The Scaling World This Week
A look at some of the exciting developments in the scaling world (22/04/2023)
Welcome! to The Layered Ledger.
A weekly newsletter covering exciting and interesting news from the world of scaling technologies.
Index:
Magi Aims to Bring Client Diversity to Optimism
A16z recently released Magi, a new consensus client for the layer2 protocol, Optimism. The announcement was made via a tweet on the 19th.
Although not production ready yet, this is an important step towards achieving decentralization through client diversity.
According to a blog posted by a16z:
Client diversity is needed on both the execution and consensus sides, but most of the development has so far been focused on execution clients.
Only op-node exists on the consensus side (a.k.a rollup side), maintained by OP Labs and written in Go.
A16z feels that:
building out this new, Rust-based client will encourage greater safety and liveliness throughout the OP Stack, and bring more contributors into the ecosystem.
You can read more about the client here.
OP Stack Gets New Execution Client op-erigon
Another milestone in improving client diversity on Optimism was achieved as a new execution client named Op-erigon was released for testing.
This remarkable advancement was made by @testinprod_io, an independent team from OP Labs, exhibiting the capabilities of the modular and open-source OP Stack.
Read more about this here.
Arbitrum One Becomes The Second Most Used Blockchain
Popular Ethereum advocate @sassal0x shared a tweet with a screenshot from cryptofees.info showing Arbitrum One overtaking Bitcoin and other alternate layer1s in usage.
The chart shows how Ethereum is the market leader clocking in the most usage (measured in terms of fees accrued), with layer2s like Arbitrum One catching up.
DEX Aggregator 1Inch Comes to ZkSync
On April 20th, the popular DEX aggregator, 1Inch, announced that it had successfully deployed on the zkSync Era zkEVM.
zkSync responded by saying:
zkSync Era users can now access deeper liquidity, cheaper transactions, and more transparency thanks to the 1inch DEX Aggregator and the 1inch Limit Order Protocol.
In less than a month since its launch, Era is already in the top five layer2 blockchains by total value locked.
The Future Lies In Interoperable L2s
Cointelegraph Magazine published a wonderful article on April 20th titled “Here’s how Ethereum’s ZK-rollups can become interoperable.”
The article ponders what the end game of layer2 solutions on Ethereum would look like.
But is the brutal competition between ZK-rollups a zero-sum game where there can be only one winner? Or are we looking at a future in which lots of different rollups are able to work in harmony and interoperably?
Although the latter is more likely to be the outcome, there is the obvious question of interoperability between these chains.
Bobbin Threadbare, the founder of Polygon Miden, says:
Very fast interoperability between ZK-rollups is technically possible, but a) People need to agree on standards, and b) They need to actually implement these standards in their systems.
Inter-layer2 chain bridges can achieve simple interoperability like bridges currently do between different L1s. Still, the goal is to move beyond simple token transfers and enable complex transactions on multiple layer2 chains via a single dApp.
Declan Fox, product lead for the ConsenSys Linea zkEVM, says:
Imagine making a DeFi trade where parts of the trade are executed on different chains for optimal liquidity all within the same transaction.
The article dives deep into the different possibilities and the associated drawbacks. A must-read for those who like to get into the trenches.
Till next time, have a great weekend!