How L1 and L2s can build the strongest possible Ethereum

The North Star of the Platform team is for Ethereum to scale as a cohesive system and allow assured adoption by all customers. This submit is meant to share our perspective on the L1 <> L2 relationship, the roles of every layer, and the way we (as an ecosystem) are leveraging the strengths of L1 & L2 to create probably the most compelling platform for all customers. A few of that is already clear as we speak, and a few of this may should be validated by way of ongoing experimentation and iteration with the neighborhood and customers 🙏.

On the L1 + L2 relationship

TL;DR:

• Aim: all customers (people and establishments) ought to have a transparent path to leverage, prolong, and profit from the core properties that Ethereum supplies.

  • The perfect path to getting there leverages the distinctive capabilities of every layer, reinforces Ethereum’s core properties, and unlocks significant worth to finish customers by way of these properties.

• The position of every layer has advanced because the ecosystem has grown:

  • Beforehand: the first goal of L2s was to scale Ethereum, and secondarily to provide area for differentiation and customization. The largest lever was on the scaling facet.

  • At this time: the first goal of L2s is to offer differentiated options, companies, customizations, go-to-market methods, and zones of management, whereas additionally providing additional scale. The largest lever as we speak is round differentiation, management and innovation.

  • Function of L1: function a very permissionless and maximally resilient world hub for settlement, shared state, liquidity, and DeFi.

    • A powerful L1 that’s scaling with out compromising on CROPS (censorship-resistance, open supply, privateness, and safety) supplies a greater basis for L2s

  • Function of L2s: ship precious new options, customizations, and management to develop their very own onchain economies whereas additionally extending the core properties of Ethereum to extra customers.

    • A powerful community of L2s reinforces the ecosystem and Ethereum’s middle of gravity

• L2s are full spectrum and have a spread of relationships with L1 relying on their wants

  • Relationship to L1: These L2s looking for the tightest integration with L1 ought to push in the direction of synchronous composability, full interoperability, shared liquidity, Stage 2, and mechanisms like native rollups.

  • Scope: Many L2s with all kinds of enterprise fashions and/or technical specialization will proceed to play a serious position within the ecosystem. All will supply issues the L1 doesn’t.

• The EF will proceed to spend money on applied sciences that enable L2s to extra seamlessly prolong the core properties of L1, and securely entry liquidity/capital throughout L1 and different L2s. L2s ought to preserve transparency and verifiability of their safety properties. In different phrases, either side have an vital position to play, and vibes ought to match substance.

Intro

During the last 5 years an ecosystem of chains has grown up round Ethereum L1. There are numerous completely different properties these chains can select to increase from Ethereum: some inherit full decentralization (e.g. Stage 2 rollups), some inherit a subset of the safety properties (e.g. validiums, prividiums), and a few merely construct on the widespread EVM normal (with out being an L2). Many are nonetheless below improvement, typically starting as impartial chains and progressively integrating extra deeply with Ethereum L1.

It’s time for the EF and the broader Ethereum ecosystem to replace our mannequin of how Ethereum L1 and this community of L2s ought to relate to one another. The final time this occurred was arguably 5 years in the past, when the rollup-centric roadmap was first proposed as a path to scaling Ethereum.

Since then, a lot has modified. The applied sciences that enable L2s to share Ethereum’s safety/liquidity and interoperate with it have matured and advanced. The aggressive benefits of L2s and their worth to customers has grow to be extra clear. L2s themselves have grown and matured, changing into ecosystems and communities in their very own proper. And the L1 scaling roadmap has advanced and are available into sharper focus. As an ecosystem we have to acknowledge what has modified and study from our ecosystem’s successes and failures.

During the last many months, a clearer imaginative and prescient for the way forward for the Ethereum L1 <> L2 relationship has come into focus:

• A thriving Ethereum ecosystem have to be rooted on a robust L1 basis.

• Ethereum L1 will scale by orders of magnitude, whereas retaining most safety & decentralization, remaining the center of the onchain financial system and a hub for DeFi.

• There will likely be a rising ecosystem of impartial and interoperable L2 chains, which is able to supply higher customization, management, and options the L1 can’t. These L2s put down roots within the Ethereum ecosystem as a result of it’s your best option for his or her customers, their communities, or their companies.

