Original title: Recapping the Rollups Roadmap
Original author: Arjun Chand
Original compilation: Sharon, BlockBeats
The scaling of Ethereum has been one of the most controversial topics in the crypto space. After much speculation, the community settled on a Rollup-centric roadmap for Ethereum. But why did you choose this path?
With Blockchain chains like Solana gaining momentum in their comeback, now is the time to revisit why the Ethereum community chose Rollup and modularity to achieve global scale.
Today’s article highlights the key ideas and developments that are guiding Ethereum’s scaling efforts toward a Rollup-centric roadmap. Let’s take a closer look.
Ethereum’s vision of decentralization scaling
Ethereum’s ultimate goal is to become a globally coordinated financial layer. In order to achieve this, it must support different types of applications and be accessible to all types of users.
In 2020, Vitalik pointed to a pressing problem with the Ethereum network: he had to pay a $17.76 gas fee when placing a bet on Augur. These high fees show that Ethereum struggles to scale in the face of increasing demand. As a result, it has become a platform “for the niche rather than the world” and has also deviated from its original goal.
The problem is obvious, Ethereum needs to be able to process more transactions at a lower cost. However, the solution can be more complex, as many factors must be considered and balanced.
A major consideration is optimizing three properties: Decentralization, Security, and Scalability. Together, these three form the “scalability trilemma”, which is the “Unholy Trinity” dilemma faced by any Blockchain.
The scalability dilemma can be understood as a balancing act – improvements in one property often mean trade-offs in another.
Over time, many blockchains labeled “Ethereum killers” have been grappling with a trilemma, often pursuing scalability at the expense of decentralization and security.
However, compromise Decentralization has never been an option for the Ethereum community. This is also because it is closely related to security and gives Ethereum network neutrality, censorship resistance, and permissionlessness, which are as important as the properties of the scalability triad.
In the Ethereum demand hierarchy, if decentralization, security, and scalability form “physiological” requirements, then neutrality, censorship resistance, and permissionlessness can be said to form “security” requirements. These two layers can be called the “basic needs” of the Ethereum network.
Recognizing these priorities, the Ethereum community has taken a long-term approach to development that may sacrifice some aspects of the scalability triad in the short to medium term, but enable Ethereum to be “big enough to help all of humanity.”
This strategy is modular Blockchain Theory. It involves executing transactions on an L2 scaling solution, also known as a rollup. Since these transactions take place outside of Ethereum, they can be faster and cheaper. However, because their data is returned to L1, they inherit Ethereum’s extensive security.
Why choose Rollup to scale Ethereum?
By the end of 2020, the Ethereum community basically reached a consensus to adopt Rollup as the main scaling solution for the short- and medium-term future, forming an Ethereum development roadmap centered on Rollup. The key factors that make Rollup the preferred option are:
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Forward compatibility with Eth 2 (PoS) – The companies behind Rollups like Arbitrum and Optimism launched in 2018 and 2019, respectively. At that time, Ethereum still used the PoW Consensus Mechanism, and PoS was in the proposal stage. Rollup is compatible with PoW and PoS, giving the Ethereum developer community the flexibility it needs in terms of timelines for critical network upgrades, such as switching from PoW to PoS.
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Technical feasibility – By 2020, Rollup had made substantial progress. As Vitalik points out in his forum post, the OptimisticRollup team (like Optimism and Arbitrum) launched their Testnet back in early 2020 and released a roadmap for Mainnet launch in 2021.
Meanwhile, zkRollups like zkSync and Loopring are already live and have users on their Mainnet, albeit with limited functionality. This progress gives the Ethereum community confidence in the maturity of the Rollup technology and its potential to effectively scale Ethereum from 2021. In contrast, other scaling solutions, such as performing sharding, still take years.
For states that were EthereumMainnet during the previous round of Bull Market, there is a greater urgency to adopt rollups. Gas fees are at record highs, making users spend tens of dollars per transaction. In addition, some apps, especially those for non-financial purposes, have been forced to shut down due to high fees.
Together, these factors have influenced the Ethereum community, making it firmly committed to Rollup as a scaling strategy for the foreseeable future, recognizing its immediate impact and long-term potential.
While the immediate benefits of rollups are obvious, the multi-rollup ecosystem also comes with some challenges. From a user perspective, the Ethereum community has raised some key questions, and here’s an overview of how these issues are progressing.
The current state of the Ethereum Rollup roadmap
We are part of a multi-rollup ecosystem, and many of them have grown significantly.
In this case, Ethereum scales through rollups, acting as a base layer for clearing and data availability. All rollups inherit the security of Ethereum and use it to confirm transactions and store data.
In terms of security, Ethereum is undoubtedly one of the most secure Blockchain in the ecosystem. More than 33.5 million ETH have been used to secure the network, making the network more than $67 billion economically safe at the current ETH price (1 ETH = $2,000).
However, with TVL in L2 already surpassing $16 billion and collateral at an all-time high, the community has expressed some concerns about the centralization of Rollup sequencers and operator extraction of MEV. While there are quite a few rollups that attract a large number of users, most of these systems are still in the early stages of development, as L2 BEAT’s analysis of the maturity of rollups shows.
Another key area of positive development is enhanced data availability. A key part of this effort is Danksharding, a key feature of the “surge” phase of the Ethereum roadmap. Danksharding aims to significantly drop the cost of Rollups validating transactions on Ethereum, driving the network’s ability to scale. To this end, several innovative projects, such as Celestia and EigenDA, focus on providing a cheap and Decentralization data availability layer for Rollups.
Until Danksharding is fully implemented, the Ethereum community is working on proto Danksharding, known as EIP-4844, as an intermediate step. This step introduces some of Danksharding’s concepts in a simplified form, such as blobs. It is expected that proto Danksharding will be implemented soon, while full Danksharding will be several years away.
Conclusion
The goal of scaling Ethereum as a global financial layer is still out of reach, but we are gradually achieving it. Most excitingly, the community is aligned on a roadmap and vision, and some of the most prominent thinkers are working together to bring that vision to life.
As we look to the future, the potential for thousands of specialized rollups to emerge is incredible, each meeting unique use cases and driving innovation. This evolution will enable Ethereum to become the global financial layer it aspires to, supporting a wide variety of applications and users. All of these rollups will pay fees to make their data settlement and security on Ethereum, increasing Ethereum’s cryptoeconomic security.
