I find it quite amusing that we’re now at a point in the Ethereum scaling journey where there are already “rollup wars” between different technologies. Though this war isn’t like the layer 1 war, this war is about which technologies can best be used to scale Ethereum in the most efficient and effective way possible. And unlike the layer 1 wars, Ethereum wins no matter which rollup/layer 2 ecosystems emerge victorious.

sassal.eth 🦇🔊🐼 @sassal0x

All rollups matter

December 10th 2021

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Now, while I painted a rosy picture above, the reality is that there is no “one size fits all” solution for scaling Ethereum available today and there likely won’t be for a very long time (if ever). We are currently in a multi-rollup world with each solution having various features, trade-offs and different target markets. For example, dYdX is an application-specific zkrollup (built using StarkWare’s tech) that powers a decentralized perpetuals exchange with some other features planned for the future. On the other hand, both Arbitrum and Optimism are generalized EVM-compatible/equivalent platforms that allow for arbitrary code deployment (just like layer 1 Ethereum). Given this context, I wouldn’t say that Arbitrum and Optimism are “better” than dYdX because it would be comparing apples to oranges as dYdX’s goal is to be the best decentralized perpetuals exchange in the world whereas Arbitrum and Optimism want to be the best generalized EVM-compatible/equivalent optimistic rollups.

Then there’s the whole debate around whether optimistic rollups (ORUs) will be obsoleted by zkRollups (ZKRs) and honestly, this debate is really tiring. As bullish as I am on ZKR’s, I challenge someone to find me a zkEVM (generalized EVM-compatible ZKR) that I can use today - spoiler alert, you can’t because it doesn’t exist in production. In saying that, many smart people and teams are working on zkEVM implementations and they may end up coming out sooner than we think - maybe even in 2022 - but the reality is that they aren’t here today whereas generalized ORU’s are already live and have rapidly growing ecosystems. Of course, there are generalized ecosystems using zk-tech live today like StarkNet but they are in very early alpha stages and aren’t actually EVM-compatible/equivalent (by design).

Finally, I’ve already started to notice “rollup maximalism” rearing its ugly head where certain people in the community are getting married to one layer 2 team/ecosystem. I think this is so incredibly short-sighted because all of these ecosystems are still very young, the pie is going to get 10,000x bigger from here, and the rollup teams are all working towards the same goal of scaling Ethereum. So really, we should all be rooting for every Ethereum scaling solution to win because they are fighting off the real “enemies” - the other layer 1 ecosystems.

Regardless of all of the above, the layer 2/scalability ecosystem on Ethereum is thriving and I truly believe that 2022 is finally going to be the year that Ethereum scales for good. The “rollup wars” will probably just lead to increased competition between these ecosystems which ultimately means better outcomes for end-users - I just hope that the communities don’t get too toxic - especially when all of these ecosystems launch their tokens.

Have a great weekend everyone,
Anthony Sassano

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All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice.