into a sustainable modular service, enabling all participants to benefit on a stronger vessel.

First and foremost are the Rollup project parties, who gain a dual unlocking of performance and revenue.

In the past, Based Rollup was often criticized in the market for being "slow and unprofitable," especially as its economic model almost entirely favored L1 validators. With the Execution Preconfs of UniFi AVS, Rollups can plug and play to achieve sub-10ms confirmation speeds, significantly enhancing user experience.

At the same time, the profit-sharing mechanism at the protocol level allows Rollup teams to retain some economic returns without relying entirely on external subsidies, which represents a dual dividend of speed enhancement and revenue sharing for project parties.

Next are the Ethereum validators / Restakers, who reap new sources of income.

Since L1 validators are the direct executors of Preconfs, by participating in UniFi AVS, validators can earn new Preconf service revenues in addition to traditional block rewards.

Moreover, Restaked ETH not only provides security endorsement but also increases the profit opportunities for validators, which in turn enhances the attractiveness of staking ETH, thereby strengthening Ethereum's overall economic security and transforming validators from merely running nodes into "providing value-added services and obtaining additional income."

Additionally, Gateway providers have had their roles formally institutionalized in this upgrade.

Puffer has established a Canonical Gateway Registry, making Gateways standardized nodes in the network rather than temporary roles. Once they obtain delegation rights, Gateways can achieve pre-confirmation below 10 milliseconds through the operation of frags technology and lookahead mechanisms;

Their services are directly linked to economic incentives and are subject to slashing mechanisms, providing both revenue and costs, which transforms Gateways from "volunteers" into genuine infrastructure service providers.

At the same time, developers can benefit from lower thresholds and stronger composability.

After all, in the past, if developers wanted to achieve instant confirmation on Rollup, they often needed to build complex mechanisms themselves, which was time-consuming and difficult to standardize. The upgraded UniFi AVS, through modular APIs, allows developers to directly access instant confirmation capabilities like calling cloud services.

Whether for DEXs, derivatives protocols, or high-frequency GameFi applications, they can quickly enjoy the experience enhancement brought by sub-10ms confirmations, which not only reduces the cost of building infrastructure but also minimizes the risk of MEV theft, allowing developers to focus more on application layer innovation.

Finally, ordinary users are the most direct beneficiaries, experiencing for the first time a Solana-level or even close to CEX-level smooth experience on Ethereum Rollup:

• In terms of speed, transaction confirmation time is reduced from 12 seconds to 10 milliseconds, providing an experience comparable to centralized exchanges;
• In terms of certainty, Execution Preconfs guarantee price locking from the protocol commitment level, avoiding slippage and front-running;
• In terms of security, the Restaked ETH endorsement and slashing mechanism make commitments "costly," allowing users to receive compensation in case of default;

From a higher perspective, the upgrade of Puffer UniFi AVS is not just a product evolution but establishes industry standards for Preconfs, upgrading them from patches to infrastructure, and even transforming them into standardized middle-layer services for Ethereum.

This not only enables Based Rollup to truly have the potential to run fast, earn well, and be secure but also strengthens Ethereum's long-term narrative as a Security Settlement Layer.

Conclusion

Looking back at Ethereum's scaling process over the past five years, Rollup has undoubtedly been the absolute main line, but how to find a truly feasible balance among performance, economics, and security—the "impossible triangle"—has always remained unresolved.

Especially for Based Rollup, this "orthodox scaling path" for Ethereum has been stuck on the last puzzle piece of scaling and commercial operation. Therefore, objectively speaking, the recent launch of Puffer's UniFi AVS can be considered one of the highly feasible explorations to complete this puzzle.

The deeper significance lies in that it paints a clear "endgame" possibility for the future of modular blockchains: any emerging Rollup can build directly on top of UniFi AVS without reinventing the wheel, quickly obtaining performance experiences comparable to Solana, security at the level of Ethereum mainnet, and a self-consistent economic model.

However, whether it can ultimately become an industry consensus depends not only on the robustness and openness of its design but also on whether it can find the optimal balance point in the complex Rollup ecosystem and multi-party interest games.

Thus, for the industry, it serves as a key observation window in the next one to two years to measure whether the Based Rollup narrative can truly mature.