Chainbound, a crypto research and development company, recently raised a $4.6 million seed funding round for its project, Bolt.

The Bolt protocol aims to revolutionize Ethereum transactions by introducing sub-second confirmation times through innovative preconfirmation technology. This ambitious initiative is expected to accelerate Ethereum's transaction processing and enhance the user experience dramatically.

Bolt Protocol: Overview and Goals

Bolt is reportedly designed to tackle Ethereum's current confirmation delays, which average around seven seconds. Using preconfirmation technology, Bolt assures transaction confirmations within a second. Per reports, this reduction in confirmation time could transform how users and applications interact with Ethereum.

Chainbound's goal with Bolt is to create a more efficient and user-friendly Ethereum ecosystem, enhancing both the platform's user experience and its resistance to censorship.

How Bolt Works

Bolt operates out-of-protocol, using restaking to provide economic assurances. This design means that Bolt does not alter Ethereum's existing block production pipeline but integrates seamlessly with it. 

The protocol is structured to function in an optimistic failure mode, allowing proposers to breach commitments but incurring penalties for such breaches. This approach ensures that commitments remain credible and reliable.

The protocol’s core principles are:

• Trustless: No new trusted entities are introduced. Instead, commitments are supported by economic assurances rather than trusted intermediaries.

• Credible: Proposers are held accountable for their commitments. Breaching commitments results in penalties, which reinforces the credibility of the system.

• Permissionless: Any proposer can participate in Bolt, and any user can request commitments, removing the need for a central authority.

• Compatible: Bolt is designed to work with the existing Proposer-Bidder Separation (PBS) pipeline and will eventually be compatible with enhanced PBS (ePBS). The integration requires only a minor adjustment to the MEV-boost and the addition of a sidecar.

The Concept of Preconfirmations

Preconfirmations are a new approach to transaction processing in Ethereum, proposed by Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake. They enable transactions to receive confirmation before being added to a block, which can otherwise take from seven seconds to several minutes. Preconfirmations come in two forms:

• Inclusion Preconfirmations: These guarantee that a transaction will be included in a block if it complies with protocol rules. They are particularly useful for transactions such as transfers, mints, and approvals. Key benefits include instant preconfirmations for transactions, reduced execution risks for liquidity bridges and app-specific sequencers, and enhanced settlement guarantees for rollups.

   

• State Preconfirmations: These commit to specific state transitions, significantly improving Ethereum's user experience. While challenging to implement due to the need for proposer opt-in, state preconfirmations could shift Ethereum’s transaction processing from a discrete to a continuous mode, limited only by network and processing speeds rather than consensus delays.

With sub-second confirmations, users can expect a much more responsive and efficient blockchain experience. Bolt’s compatibility with existing systems means that its integration into Ethereum's infrastructure will be smoother, accelerating its market adoption, according to the Chainbound team.