• L2 chains each compete and cooperate (that is good and wholesome) to supply a various vary of specialised blockspace, companies, and property..

The aim of this doc is to elucidate the L1 <> L2 imaginative and prescient in additional element, and lay out a path to constructing mutually-reinforcing relationships between Ethereum L1 and any chain that wishes to place down roots and grow to be a part of the ecosystem.

What are the roles of L1 and L2s, and the way can they work collectively?

Ethereum L1 is the world’s main programmable blockchain. No different chain as we speak comes shut when it comes to adoption, developer consideration, decentralization, resilience, and hardness. Ethereum L1 is the center of the DeFi ecosystem and options the deepest liquidity.

Ethereum L1 now has a transparent path to scaling whereas preserving decentralization and hardness. ZK know-how has accelerated quicker than anticipated, because of the work of many groups throughout the Ethereum ecosystem. Within the subsequent few years, we will scale Ethereum L1 by a number of orders of magnitude whereas staying true to its imaginative and prescient of a sequence that doesn’t compromise on its core values.

On the identical time, any single chain will likely be unable to fulfill the various wants of a worldwide onchain financial system. Even in a future the place Ethereum stays the world’s main blockchain and scales 1000x, there will likely be many alternative chains as a result of they supply specialization and customization that any L1 can’t:

• Specialization round particular purposes or use circumstances

• Non-EVM options

• Further privateness ensures

• Pricing mechanisms or tx inclusion logic

• Extremely low latency or different sequencing properties

• Excessive scaling properties L1s can’t match

• Specialised economies, go-to-market, and progress approaches

• Modular designs that allow compliance or different enterprise wants

• Different enhancements or improvements that may be iterated and shipped quicker than on L1

• Governance methods to provide stakeholders granular management over their very own versatile execution setting on Ethereum

This presents a chance for Ethereum L1 and Ethereum L2s to construct mutually helpful relationships, every specializing in complementary roles.

Why ought to different chains wish to be L2s on Ethereum?

• Excessive safety, low counterparty threat, and most decentralization at considerably diminished price: L2s obtain most safety & decentralization at a lot decrease prices than alt-L1s. Constructing and incentivizing a worldwide decentralized validator set is dear, time consuming, and troublesome. L2s can offload that accountability to Ethereum L1, enabling them to “pay for utilization” relatively than pay the big mounted prices to construct their very own L1 validator community.

• Customers and builders: L2s achieve entry to extra customers and builders by way of safe interoperability with the biggest L1 blockchain and the biggest community of L2 chains (interoperability and crosschain UX will speed up because of ZK know-how, real-time proving, quicker L1 finality & L2 settlement, and maturation of agentic infrastructure).

• Interoperability: L2s, if designed properly, can achieve safe entry to L1 property and DeFi liquidity, consumer accounts on L1, and any companies that stay on L1, eg. oracles, ENS.

• Go-to-market: The branding and reputational advantages from being a part of the Ethereum ecosystem, which has the strongest status, safety monitor document, and regulatory acceptance of any L1.

How does Ethereum L1 profit from these relationships? From our expertise and discussions with stakeholders across the ecosystem, we imagine that positioning Ethereum L1 on the centre of a rising community of L2s reinforces Ethereum and ETH’s distinctive position within the onchain financial system:

• Creating demand for ETH, and offering trust-minimized, safe bridging between ETH and different property

  • ETH capabilities concurrently as a retailer of worth, cash, and an utility all through Ethereum.

• Extending community results round Ethereum (e.g. EVM, developer schooling, developer tooling, consumer onboarding, and interoperability between L2s)

• Reinforcing Ethereum’s precious place because the core of a multichain ecosystem, and the first settlement and liquidity layer of the onchain financial system

• Offering extra enterprise improvement, progress, and advertising and marketing efforts broadly for Ethereum

• L2s assist obtain a core imaginative and prescient of the Ethereum ecosystem. By performing as distribution engines (offering additional scaling) for Ethereum’s core properties (safety, resilience, and hardness), they assist to maximise the quantity of people that can get sustainable worth from Ethereum

The Ethereum ecosystem shouldn’t take these advantages as a right. Some are debated throughout the neighborhood, or are long-term theses that should be validated by way of experimentation, measurement, and evaluation. In the end the L1 <> L2 relationship have to be mutually helpful for it to succeed. The primary 5 years of this relationship have shipped many successes and key constructing blocks for the longer term.

