一文读懂Polygon即将推出的区块链聚合层AggLayer

Comprehensive editor: Felix, PANews

On January 25, Polygon Labs announced that it would release a v1 version called AggLayer in February, aiming to connect blockchains with ZK proofs, allowing developers to connect blockchains to support unified liquidity and ensure cross-module Unified security for both centralized and monolithic chains, including those in the Polygon ecosystem.

AggLayer will be a key component of Polygon 2.0, the next generation network. Unlike typical interoperability solutions, AggLayer will aggregate ZK proofs from all connected chains. PANews takes you through the advantages and use cases of AggLayer.

Key points:

• Monolithic → Modular → Aggregation

• AggLayer combines the advantages of integrated (monolithic) and modular architecture using ZK technology

• AggLayer brings unified security and composability to aggregate chains without sacrificing sovereignty

• Developers can connect any L1 or L2 chain to AggLayer, building like a single chain with unified liquidity and nearly unlimited scalability

The current blockchain is not a unified, highly scalable network. Due to decentralized liquidity and status, users face scalability limitations and poor user experience. And the constant addition of new blockchains compounds the problem. This environment is reminiscent of the pre-Internet era, with its isolation and lack of interoperability. As for what is the next development stage of blockchain, looking back at the history of blockchain architecture, it is not difficult to find that aggregated blockchain may be the answer.

Monolithic and modular

The monolithic chain is run by nodes responsible for consensus, data availability and execution, and also acts as a settlement layer. Such ecosystems are unified and interoperable by design, but have fundamental limitations. As scalability increases, validator hardware requirements increase, leading to greater centralization and less security. Even the most efficient blockchains will eventually lead to state bloat (storing too much data) and state contention. This means that the performance of the chain will degrade over time. Furthermore, monolithic chains cannot provide meaningful customizability or sovereignty to ecosystem participants.

To address these challenges, developers have begun tinkering with modular architectures, and for good reason: Modular frameworks solve a host of problems inherent in monolithic systems, allowing many chains to run independently in parallel, with each chain remaining sovereign, allowing for greater scalability Diversity and chain design.

But as an evolution of monolithic chains, modularity itself leads to liquidity and user dispersion, creating a multi-chain ecosystem that either requires cumbersome and inefficient bridging or sacrifices chain sovereignty. So there won’t be mass adoption due to liquidity and user fragmentation.

polymerization

Aggregation provides the sovereignty and scale of modular architecture with the unified fluidity and user experience of the system, synthesizing these two approaches into a completely new state of affairs. The decentralized protocol AggLayer unifies a decentralized blockchain environment into a network composed of ZK-protected L1 and L2 chains. Its main tasks are:

• Aggregate ZK proofs from all connected chains.

• Ensure the security of near-instant cross-chain atomic transactions.

Advantage

As a core component of Polygon 2.0, AggLayer will use ZK proofs to create a seamless converged environment that feels like a single chain - even though each chain in the ecosystem remains sovereign.

This enables near-instant atomic cross-chain transactions, unifies the liquidity of the entire ecosystem, improves capital efficiency, and significantly improves user experience.

For L1 and L2 connected to AggLayer: maintain full sovereignty, but can also leverage the unified liquidity pool, thus channeling liquidity.

For dApp developers: Aggregation reaches users. Even if the dApp is on a different chain, users from other chains can interact with it without cumbersome bridging. Seamless cross-chain transactions mean real growth and access for aggregated network users.

For end users: The user experience is just like the Internet, without the need for cumbersome and frequent bridging. In AggLayers final state, end users will be able to perform cross-chain atomic transactions in less than 1 second.

Example

Through AggLayer, X 1 users holding DAI can purchase NFTs on Polygon zkEVM without first bridging funds to Polygon zkEVM (Note: OKX and Polygon Labs recently launched a ZK Layer 2 network called X 1). From an end-user perspective, it feels like using a single chain, and users can interact with dApps without knowing they are accessing another chain.

Users can also send assets to participate in activities on another chain. Assume that Alice is on a game chain built using Polygon CDK and connected to an AggLayer. Alices wallet on the game chain also has ETH and DAI, and Alice wants to put them into the DEX on X 1 . Alice can create a transaction bridging DAI and ETH and call a function that LPs these tokens from the game chain (and pays all fees).

In the future, AggLayer v2 will support asynchronous cross-chain transactions and is expected to be launched later this year.

Polygon is mainly operated based on the side chain of ZK-Rollups and the Layer 2 network Polygon zkEVM. It also provides a software development toolkit called CDK. Many Layer 2 networks are developed using this CDK toolkit, including Immutable, OKX, Astar, Canto, Palm Network, Aavegotchi and IDEX. AggLayer is expected to facilitate the integration of all these chains under Polygon 2.0.

Source: Polygon Labs, The Block