At this stage, the value of Ethereum has spilled over significantly, and these 6 Layer 2 projects may be the biggest beneficiaries
Editor's Note: This article comes fromVernacular Blockchain (ID: hellobtc), reprinted by Odaily with authorization.
Editor's Note: This article comes from
Vernacular Blockchain (ID: hellobtc)
, reprinted by Odaily with authorization.
In 2018, we thought that Layer 2 (hereinafter referred to as L2) was just around the corner. Three years have passed, but we found that it is still far from the goal of "changing the blockchain".
Fortunately, this year finally has some ecology belonging to L2. After V God set the tone of Rollup last year, it also has a general direction.
This article is written when the L2 war is about to start, and mainly talks about several projects that deserve attention and attention. I believe that after reading this article a year later, you may have some different feelings.
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Layer 2 Technology Status: Rollup Unification, Almost Declining Channels and Sidechains
Before writing these projects, let’s review the history and current situation of L2.
The earliest L2 should be Bitcoin's Lightning Network, which uses channel technology. The earliest L2 on ETH is also a channel technology, called Thunderbolt Network. Have you heard these two words in recent months? So you should know what I want to express.
The side chain is also the same. Loom was the first project to propose a side chain. The concept at the time was that the Loom side chain ran DPOS, learned EOS, and then returned to ETH L1 for settlement, which perfectly combined the high performance of DPOS and the security of ETH POW.
However, the ideal is full, but the reality is very skinny. How are the 21 DPOS nodes selected on the side chain? Will there be collusion? Is the security of the side chain trustworthy? This is why the concept of side chains has basically been replaced by high-speed public chains.
Several celebrity public chains, such as Solana, Near, and Fantom, can drain assets on ETH through EVM+ bridge compatibility, and then go back to ETH for settlement, which is exactly the same as what side chains can do. The vast majority of sidechains have stronger development capabilities, larger market value, and higher security.
Therefore, the side chain function of L2 is basically replaced by the L1 side chain of the star public chain. The recently popular BSC can also be regarded as an ETH side chain in essence.
So the question is, what if I still don’t feel comfortable with these sidechains and want better security or better composability?
It still depends on L2, but it is the Rollup technology hand-picked by God V.
Because the side chain and ETH L1 are two completely different chains, they only need to communicate during settlement. Rollup is completely different. Rollup of L2 can be regarded as an extension of ETH L1. Whether it is ZK or OP, the data is compressed and directly uploaded to the main chain of L1.
LRC、Matic、Celer
1、LRC
ZK’s data is directly verified through zero-knowledge proof calculations, and OP’s default data is true, and the second-tier detectors will find errors and initiate disputes. These verifiers need to download all the data of the Ethereum full node and the second layer to verify.
Therefore, Rollup L2 is integrated with ETH L1. Even if the nodes "collude", it is basically impossible to prevent the transaction data from being tampered with by ETH L1. This is why the security of our Rollup is close to or equal to ETH L1.
Next, we will mainly talk about some Rollup-related L2 projects that have issued Tokens and those that have not yet issued Tokens. (Due to limited space, each project can only be introduced. Interested friends can search for relevant information by themselves)
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Loopring can be called the light of domestic production, and has been praised by God V many times. The reason is simple, LRC is the first project to make Rollup technology into a large-scale application.
2、Matic
Loopring focuses on smart wallets, payments, and Loopring DEX - a SWAP that has both AMM and order books.
There is nothing wrong with the technology, and the product experience is good. The biggest problem is that LRC is just an application of Zk-rollup, not a general solution of Zk-rollup.
Therefore, its DEX is still in an isolated state. Although the trading experience is good, its depth is far from that of L1 DEXs such as Uni and Sushi.
In the long run, I personally feel that the opportunity of LRC lies in whether LRC can be expanded into an L2 protocol layer, or at least become a protocol layer of the DEX branch. big achievement.
3、Celer
At present, it can be said to be the only L2 project that can be regarded as "ecological". It is mainly based on DeFi, games and NFT. The more well-known projects cooperated with it include Aavegotchi, Terra Virtua, Quickswap and Injective Protocol.
Matic has recently changed its name to Polygon, and its strategic direction has transformed from a Plasma sidechain to an L2 aggregator. Simply put, it is doing everything. Now that it has sidechain technology, it will also launch Rollup, ZK, OP, and Vadidium in a while.
How to say this, keep paying attention and watch slowly, after all, ZK and OP cannot be made by anyone who wants to do it, and the requirements for the team's development strength are extremely high.
Furthermore, Layer2 aggregation does not feel as easy as YFI's L1 aggregation. The concept sounds beautiful, but in practice, it is much more difficult than imagined.
Celer used to focus on channel technology, and after the channel was "falsified", it proposed a concept of Layer2.finance. In simple terms, you can understand it as a decentralized Rollup intermediary from L1 to L2, or purchasing agent.
Users store funds on the L2 chain, and through a special L2 transaction form, indicate which DeFi protocols on L1 they want their funds to be placed in.
