Modular March EP 12: The Business Logic Of RaaS & Shared Sequencers

After our episode with Tarun Chitra about value accrual in the modular stack, as well as thinking about it deeper we’ve came to our own conclusions. Josh Bowen, ex-Celestia team, and now founder of Astria blew it all out of the water today. Completely shifted the way we are thinking about RaaS providers, shared sequencers, and how they are approaching the competitive market of sequencing. We first dove into the modular architecture of Astria and their relationship with Celestia, and then dove deep into how Josh thinks about early stage tech markets. The vision behind Astria extends beyond facilitation of rollup deployment. Josh aspires to lower barriers to innovation in launching blockchains, in order to create a diverse ecosystem of rollups that transcend the limitations of existing setups. But, is this really possible? Can Astria do what other RaaS providers are doing at a tenth of the cost? Can they actually commoditize RaaS providers? Josh is a straight shooter and did not hold back when he pressed him about his mental models. We left quite impressed.