On his personal blog, Buterin laid out the present state of Ethereum’s scaling ecosystem.
Some layer1 projects are working to integrate more deeply into the Ethereum ecosystem.
Co-founder Vitalik Buterin believes that Ethereum’s layer-2 ecosystem will continue to develop with new and interesting technical proposals.
On his personal blog, Buterin laid out the present state of Ethereum’s scaling ecosystem, which includes various layer-2 protocols with varying approaches to delivering more scaling capacity, cheaper prices, and higher security.
Buterin emphasized how rollups of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) developed by projects like Arbitrum, Optimism, Scroll, and, more recently, Kakarot and Taiko have significantly bolstered the security of their own solutions.
Integrating More Deep into the Ecosystem
Polygon and other “sidechain projects” have created their own rollup methods in the meanwhile. Buterin also calls out “almost-EVMs” like zkSync, extensions like Arbitrum Stylus, and zero-knowledge proof pioneers Starknet as key actors in the development of scalable technologies for the ecosystem.
Buterin points out that some layer1 projects are working to integrate more deeply into the Ethereum ecosystem in the hopes of eventually becoming layer2 projects.
Given that the technology is not yet at the level where it can be fully integrated in rollup technology, a transfer of this kind remains challenging, since an “all at once” approach would create a decline in usability. The danger of losing momentum and being too late for the shift to be significant increases if it is delayed.
Buterin also mentions that some centralized, non-Ethereum projects are turning to blockchain-based solutions to provide customers with more security.
Finally, Buterin takes into account non-financial applications that want to be decentralized but do not need high levels of security. He cites a social media example to illustrate how the app’s many features would need to operate independently.