When enough funds are linked to instructions to a certain DeFi protocol, Layer2.fianace aggregates these transactions and calls the functions of this DeFi protocol at one time, gathering sand into a tower, and simplifying the multiple transactions that were originally required into one transaction.
From this point of view, it means that the Yfi machine gun pool saves Gas. This solution makes up for the embarrassment of the current L2 composability to a certain extent. Before the L2 project solution matures, it is remarkable as a temporary solution.
Of course, in the long run, the unification of L2 is still the ultimate solution. At that time, the long-term survival of Celer, a temporary solution, will be a big challenge.
Celer's thinking on "Layer 2 unification" is also very incisive and worth thinking about. The original text is as follows:
When the chain is running normally, and when the chain is suspended and rolled back, how should the user interact with the application, and what state shall prevail?
How does the centralized trading platform access the L2 ecology? Does it treat L2 tokens and L1 tokens equally?
Blockchain status query services (similar to Infura and Alchemy) now need to expand capacity by 100 times, and simultaneously access L2 and L1 for complex verification and transaction forwarding and offloading. Is such a service ready?
When the block node tries to stop the progress of the block, how can the client effectively notify the client and ensure that the user is quickly switched to the L1 interactive mode to ensure security?
For those DeFi protocols that rely on oracles, are these oracles ready to resist possible L2 gag attacks?
If there is no state synchronization delay assumption of the same magnitude as L1, do most DeFi protocols need to re-evaluate their security?
1、Optimism
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Unissued Token: Optimism, Offchain Labs, Matter labs
The current consensus in the industry is that in the future, the Three Kingdoms struggle for the L2 Dynasty will most likely be launched in these three (there is also Starkware, let's mention it at the end).
The technical strength of these three companies can be said to be the top in the industry, so in the end it may not be the technology that determines the outcome, but the capital behind it, and the number of "sides" with the major DeFi protocols.
Currently the most popular L2 solution, the representative project of Optimistic Rollup, will be launched on the main network this month, and I believe it is not far from the issuance of Token.
The capital behind: Paradigm, A16Z - Needless to say, the strength of these two companies is the top capital in the industry.
2、Offchain Labs （Arbitrum）
Ecology: SNX, Uniswap (high probability), Compound (high probability), needless to say, these three are the top projects in the DeFi circle.
Advantages: low threshold, compatible with general-purpose EVM, very convenient for development or migration at this stage, and SNX has already started using the test network.
Disadvantages: Optimistic's funds exit a week-long challenge period, and the security is lower than ZK.
From the perspective of capital and ecology, the current Optimism must be a project worthy of attention in the short and medium term.
Like Optimism, it also does Optimistic Rollup, but there are some technical differences from Optimism.
The capital behind it: Pantera and Coinbase, both of which are leaders in the industry.
3、Matter Labs （Zk-Sync）
Ecology: Augur, Bancor, Mcdex and Dodo - are all good DeFi projects, but their status in the industry is not as good as that of Optimism.
Advantages (compared to Optimism): Gas costs are much lower and more VMs can be supported.
Disadvantage: It is more complicated than Optimism mechanism, requires more codes, and has greater security risks.
Compared with Optimism, Arbitrum's reputation, capital behind it, and team ecology are slightly inferior. Technically, each has its own strengths. to fight.
Matter Labs represents the possible future of L2, but the reason why it is possible is because first, it takes a long time, and second, it is very technically difficult and may fail.
Behind the capital: USV, coinbase, and hashed are also at the top level, especially USV.
Ecology: In addition to the capital just now, the A-round investment in MatterLabs actually includes ecological partners, including AAVE, Balancer, 1inch, and Curve, etc. These projects are most likely to be on the Matter Labs team, and these projects are in the DeFi world. Needless to say.
Advantages: Equivalent to the security of ETH L1, higher TPS expansion.
Disadvantage: It is not yet a universal solution. The project party stated that zkSync will support Turing's complete smart contract (Solidity) this year, which means that zkSync's application ecological construction may lag behind Optimism or Arbitrum for a whole year.
Matter Labs may be the most difficult path in L2. Even if it succeeds, it will be the last one to come out. There may be three endings:(1) When it came out, the Optimism lineup had already dominated the world, and all projects were "too lazy to migrate" to Zk because of composability.。
(2) Project R&D fails or is delayed for too long.
(3) After it comes out, it will share the world with Optimism or replace it.
But in any case, V God himself is still most optimistic about ZK. After all, this is the L2 that is truly equivalent to the security of the main network.
Take the original text of the interview between Gulu and V God some time ago, and you can see the attitude of V God
Gulu: Currently using the Optimistic Rollup scheme is only temporary, and will eventually transition to the ZKRollup scheme in the future, right?
Vitalik: ZK Rollup has a longer-term future. Because its mechanics and economic agreement will be simpler.
But I don't know how long this long-term future will be, it may be 5 years, 10 years. The current zero-knowledge proof technology is relatively complex and novel. It takes a lot of time to make a fully ZK virtual machine to make sure it is safe.
