Ethereum 2.0 kicks off, but Layer2 is also the protagonist
Text | Edited by Li Zheweng | Produced by Tong | PANews
After many twists and turns, the Ethereum 2.0 Phase 0 beacon chain officially launched the genesis block at 8:00 pm on December 1, Beijing time.
For the Ethereum community, this is undoubtedly a crucial milestone: the curtain of the attack on Ethereum 2.0 has officially opened, and the overall acceleration of Ethereum has shifted from PoW to PoS, and the vision of tens of times of expansion is one step closer to realization.
However, Ethereum 2.0 is expected to have a landing cycle of several years, a roadmap that has been changed several times, and the controversial migration cost. The market value of ETH + DeFi alone is already an economy of nearly 80 billion US dollars, making this "reborn" The big upgrade still faces heavy fog.
At the same time, a variety of Layer 2 solutions represented by Rollup, Plasma, and Validium have emerged in the Ethereum community. They may have more advantages in scalability than the 2.0 main concept of sharding, or they may be faster in terms of implementation cycle. It can be expected, or it may be more friendly in terms of engineering difficulty.
In a word, at least in the short to medium term, Layer 2 seems to be a more attractive "mechanical skeleton" for Ethereum and the encryption industry, and may even become a long-term solution for the future evolution of Ethereum.
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Layer 2 may be transformed into a "plug-in facility" for the Ethereum infrastructure
For a long time, the community has generally regarded Layer 2 as a transitional solution for a certain public chain to mature, and it is a "plug-in" where the performance of the main chain is not enough to support high concurrent transaction processing. However, PANews found out after the community meeting of Ethereum on November 18 that the core development team of Ethereum has confirmed that the priority of the Layer 2 solution Rollup should be higher than the original sharding idea. Vitalik made it clear:
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The road to the landing of Ethereum 2.0 is long, and important functions need to be completed one by one | Source: Tokamak Network
This actually reflects the embarrassing status of the 2.0 core story "sharding" - as a project that is expected to take at least 2-3 years to land, it is currently expected to bring a 64-fold increase in the TPS of the Ethereum network at most. The existing Layer 2 star program Rollup can bring up to 100 times the improvement effect. Compared with the two, the strategic value of Layer 2 goes without saying, which is also the core reason for the above-mentioned Ethereum route adjustment.
In addition to technical indicators, the design philosophy between Layer2-Layer1 is the key consideration for the importance of Layer2.
Vitalik once wrote that: A common idea in the blockchain field is to keep Layer 1 as simple as possible, and build more complex functions on it in the way of Layer 2. Because changes at the infrastructure level (Layer1) are difficult and can easily lead to systemic damage. Therefore, he believes that in the short term, Ethereum needs to develop Layer 1 and Layer 2 in parallel, and in the long run, it needs to pay more attention to Layer 2.
If we place this design philosophy in the ETH2.0-Layer2 relationship, it may be inferred that Ethereum-Layer2 should maintain a long-term coexistence relationship rather than a short-term assistance, especially considering that many Layer2s have already received Public support for important applications, such as Uniswap and Synthetix’s support for the Optimistic Rollup solution, Tether’s support for the Plasma-based OMG Network, and Curve’s support for ZK Rollup. They are not only the current flagship applications of the Ethereum ecosystem, but also support more The attitude of high-level and complex gameplay infrastructure actually determines the status of Layer 2 in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Kevin Jeong, CEO of Tokamak Network, which focuses on on-demand customized Layer 2 solutions, has a vivid analogy to this problem: "Vitalik compared Ethereum to a Swiss army knife he created for the blockchain industry. But even though it is a powerful and Diversity in the toolkit, but Swiss knives are definitely not enough for chefs to use in the kitchen. That’s not to say Swiss knives are bad, but Swiss knives are not enough.”
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Layer 2 has its own advantages and disadvantages. Rollup has two flowers and is most likely to be widely adopted.
PANews has previously written that the most notable feature of Layer 2 is that it does not have tight coupling, that is, the validity of the main chain ("beacon chain" in Ethereum 2.0) is not inseparable from the validity of the sub-chain . That is, a subchain block containing an invalid mainchain block and a mainchain block containing an invalid subchain block are by definition out of sync.
At present, there are six main solutions for Layer 2 of Ethereum, namely state channel, side chain, Plasma, Validium, ZKRollup and Optimistic Rollup. Different Layer 2 solutions are different in terms of whether they are hosted, whether they are calculated on the chain, whether they are stored on the chain, whether they use fraud proofs or zero-knowledge proofs, etc. PANews has made a detailed table for everyone to grasp.
It can be seen from the chart that different expansion solutions have their own advantages and disadvantages. For Ethereum-based DApp projects, when the Layer 2 ecological structure is uncertain, it may be correct to choose a Layer 2 solution based on demand Choose, and possibly even use multiple solutions at the same time for different needs in the same scenario. Tokamak Network also continues this concept. In Kevin Jeong’s opinion, “The on-demand platform created by Tokamak Network can build a sustainable Layer2 ecosystem. For blockchain projects, such on-demand configuration will also save a lot of time energy to maximize the value of the solution.”
For example, if a developer wants to create a social media DAPP, he needs to choose a high-throughput and scalable Layer 2 bottom layer. After purchasing a Layer 2 platform token to build a service, he finds that privacy needs to be enhanced, and he needs to find a privacy-enhancing protocol such as Aztec , and then purchase Aztec tokens to continue building, but it is limited to the use of Aztec. Tokamak Network makes decision-making more flexible. As an on-demand Layer2 platform, Tokamak Network can choose and add functions such as scalability, composability, privacy, or smart contracts, and does not need to make different decisions repeatedly Or buy tokens of different technical protocols.
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Optimistic Rollup roadmap and Synthextix adoption time point | Source: Optimism
The benign and orderly competition and cooperation of Layer 2 and the potential wide range of use cases are commendable, but in my opinion, this also brings a new big problem: the composability of DeFi will be greatly weakened. Take the acclaimed Rollup as an example. The two schemes of ZK and Op are currently unable to interoperate, which means that the already fragmented liquidity will be further intensified. However, for DeFi as a whole, Lego blocks are not only the foundation, but also higher The integration of dimensions should be the essence of Layer 2’s topic—imagine that if Curve’s stable currency exchange advantages and Uniswap’s comprehensive liquidity advantages are connected, will the transaction volume of DEx be raised to a higher level?
All in all, the evolution of Ethereum 2.0 is undoubtedly a routine full of exploration and change. I believe that the Ethereum community is still likely to continue to adjust the roadmap in subsequent meetings, but what is certain is that as the Ethereum ecosystem becomes more and more In a huge ecosystem, the possibility of basic transformation is less. In this context, Layer2 will be its long-term partner and infrastructure.
