Exploring Different Scaling Approaches for Ethereum Layer 2s – Vitalik Buterin

Crypto Projects and Technologies

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain, recently shared his insights on the ever-evolving layer-2 crypto ecosystem. He discussed the various approaches being taken to increase scalability, reduce costs, and enhance security.

Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) rollups, such as those developed by Arbitrum, Optimism, Scroll, Kakarot, and Taiko, have drastically improved the security of their solutions. Meanwhile, crypto projects like Polygon have also created their own rollups. Buterin also highlighted “almost-EVMs” like zkSync, Arbitrum Stylus, and Starknet, which are making major contributions to the scaling of the Ethereum ecosystem.

Crypto Projects and Their Transition

Buterin notes that some crypto projects currently existing as independent layer 1s are looking to bring themselves closer to the Ethereum ecosystem and potentially become ecosystem layer 2s. This type of transition is difficult, as an “all at once” approach would cause a decrease in usability given that technology is not at a stage where it can be completely included in rollup technology. Meanwhile, postponing such a transition runs the risk of “sacrificing momentum and being too late to be meaningful.”

Buterin also notes that some centralized, non-Ethereum crypto projects want to give users greater security assurances and are looking to blockchain-based solutions. Historically, these types of projects would have looked to “permissioned consortium chains” to achieve this.

Lastly, Buterin considers non-financial applications like games and social media platforms that want to be decentralized but do not need high levels of security. Highlighting a social media use case, Buterin notes that different parts of the crypto app would require separate functionality.

Scaling and Trade-offs of Crypto Projects

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, has discussed the acceptable costs of a chain failure and the trade-offs between different rollup solutions. He adds that a chain failure leading to a user’s post disappearing would be an “acceptable cost,” while a similar failure leading to the loss of an account would be far more serious.

Buterin also notes that the costs associated with paying for rollup fees might not be acceptable for non-blockchain users, while previous crypto app best users are used to paying far higher prices for on-chain interactions.

The Ethereum co-founder then delves into the trade-offs between different rollup solutions and systems that offer varying scaling capabilities to the crypto projects ecosystem. The “connectedness” to Ethereum hinges on the security of withdrawing to Ethereum from layer 2s and the security of reading data from the Ethereum blockchain.

Buterin notes that high security and tight connectedness are important for some applications, while others require something looser in exchange for greater scalability, such as crypto media or crypto app reddit.

Ethereum’s upcoming hard fork is set to introduce EIP-4844, often referred to as “proto-dank sharding.” This EIP is anticipated to significantly raise the network’s data availability. Buterin also states that improvements in compression technology enable more features.

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