What is Picasso?
Picasso is a DeFi infrastructure-focused Layer 1 protocol that emphasizes trust-minimized interoperability through its Cross-Ecosystem IBC solution. Here's an overview of its key components and features:
- Cross-Ecosystem IBC Hub: Picasso acts as a hub for Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) between IBC-enabled chains. This enables seamless, permissionless interoperability across different blockchain ecosystems, ensuring that assets and data can move freely and securely between them.
- Generalized Restaking Layer: Picasso introduces the concept of a Generalized Restaking Layer, which allows the utilization of any economically valuable assets to secure various use cases. This could include securing transactions, validating data, or providing liquidity, with a focus on offering temporary or permanent security solutions.
- Cosmos SDK Framework: Picasso is built using the Cosmos SDK framework, which provides a modular architecture for building interoperable blockchain applications. This choice of framework ensures that Picasso can easily integrate with other IBC-enabled chains and expand its support across different ecosystems.
- Deployment and Expansion: Initially deployed on Solana, Picasso plans to expand support for all IBC-connected ecosystems. This expansion aims to provide a unified platform for decentralized finance (DeFi) users, offering both security and interoperability.
- Trust-Minimized and Censorship-Resistant: Picasso is designed to be a trust-minimized, censorship-resistant platform, ensuring that all transactions and interactions are secure and free from centralized control.
The Picasso Architecture
Picasso's architecture revolves around its innovative Generalized Restaking Layer and its role as a hub for cross-chain interoperability. The system integrates various smart contracts, actors, and protocols to ensure secure and efficient decentralized applications (dApps) and services. Below is a detailed breakdown of its components and functionalities:
- Smart Contracts & Restaking Layer: Smart contracts on Picasso Cosmos are written in CosmWasm, while contracts on other domain-specific PoS blockchains use the respective execution layer's smart contracting framework. Deployed on each PoS chain, these smart contracts accept restaked assets, including LSTs from various chains. Vault Contracts receive assets like Solana LSTs, ETH LSTs, Monad LSTs, TRX LSTs, lsDOT, BNB LSTs, and Cosmos assets via Picasso.
- Actors & Their Roles: These entities execute off-chain software logic restaked from the AVS. Operators are stored in the Operator Assignment Contract and receive instructions from the AVS Registration Contract. They must obtain delegations via the Delegation Management contract and adhere to conditions specified in the Operator Assignment Contract, including slashing rules. Decentralized applications that require economic security, such as roll-ups, L2s, dApps, and cross-chain bridges. AVSes interact with the AVS Registration contract to set parameters like stake amount, accepted assets, operator set, and slashing parameters. They engage with the Rewards Distribution contract to allocate rewards.
- Key Contracts and Protocols: A central contract that manages interactions with the AVS Registration contract, Accounting Management contract, and Delegation Management contract. It handles slashing events, updates user delegations, and manages community pool transfers. Ensures that operators correctly execute the consensus of AVSes, handling slashing operations and receiving IBC proofs of slashing conditions. Manages updates to the state of vaults, reflecting actions such as staking, unstaking, and slashing. Independent actors who monitor operators for honesty, reporting any misbehavior to trigger slashing and receive rewards. Facilitates stake and unstake operations from PoS chains to Picasso Cosmos, propagating these actions across chains. Detects and processes slashing events, managing the freezing of stakes, validation of proofs, and execution of slashing decisions.
- Fee Distribution: The process involves AVSes sending reward proofs to the Accounting contract, triggering the distribution of fees across networks. Cross-chain messages are used to ensure that rewards reach the appropriate blockchains, with a portion allocated to PICA stakers. Restakers across different networks can claim their rewards based on the same AVS.
How does Restaking Work on Picasso?
Picasso Network utilizes an innovative restaking mechanism that involves NFTs, Program Derived Addresses (PDAs), and Cross-Program Invocation (CPI) calls to facilitate the staking and reward distribution process. Here's a detailed breakdown of how restaking works:
- Deposit Process: When a user deposits their stake (such as SOL, JitoSOL, mSOL, or bSOL), an NFT is minted. This NFT acts as a unique identifier for the user's stake and is crucial for subsequent interactions with the restaking mechanism. A new PDA is generated using the NFT mint as the seed. This PDA is a unique address associated with the user's stake, and it stores critical information related to the staking process. A CPI call is made to the Actively Validated Services (AVS) program on the Solana IBC chain. This call updates the stake details, ensuring that the user's contribution is properly registered and managed within the network.
- Data Storage in PDA: The PDA associated with the user's stake stores the following information: The total amount of tokens staked by the user; the specific mint or token type staked (e.g., SOL, JitoSOL); the last epoch height is recorded when the user last claimed their rewards (This helps in calculating the rewards for the next claim); The public key of the validator to which the stake is delegated.
- Claiming Rewards: The user must own the receipt NFT to claim rewards. This NFT acts as proof of ownership and eligibility to receive rewards. Rewards are calculated based on the difference between the current epoch height and the height at which rewards were last claimed. If the user is claiming rewards for the first time, all accumulated rewards will be distributed. After claiming, the current epoch height is stored in the PDA, updating the last claim time for future calculations.
- Withdrawal Process: Upon withdrawal, the user receives their accumulated rewards and the original stake amount. The receipt NFT is burned during the withdrawal process, effectively finalizing the user's interaction with that particular stake. This ensures that the user cannot claim rewards again without re-staking.