What does this imply for L2s going ahead

What does this new imaginative and prescient imply for L2s, their groups, and their communities?

Listed here are our suggestions:

• L2s ought to give attention to methods which might be complementary to L1 and differentiate their platforms. Many L2s are already efficiently executing in the direction of this imaginative and prescient. Some have carried out this with modern new options, by concentrating on particular use-cases (e.g. app chains), supplying new types of distribution, or with novel go-to-market methods. This has helped them create their very own distinct communities and prolonged the properties of Ethereum to hundreds of thousands of recent customers.

• L2s ought to really feel empowered to distinguish in any manner they’ll think about. We now have already seen differentiation in scalability, trustlessness, privateness, company compliance, business sector, neighborhood, and a spread of technical improvements. Different use circumstances that may operate properly as L2s embrace public bulletin boards for cryptographic e-voting, and certificate transparency.

• It’s a legitimate alternative for L2s to increase all or a subset of Ethereum’s properties, relying on their targets. However they need to make sure that the safety properties they do and don’t present are simply understood by their customers.

  • L2s working in the direction of trust-minimization ought to at the least attain Stage 1 and go the “walkaway” check, that means customers can safely exit to L1 even within the presence of malicious operators or safety council failure.

  • L2s that select to be closest to L1 and totally inherit its properties ought to push in the direction of:

    • Reaching Stage 2
    • Synchronous composability (whether or not read-only eg. L1SLOAD / L1STATICCALL, or read-write), each on the protocol layer and on the utility layer (eg. even when exercise is on L2, do consumer accounts should be on L2? Even when trades are on L1, do property should be issued on L2?)
    • Changing into a local rollup (permitting L2s to do away with their safety councils)

• L2s ought to proceed to work on mechanisms for interoperability and shared liquidity extra broadly, strengthening the system as an entire. We encourage groups to look into the Open Intents Framework and the Fast Confirmation Rule, discover designs that provide access to L1 capital with out leaving the L2, and in any other case contribute to ongoing synchronous composability workstreams.

• L2s ought to proceed to function transparently, being clear with the ecosystem about their particular person safety properties and relationship to L1 (supported by L2Beat, enjoying an vital position in making the L2 ecosystem clear and guaranteeing it improves over time).

What the EF is doing to assist construct that world:

To realize this imaginative and prescient of the L1<>L2 relationship, we all know the EF has a task to play. Right here’s what we’re doing:

• Working to each scale the L1 and scale blobs with out sacrificing decentralization or hardness. At this time blobs are solely ~30% full. There’s a whole lot of headroom to develop, and we really feel snug rising blobs far more if wanted.

• Supporting L2s particularly who’ve or want to deepen robust properties in core EF domains like privateness, safety, and trustlessness.

• The Platform crew, led by Josh Rudolf, to enhance the Ethereum platform as an entire and function an interface between L2s and the core protocol roadmap.

• Enhancing liquidity on L1, and make it simpler for L2s to entry that liquidity (quicker finality, withdrawals, and deposits).

• Working carefully with L2 groups to grasp their wants and replicate them in Protocol priorities, and bringing readability to the connection between L1 and L2. For this relationship to work, we have to perceive what’s working and what’s not, and work collectively. The aim is to at all times make clear and strengthen the worth proposition of being a part of the Ethereum ecosystem.

• Investing R&D in the direction of the know-how that may allow “native rollups” — L2 chains that may be totally and trustlessly verified by L1, enabling synchronous composability and safe interoperability.

• Working carefully with L2Beat and others who assist to watch and validate the safety properties of L2s. We have to be rigorous and sincere concerning the properties of L2s and the diploma to which they share in L1’s safety, in order that customers and builders could make knowledgeable selections.

• Addressing the first draw back of a multichain ecosystem: fragmentation. We’ll work with the ecosystem (chains, wallets, infra suppliers) to construct higher interop options that repair UX and developer platform fragmentation. And now with a clearer imaginative and prescient for the L1<>L2 relationship, we will start to deal with the fragmentation of Ethereum’s narrative.

Collectively, we are going to ship a worldwide, permissionless onchain financial system and the most effective platform for all customers.