Puffer Upgrades UniFi Preconf AVS to Deliver Sub-10ms Execution With Restaked Security

George Town, Cayman Islands, 31 July 2025 -Puffer Finance, the leading innovator in Ethereum infrastructure and based rollups, has announced a major upgrade to Puffer Preconfirmation AVS (Preconf AVS), bringing sub-10 millisecond execution guarantees to OP-based rollups, with over 3 million ETH in restaked security backing its economic safety.

Puffer Finance is a protocol launchpad that combines unified (re)staking, a rollup-based backbone, and plug-and-play composability, enabling scalable, Ethereum-aligned protocols to be spun up quickly.

With this upgrade, Puffer UniFi Preconf AVS delivers a production-ready path to Ethereum-native, sub-10ms transaction guarantees, backed by slashing collateral and rollup revenue incentives.

By combining Ethereum composability, fast execution, and restaked economic security, Puffer is enabling the next generation of performant, secure, and developer-friendly rollups.

While based rollups unlock cheaper transactions and composability, they inherit Ethereum’s 12-second block time, limiting their usefulness in faster applications. Preconfirmations (or “preconfs”) sidestep these limits by adding a separate execution guarantee.

With Puffer’s upgraded Preconf AVS, users gain a reliable execution guarantee at the exact price they transact, not a fluctuating settlement price. These execution preconfs allow rollups to offer real-time UX with economic certainty, all while maintaining full Ethereum interoperability.

To protect users against liveness failures, toxic MEV extraction, or safety faults, Puffer’s AVS uses EigenLayer’s restaked ETH model as an enforcement mechanism. Validators and operators back their commitments with slashing conditions. ensuring users can transact with high confidence.

The current deployment secures over 3M ETH in restaked assets, providing deep economic security across all UniFi-integrated rollups. The upgraded architecture introduces:

Delegated Gateway Rights: Validators delegate proposer rights to gateways that specialize in sequencing.

Lookahead Scheduling: Gateways know upcoming L1 slots in advance, enabling precise coordination.

Refund Mechanisms: Users receive refunds if preconf fails.

Three-Phase Rollout: Starting with no-slash participation, expanding to full slashing and multi-gateway competition.

Amir Forouzani, Co-founder of Puffer Labs, said:

“I firmly believe that execution speed shouldn’t come at the cost of trust. With Puffer Preconf AVS, we are making ultra-fast block inclusion possible while aligning incentives between validators, rollup operators, and users.

"We look forward to welcoming developers and institutions looking to build with speed, composability, and aligned incentives, as Puffer Preconf is now open for testnet integration.” 

While inclusion preconfs guarantee that a transaction will be included in a block, only execution preconfs guarantee the exact outcome of the transaction.

For high-frequency use cases like order matching, pricing, and settlement, this distinction is critical. For example, if a user places a buy order at 3,800 USDC for ETH, inclusion preconfs might allow that order to be included but settled at a worse price.

With execution preconfs, the 3,800 price is locked in. Puffer’s upgrade introduces a robust, three-phase approach to rolling out Preconf AVS:

Phase 1: Early Gateway Access & Validator Delegation

No slashing; rewards forfeited for missed preconfs. First implementation includes Gattaca’s frags-based gateway, capable of sub-100ms confirmations.

Phase 2: Gateway Expansion & Lookahead Implementation

More gateways onboarded.

Lookahead queue maps L1 slots to gateway scheduling.

Greater decentralization, with modular incentive design.

Phase 3: Slashing Enforcement & Fault Recovery

Slashing introduced for misbehavior (1 ETH for liveness faults, up to 1,000 ETH for toxic MEV).

Integration with Ethereum's Universal Registry Contract (URC) enables slashing logic standardization.

Challenge periods allow gateways to provide fraud proofs post-slash.

Slashed collateral can be reclaimed by compliant gateways or refunded to affected users. To ensure rollup and appchain operators benefit, UniFi AVS now also includes a rewards distributor.

Instead of ceding all preconfirmation profits to L1 proposers, rollup operators share in the economic upside. 

Rewards tied to block.coinbase or similar destinations on other architectures.

Dynamic split between validators, gateway operators, and rollup owners.

Slashed funds are redistributed to users or retained within the Preconf rewards pool.

This revenue-sharing model makes based rollups economically viable and aligns with Ethereum’s vision of long-term decentralization without fragmenting liquidity.

About Puffer Finance

Puffer Finance is at the forefront of Ethereum infrastructure innovation, focusing on next-generation rollups backed by liquid restaking (LRT) and pre-confirmation technology as an Anti-Value Sniping (AVS) mechanism.

Through products like Puffer UniFi and Puffer UniFi AVS on EigenLayer (decentralized re-staking protocol), Puffer Finance is dedicated to advancing Ethereum’s decentralization.

The Puffer Finance token (PUFFER) is listed on major exchanges such as Upbit, Bithumb, Bybit, Kraken, and Bitget.

To learn more,visit www.puffer.fi.