Blockchain distributed ledger outfit LazyLedger Labs announced Wednesday that it closed a $1.5 million seed funding round led by Interchain Foundation and Binance Labs to build what it calls a “pluggable consensus and data availability” layer.

Blockchain technology allows developers to create distributed peer-to-peer applications that self-execute using smart contracts on the network. Under normal circumstances, having the code, data and computation in the same layer is fine for most developers or applications.

LazyLedger seeks to address challenges for developers looking to build applications that need to spin up and spin down virtual machines rapidly in their own sovereign spaces, similar to how cloud services such as Amazon Web Services made it possible to scale operating systems. It does this by decoupling the data layer from the computational layer in the blockchain, so the applications run their computations off-chain.

Even with that method, the applications still retain their security, as blockchains use cryptography and distributed ledgers to create a tamperproof audible log of transactions, which is what makes the technology so valuable to developers.

Ethereum, the world’s second-largest blockchain network, is capable of executing distributed applications or “dapps.” These applications have their code loaded into the blockchain itself can their computations are run peer-to-peer across multiple nodes. That’s what is known as the “world computer” model, where the data, code and computation all take place on the same layer.

“LazyLedger is the biggest paradigm shift in blockchain since Ethereum itself,” said Nick White, co-founder of Harmony and member of LazyLedger’s advisory team. “LazyLedger turns Ethereum’s world computer model on its head by introducing a minimal, flexible blockchain upon which many unique world computers can run and interoperate.”

By allowing developers to launch virtual machines within their own sovereign layers, LazyLedger’s protocol allows developers to define their execution model. That also means that applications can update separately from one another and separate from the main chain — without hard forks, such as when two blockchains diverge from one another — and they can be spun up and down independently.

The company said that this relies on two key technologies: optimistic rollups, which allow developers to create chains that define their own off-chain execution environments, and data availability proofs, which make it possible to scale and store large volumes of data without nodes having to download all the data to validate the chain.

Other investors that joined in the round also included Maven 11, KR1, Signature Ventures, Divergence Ventures, Dokia Capital, P2P Capital, Tokonomy and Cryptium Labs as well as Michael Ng, Simon Johnson, Michael Youssefmir and Ramsey Khoury.

Image: Pixabay