ChainNews Selection | Ethereum Layer 2 ecosystem progress summary: StarkWare completes financing, Optimism delayed

In March, there were significant advancements in the Ethereum Layer 2 ecosystem and various ecosystem participants.

(This article is authorized for reprint from ChainNews, the original title is "Updates on Ethereum Layer 2 Ecosystem: StarkWare Completes Financing, Optimism Postponed, Hermez and Aztec Go Live", original article here)

By: Pan Zhixiong

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In March, despite the uncertainties and delays in the Ethereum Layer 2 ecosystem, there was rapid progress and development overall. Offchain Labs launched the mainnet candidate version, Matter Labs plans to launch the 2.0 public testnet in May, Optimism postponed the mainnet launch to July, and StarkWare finally disclosed progress on financing.

Other ecosystem participants also made synchronous developments, such as Polygon attracting more application deployments (Aave), while Hermez and Aztec, two applications focused on transfers, have also gone live on the mainnet, allowing users to execute lower-cost transactions or address privacy concerns simultaneously.

Regarding the fragmentation of L2 liquidity, more and more teams are considering solutions, such as several solutions mentioned in the article "Is Ethereum L2 Feeling Anxious? Let's Count the Cross-Network High-Speed Channel Solutions" and the recent Caspian concept proposed by StarkWare.

Let's now review the significant progress made by each team and ecosystem in the previous month.

Offchain Labs (Arbitrum): Considering Abandoning Patents, Mainnet Candidate Version Ready

The team at Offchain Labs, the creators of the Ethereum scaling solution Arbitrum, has announced that they are considering abandoning their patents as the project matures within the community. They are currently awaiting approval from Princeton University. Originally developed as an academic project at Princeton University, Arbitrum had previously disclosed intentions to commercialize the technology, which led to obtaining a patent with the university's support.

Additionally, Arbitrum has released the fourth version of its testnet, which will also serve as a candidate for the mainnet. Offchain Labs mentioned that their open and permissionless Arbitrum testnet has been running for 5 months, and the latest version will include a simplified Rollup protocol, improved node software performance, and new features such as BLS aggregate signatures to further reduce Gas costs on Layer 1.

Matter Labs (zkSync): Announces 2.0 Roadmap, Plans Mainnet Launch in August

The Ethereum scaling team at Matter Labs has unveiled the roadmap for zkSync 2.0, with plans to launch the zkSync 2.0 public testnet in May and the mainnet in August. The zkSync 1.x version will continue to be updated and will soon support features such as NFT atomic swaps, minting, transfers, and is expected to go live on the mainnet in May.

Matter Labs mentioned that zkSync 2.0 features an EVM-based programming model, composability, portability of existing Solidity source code, native support for all Ethereum wallets, and over 20,000 TPS (scalability surpassing zkRollup). From a user and developer perspective, zkSync 2.0's design is practically indistinguishable from EVM, allowing users to retain their existing Ethereum addresses. Additionally, zkSync 2.0 will introduce a new architecture where zkRollup and zkPorter accounts can be used interchangeably. zkPorter is a newly proposed Layer 2 scalability solution that combines ZK Rollup and sharding in a highly scalable and atomically composable blockchain network.

In terms of wallet technology, the overseas wallet Argent and the domestic wallet imToken have officially announced their priority integration with the zkSync network as entry-level products for users. Argent is set to launch a Layer 2 version of its wallet in the summer, while the latest version of imToken already includes built-in support for zkSync.

Optimism: Postponed to July, Supported by Uniswap V3

Optimism, which was eagerly anticipated to launch its mainnet in March, has been postponed, with the public mainnet now expected to be released in July. Prior to the launch, coordination with the community is needed to prepare for the public mainnet, allowing time for integration, auditing, and testing by various stakeholders including foundational projects, infrastructure providers, browsers, wallets, token bridges, and more.

However, this delay does not affect the progress of Optimism's two exclusive ecosystem partners. The synthetic asset protocol Synthetix will soon introduce Layer 2 trading functionality, and the highly anticipated Uniswap has finally unveiled the design of its V3 AMM solution, emphasizing the launch of a Layer 2 version on the Optimism network, scheduled for mid-May.

Other ecosystem partners have also made progress, such as the stablecoin issuance platform Maker announcing the launch of a dedicated DAI asset bridge for Optimism, allowing users to conduct cross-L1 and L2 transactions more quickly. Additionally, the latest version of Coinbase Wallet now supports the mainnet Beta version of the Optimism network, although there are currently limited practical use cases.

StarkWare: Completes $75 Million Funding Round

StarkWare has announced the completion of a $75 million Series B funding round, indicating a valuation in the hundreds of millions for the company. The round was led by Paradigm, with new investors Three Arrows, Alameda Research, and existing investors Pantera Capital, Sequoia, Founders Fund, DCVC, and Wing participating.

