Introduction to Vitalik | Different Approaches to Ethereum Layer 2, What are the Trade-offs and Advantages of Layer 2 Standards

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared his views on the development of Ethereum L2 Layer 2 ecosystem on 10/31. He mentioned that the heterogeneity of L2 will become stronger over time, and analyzed that different characteristics of L2 can be chosen for different use cases. Here is a summary of the article. For the full article, please refer to here.

Differentiation in L2 Ecosystem Development Will Be Greater: Four Driving Demands

Over the past year, the second-layer ecosystem of Ethereum has rapidly expanded, with projects such as StarkNet, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Scroll representing the Rollup orientation. These projects continue to enhance security, and L2beat website provides detailed status summaries. In addition, there are teams building sidechains like Polygon, or turning L1 projects into validiums for off-chain data access (such as Celo), and some new attempts like Linea, Zeth, etc.

Vitalik mentioned that there will be a trend towards greater heterogeneity in second-layer projects for the following reasons:

1. Transitional Needs: Some currently standalone L1 projects may want to integrate more closely with the Ethereum ecosystem and could become second-layer projects. These projects may prefer a gradual transition to reduce usability risks as the technology is not yet ready to move all content to Rollup at once.

2. Centralized Project Needs: Some centralized projects seek to provide more security guarantees and explore blockchain-based ways to achieve their goals. Previously they might have sought permissioned consortium chains, but now they may only need a compromise in decentralization level with high throughput, which is not suitable for immediate transition to Rollup.

3. Non-Financial Application Needs: Non-financial applications, such as games or social media, aim to achieve decentralization but only require compromised security. These applications may need different levels of security for different activities to improve efficiency.

4. Cost Considerations: Extremely low transaction fees are more attractive to users from the non-blockchain world, as they are not accustomed to "user pays" as in the non-blockchain world.

Considering these factors, choosing a specific second-layer solution such as Rollup, Validium, etc., depends on the specific needs of applications and teams.

Choosing Rollup is because it provides higher security, while others may choose Validium, etc., to achieve greater throughput and lower costs. Therefore, for specific applications, careful consideration of these trade-offs is necessary to determine which solution best suits their goals.

Different Types of L2 Systems: Rollup/Validium/Disconnected

Vitalik discusses the trade-offs of these L2 systems:

Vitalik noted that the above is a simplified structure, and there are many intermediate options between Rollup and Validium. As Ethereum's data availability will improve with the Dencun upgrade, introducing EIP-4844 proto-danksharding, providing ~32 kB/sec on-chain data availability, and ongoing improvements; as well as the trade-offs in security between different applications.

Alternative Solutions Fail to Provide Stable Security

In Vitalik's argument, he raises security concerns for some Disconnected system types. Cases that attempt to approach other L2 system types through different paths may encounter issues in reading Ethereum data. While these methods are not entirely impractical, facing a 51% attack on Ethereum may force these independent chains to undergo a hard fork through governance tools or social consensus to confirm data correctness.

It can be seen that while Vitalik does not explicitly state that independent chain solutions are unworkable, there are still many challenges regarding security.

Conclusion: Four Dimensions Determine L2 Selection

Full article here