Erasure Code Commitments

Definition ∞ Erasure Code Commitments are cryptographic constructions that combine erasure coding with commitment schemes to enhance data availability and integrity in decentralized systems. They allow a party to commit to a large piece of data while ensuring that even if parts of the data are lost, the original data can still be recovered. This mechanism is particularly relevant for data availability layers in rollups, where only a portion of the data needs to be published on the main chain. It provides strong guarantees against data withholding attacks.
Context ∞ Crypto news often references erasure code commitments in discussions about blockchain scalability solutions, especially data availability layers for optimistic and zero-knowledge rollups. The primary focus is on how these commitments reduce the amount of data required to be stored on the main chain while preserving data integrity and censorship resistance. Future work involves optimizing the efficiency of these schemes to further reduce on-chain data requirements and verification costs.