Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), an American venture capital firm, is launching Helios, a Rust-driven Ethereum light client that aims to give trustless connectivity to the Ethereum network. a16z crypto, the firm’s venture capital unit that focuses on crypto- and web3 firms, announced the move.
“Trustlessness is among the chief factors we utilize blockchains. This characteristics claims to provide us with autonomous access to our assets and information. The majority of blockchains, such as Ethereum, have fulfilled this guarantee – our resources are genuinely ours,” the cryptocurrency fund added.
“Nevertheless, we have made sacrifices for the purpose of simplicity. One of these areas is our utilization of centralized RPC (remote procedure call) systems.”
As per a16z crypto, users often connect to Ethereum blockchain via centralized providers including Alchemy, which operate top notch nodes on cloud servers to facilitate others’ simple access to chain content.
“Whenever a wallet searches its token holdings or verifies whether a pending trade was added to a block, it does so nearly usually by utilizing one of these centralized systems. The difficulty with the existing arrangement is that consumers must trust the providers, while there is no mechanism to check the accuracy of their searches,” the fund explained, noting that its proposed approach is intended to address this issue.
The Silicon Valley company claims that Helios, whose usage of Ethereum’s light client covenant is enabled by the blockchain’s transition to proof of stake (PoS), transforms info from an untrusted RPC source into an RPC that is provably secure and local.
As per a16z, “Helios interacts with centralized RPCs to enable it to authenticate their validity without operating a complete node.” It “is an Ethereum light client that synchronizes in approximately two seconds, does not need storage, and enables entirely trustless connectivity to Ethereum.” Helios, like some of the other Ethereum applications, comprises an execution plane and a consensus mechanism. In contrast to the majority of other protocols, Helios securely binds both levels so that customers only require to install and operate a sole piece of software.”
The cryptocurrency fund wants Helios’ users to review its software and send bug documents, suggestions, and source code to help a16z crypto expand the capabilities of its platform. In recent years, the U.S. company has expanded its cryptocurrency investment portfolio. The expert in venture financing revealed a $4.5 billion fourth fund earlier this May, increasing its cumulative funds collected to almost $7.6 billion.
Nevertheless, it was revealed in October that the worth of a16z’s flagship cryptocurrency fund fell by a maximum of 40% in the initial half of 2022. Experts of the sector noted that the 40% decline in value is much more than the 10% to 20% declines recorded by a lot of other private equity this year.