Previously, StarkWare had completed two funding rounds of $6 million and $30 million in January and October 2018, respectively. The $6 million seed round included investors such as MetaStable Capital, Foodgate, Pantera, Polychain, Zcash, and Vitalik Buterin, while the $30 million round was led by Paradigm, with participation from Intel Capital, Sequoia, Atomico, DHVC, Wing, ConsenSys, Coinbase Ventures, Multicoin Capital, and others.

dYdX, a decentralized derivatives exchange supported by StarkWare's scaling solution StarkEx, has officially launched on the Ethereum mainnet. Prior to this, dYdX had released an Alpha test version in February. The platform stated that by choosing Layer 2, it can significantly reduce transaction fees, support more trading pairs, enable instant trade settlements, faster price oracles, offer higher leverage ratios, and enhance privacy protection.

Furthermore, StarkWare introduced an automated market maker (AMM) solution called Caspian to address the liquidity fragmentation issue across Layer 2 networks. Caspian allows liquidity to be maintained on L1 while enabling users to trade on L2.

Polygon (Matic): Beyond Gaming, DeFi Applications Aave and PoolTogether

Polygon has attracted various gaming and NFT applications in the past, but it has now drawn the attention of one of Ethereum's most important DeFi lending platforms, Aave, as their chosen scaling solution.

In addition, the Ethereum-based no-loss lottery platform PoolTogether has gone live on Polygon, with transaction costs reduced to just 1% of previous levels. Anyone can use the Prize Pool Builder on Polygon to create their own no-loss prize pool, currently supporting staking pools and will soon support connections to the Aave protocol deployed on Polygon.

Of course, Polygon is well-suited for gaming applications. For example, the Aave ecosystem NFT game Aavegotchi has officially launched on Polygon, and the early NFT game Decentraland will integrate with Ethereum sidechain scaling solution Polygon to support seamless transfer of MANA tokens between Ethereum and Polygon, allowing users to claim, buy, and trade assets on Polygon with almost no transaction fees upon deployment.

Hermez: Mainnet Launched, Limited Ecosystem

The Ethereum scaling team Hermez Network, based on the ZK Rollup solution, has officially launched its mainnet, allowing users to complete transfer transactions at lower Gas costs. However, there are currently few ecosystem partners visible.

Hermez was introduced by the Ethereum scaling solution technical team iden3. According to the whitepaper, Hermez enables payment and token transfers to be scaled on the Ethereum public blockchain. By compressing each transaction to about 10 bytes, Hermez aims to improve blockchain scalability, estimating a transaction speed increase to 2,000 transactions per second.

Aztec: 2.0 Mainnet Launched, Transfers with Built-in Anonymity

The Ethereum privacy technology solution Aztec has officially launched the 2.0 version on the Ethereum mainnet. This network is based on double ZK Rollup technology and has enabled privacy Rollup services for ETH. Additionally, Aztec is set to introduce the Aztec 2.1+ version in the coming weeks, which will introduce new assets such as WBTC, BAT, AAVE, and DAI to the Rollup.

Aztec has also simultaneously launched an Alpha version of the Aztec 3.0 Noir private smart contract. Noir is Aztec's Rust form language, designed to provide programmable privacy protection in PLONK Rollup.

Celer: Layer2.Finance Deployed on Ropsten Testnet

The Ethereum Layer 2 scaling project Celer Network has deployed its DeFi scaling solution Layer2.finance testnet on Ropsten and initiated a test competition, scheduled until April 19th UTC. The activities include yield rate competitions, testing Layer2 Rollup, providing UI/UX feedback, among others.

Others: Hop Begins Audit, Connext Launches Polygon and xDAI Asset Bridge Test Version

In addition to mainstream Layer 2 ecosystems, peripheral components are also worth noting.

The cross-Rollup transfer application Hop Protocol has announced ongoing auditing and plans to launch its mainnet in April. Hop Protocol will support Layer 2 scaling solutions including Optimism, xDai, Polygon, and Arbitrum, and will continue researching cross-chain contract invocation, enhancing system capital and Gas efficiency, and adding support for non-EVM compatible rollups.

Hop Protocol has established bridging mechanisms for different assets in different L2 networks, introducing special validation nodes and AMM components to facilitate asset transfers across multiple networks.

The team behind Hop Protocol originally developed the smart contract wallet Authereum Labs. Due to encountering Ethereum Gas issues during wallet development, they shifted their focus to Hop Protocol to address the high Gas fees on Ethereum. Authereum wallet will gradually be phased out next year.

Another cross-Rollup transfer application, Connext, based on state channel technology, has announced interoperability between Polygon and xDAI, and has launched a test version of the xDai-Polygon Bridge, allowing users to use state channels to transfer xDai to Dai on Polygon and vice versa.