After the Cancun upgrade, there is still a lot of room for imagination in the Ethereum ecosystem.

Written by: Haotian

As the entire Ethereum layer2 ecosystem is in trouble, @VitalikButerin's article on the future of Ethereum Surge explicitly or implicitly discusses several potential development changes. The mission of shrinking layer2 standards and boundaries and enriching and integrating the layer2 ecosystem seems to be imminent. Next, let me talk about my understanding:

1) Rollup Centric Roadmap replaces sharding.

The layer2 protocol has evolved from the state channel in 2015 to Plasma in 2017, and finally to Rollup in 2019. The development of Rollup into the mainstream is the result of the continuous evolution of the Ethereum ecosystem, so that the original Sharding plan has also changed.

Obviously, the two powerful paths of Rollup and Sharding have been fully integrated, which means that the Sharding plan has been shelved and replaced, and the final roadmap of Rollup Centric is the finalized expansion strategy.

Because the central idea of ​​sharding is to let nodes verify and store only a small part of transactions instead of all transactions. This is consistent with the effect of Rollup, which processes most transactions in an off-chain environment and only presents verifiable results on the chain. If the big Rollup strategy is chosen, there is no need to promote sharding.

2) The Rollup roadmap solves the triple dilemma problem better than other alt-layers1.

The expansion of the public blockchain faces the impossible triangle problem of decentralization, scalability, and security. Some alt-layer1 high-performance chains claim to have solved this triple dilemma through engineering optimization of software and hardware. In fact, this is achieved at the expense of the decentralized nature of the client nodes.

Although vitalik did not say it explicitly, he was actually alluding to Solana. Although Solana has recently launched a new client, Firedancer, it will take a long time to reach the level of decentralization of Ethereum client nodes.

Vitalik believes that the next stage of the Rollup strategy path is the combination of data availability sampling (DAS) and SNARKs to effectively solve the impossible triangle problem. The reason is that the client only needs to download a small amount of data and perform a very small amount of calculation to verify the accuracy of the transaction status, so that the transactions under Rollup can be infinitely magnified in theory, and the main network only needs to sample and verify the Blob data.

This may be the real advantage of Rollup Centric compared to other alt-layer1 public chains. It achieves the possibility of high scalability without sacrificing the impossible triangle problem. Its ultimate goal is to achieve L1+L2 100,000+ TPS while the data processing capacity of each slot reaches 16M.

3) Rollup standards and regulations need to be tightened urgently. To fight against foreign aggressors, we must first stabilize the internal situation?

At present, the entire Ethereum layer2 is criticized for a lot of problems, even to the extent that layer2 drags down the delayed outbreak of Ethereum. From the perspective of the secondary market, it is not difficult to understand that the market value growth of ETH itself is already very weak, and it also has to bring with it a bunch of high-market-value VC "sell-pressure coins" such as $ARB, $OP, $STRK, and $ZK? Whether the relationship between Rollup layer2 and Ethereum is "feeding" or "sucking blood" is worth discussing.

In fact, to solve this dilemma, Vitalik has already given a signal: redefine layer2. 1. Layer2 must fully inherit the characteristics of Ethereum mainnet, which is trustless, open, and censorship-resistant. In simple terms, it must rely on Ethereum's DA capabilities and the security level must reach the stage1 level (with Trustless fraud proof guarantee).

Previously, the Stack strategy, Rollup As A Service, modular third-party DA, and shared sequencer have given the layer2 market great freedom, diversity, and scalability. Before and after the Cancun upgrade, the layer2 market was flourishing, and everyone expected that the explosive growth of layer2 would drive the prosperity of the application market, thereby "paying taxes" to feed back the value growth of the Ethereum main chain.

However, the reality went against expectations. The boundless DA and low-cost threshold for launching chains led to the emergence of a large number of layer2s. Instead of feeding back, they actually shared part of the Ethereum ecosystem growth expectations through airdrops and coin issuance expectations.

Therefore, Vitalik waved the flag to shrink the boundaries of Rollup, which will make the core strategy of layer2 Rollup Centric truly form a synergy, which is undoubtedly a big negative for the expected business model under the commercial stack such as @CelestiaOrg's third-party DA and @alt_layer's RaaS. For most layer2s in the market, fully embracing the Ethereum mainnet and making a path planning for differentiated expected growth is the best solution.

As the first layer2 that practices decentralized sequencer and is good at differentiated development, @MetisL2 has also developed fraud proofs, migrated Ethereum Blob and other strategies to cater to Ethereum. Recently, layer2 small-cap tokens led by $METIS have ushered in a wave of general increases, which may indirectly confirm this point.

4) After the Cancun upgrade, there is still a lot of room for imagination in the Ethereum ecosystem.

Previously, many people have discussed that after the Cancun upgrade, the benefits of Ethereum's substantial technical upgrades have all ended, and the only way forward is to rely on the expansion of the application ecosystem? In fact, this is not the case.

1. The dual-route debate of layer2 OP vs. ZK has not yet been decided. Originally, relying on the ZK Endgame theory, ZK's direction of layer2 was considered politically correct, but Ethereum's future development in data availability sampling, data compression technology, and SNARKs will "blur" and level the technical route differences between OP and ZK;

2. The importance of layer2 cross-chain interoperability is highlighted. The Rollup Centric strategy emphasizes that the Ethereum ecosystem is a whole. Previously, each layer2 developed infra based on its technical advantages, resulting in too many general layer2s and no one paying attention to specific layer2s. Now that layer2 has rolled inward to the basic infra, whoever can do a good job of interoperability and full ecological integration will have the possibility of taking the lead in the next stage of layer2 competition;

3. The layer2 architecture cannot be limited to pure Rollup. Vitalik previously published an article discussing the possibility of ZK+Plasma. On the surface, it seems to be a flag-waving to Vitalik's entrepreneurship, but what he actually wants to express is that layer2 should define the framework based on the application type. Rollup, Plasma, and Validium all have specific preferred application directions. For example, Pasma can ensure that the ledger status is effectively tracked and recorded in payment scenarios, and has a better security release mechanism, which is suitable for payment applications. The hybrid Plasma/Rollup architecture can achieve better scalability and privacy, and the theoretical TPS can reach about 260,000.

4. Amplify the performance of the Ethereum mainnet. I have previously discussed that the short-term development of Rollup is not strong enough, but the performance of the Ethereum mainnet can be optimized to highlight the position. For example, further improve the efficiency of client software, reduce the gas cost of specific opcodes and precompiled, multi-dimensional gas pricing, EVM-MAX proposals, etc. These are not limited to Surge, and there will be greater optimization in the future Splurge stage.

The end.

In short, Ethereum layer2 has evolved from a grassroots development to the gradual formation of a unified Rollup route, and then to the prosperous involution of RaaS, and now to strategic contraction and reshuffle, which is in line with the several major evolutionary stages that a set of mature business formats must go through. Therefore, the past pessimism and concerns are normal, and it is far from the time to conclude that Ethereum is not going to work.

Keep Optimistic， Bullish Ethereum！