The “competitive involution” of L2 after Cancun’s upgrade really kicked off.
Written by: Haotian
Recently, layer2 finally broke the silence and became proud. Tokens such as $OP, $ARB, and $METIS shined brightly, just like the Show Time moment on the eve of the Cancun upgrade.
Why did the “competitive involution” of layer 2 after Cancun’s upgrade really kick off? How will the market structure of layer 2 evolve after Cancun’s upgrade? Next, let me tell you my opinion:
- The implementation of the Ethereum Cancun upgrade EIP4844 Proto-Danksharding proposal will bring a “qualitative” boost to the layer2 Rollup project.
By introducing the new data structure of Blob space, it iterates the limitations of relying on calldata to store data in the past, and at the same time improves the data availability capability of the Ethereum main network.
Compared with the full-node storage structure of calldata, Blob is designed as temporary storage for some nodes, which can greatly increase the upper limit of data submitted by layer2 to the main network at a time and expand its TPS. At the same time, since it is only temporary storage, the data storage efficiency will be improved. Data storage costs have also plummeted. The improvement of DA capability is due to the temporary storage of 1 month, which is more than enough to cope with the 7-day fraud proof time window of OP-Rollup.
As a result, the transaction volume layer2 submits to the main network in a single transaction will increase significantly, and the cost amortized to a single user will also decrease significantly. Before the upgrade in Cancun, layer2 boasted about how big its TPS was, but it was mostly a test environment. On the contrary, users intuitively felt the poor experience of gas consumption and wear and tear, which made everyone feel that layer2 was not worthy of its name.
After the Cancun upgrade, layer2 players no longer have the performance bottleneck of the mainnet and can no longer use the mainnet limitation as an excuse. Hard indicators such as TPS and Gas will directly become a test and are also a key to layer2 reshaping the competitive landscape.
This is why I have repeatedly emphasized that after the upgrade of Cancun, the competitive situation of layer 2 really kicked off;
- After the upgrade in Cancun, the involution war in the layer 2 market intensified, with new players frequently emerging to challenge the existing OP+ZK pattern.
The issue of decentralization of Sequencer has always been the focus of market attention. As a result, everyone found that with the strong OP-Rollup in the layer 2 track, decentralized Sequencer has become a social consensus of “soft decentralization” in the nature of the Stack Alliance.
Whatsoever, although everyone criticizes Optimism for not doing anything about decentralization, Optimism seems to be able to turn the situation around with the actual market success brought by OP-Stack. But, can you say that OP-Rollup is all about Rollup? Obviously not. A more reasonable market evolution trend is that OP-Stack’s success will be further amplified, and OP-Stack’s blank areas will naturally have other successors.
In the past two days, @MetisDAO, the provider of layer2’s decentralized Sequencer solution, has performed exceptionally well in the secondary market. 7D’s over 100% increase is very eye-catching. Its TVL lock-up data has also soared to US$540 million, which is close to zkSync. Why?
The core business logic is very simple. Since OP-Rollup has stalled on the issue of sequencer decentralization, as a successor, it is its market space to propose a reasonable decentralized sequencer solution.
Because the issue of Sequencer decentralization is related to the credibility of transactions submitted by layer 2 and the security of the main network interaction of layer 2 transactions. If we put aside the issue of “foundation”, the upgraded TPS and Gas in Cancun Rates seem to have become “castles in the air.” I do not deny the success of Optimism in Stack’s strategy, but Sequencer’s decentralization problem will always be solved by other game-breakers.
Metis runs multiple Sequencer candidate nodes in the form of POS staking. The nodes compete for block rewards through an election mechanism. At the same time, evildoers will be punished by Slash. This POS consensus bundles each Sequencer as a stakeholder into a community of interests. The Metis Foundation uses Token incentives and spends 4.6 million $METIS tokens to incentivize Sequencer mining, new project deployment, and other subsequent ecosystems.
Compared with Optimism, the market value of Metis is still low. If it does not compete head-on with OP, the decentralized Sequencer alone can open up a vast market.
Metis is just a typical example that has caught the eye recently. In my opinion, after the Cancun upgrade, the market size of layer 2 will further expand. The new layer 2 suppliers will try their best to steal meat from the mouths of the two giant crocodiles OP and ZK. Go all out and take the layer2 track to a new horizon. Of course, more opportunities will also be available on the cutting-edge layer2.
- Layer2 gradually evolves into a modular system, its orthodoxy will be broken, and layer2 in the narrow sense will be replaced by layer2 in the broad sense.
I have mentioned in many articles before that the core of layer2 is the DA capability of Ethereum. If the full nodes of the main network do not participate in the verification of layer2 data security, the main network will actually become a “bulletin board” and layer2 will not be able to Inherit the security of the main network. Therefore, those who rely on Ethereum DA are chivalrous layer 2, while those who escape the scope of Ethereum DA are general layer 2. (To be radical, you don’t need to recognize it as layer 2)
But when the layer 2 market reaches a certain scale, the purely chivalrous Ethereum layer 2 legitimacy may be broken. The reason is the same as OP-Rollup’s Fraud proof, which can be selectively ignored by the market even without actual battle-tested challenges. Technology is only a part of business logic, and the market and ecology have the final say. For example, Optimism can always produce miracles in the name of optimism.
This means that after the Cancun upgrade, third-party DA solutions will invade layer2, including @CelestiaOrg’s third-party DA solution, @EspressoSys’ shared Sequencer solution, etc. Although everyone is reluctant, the business logic of modular evolution will gradually break the line of defense that the Ethereum main network can maintain.
The focus of OP-Stack stack promotion is to achieve shared Sequencer. The more strategic alliances OP has in the future, the greater the benefits they can capture through Sequencer. On the contrary, the interests of multiple parties involved will also become greater. This social consensus will become New constraints other than technology have stabilized Optimism in the position of a big brother;
The focus of the ZK-Stack stack is to realize the shared Prover system. Its own DA capabilities and third-party DA capabilities such as Celestia. Of course, the limited DA capabilities of the main network will fall within the scope of ZK’s strategic enclosure. Its development focus is layer3 Hyperchains For the new multi-chain ZK layout interface, who provides the DA is not the key.
Their interest orientation determines that they don’t actually care where DA is. The only one who cares about DA is Ethereum itself. Therefore, in the face of Celestia’s continued grab for the DA market, Vitalik waved the flag for Plasma+ZK, but OP+ZK, which is busy with strategic expansion, does not care about this. They only care about how big the layer2 camp covered by their Stack strategy will be. After all, RaaS is the only It is the business end of layer2.
All in all, the upgraded layer2 track in Cancun will be extremely exciting. Whether it is the frequent showing of new talents or the expansion of layer2’s strategic boundaries, it will stimulate the “diversification” and prosperity of the layer2 market.
The layer2 track will eventually become a highly modular market that integrates ZK technology + OP framework + various DA solutions + various Sequencer services + various Gas fee models.
