L2 is coming, will Solana become what she once hated?

Author: Alex Liu, Foresight News

The Solana community has always been the main force criticizing the shortcomings of Layer 2 solutions. But now some Solana ecological projects are also building L2. Some people joke that this puts Solana supporters in a dilemma - should they continue to criticize or flexibly adjust their views? Is Solana going to become the person she once hated?

I think before making a judgment, we should first understand whether Solana’s Layer 2 is a new bottle of old wine for Ethereum L2. What a difference.

What do they think?

Regarding Solana’s Layer 2, Solana co-founder Toly said: “L1 cannot prevent anyone from building L2 on Solana. As an engineer, if there are any technical problems, I will do my best. Support them. Although the L2 execution environment is competitive with L1, the main difference between ETH and Solana is that ordinary tx bytes on Solana are already as cheap as blobs, L2 does not help with this. Therefore, the fees charged to users by Solana L2 and Solana L1 will be roughly the same.”

##And Solana’s main investor, Kyle, a partner at Multicoin. He even directly expressed his disapproval of Solana L2: "I think people will build L2 on Solana, which is permissionless. Go ahead and do it, no one will stop you. But I don't think they will achieve meaningful adoption. . I may be wrong, let's wait and see!"

The user fee is not much different from L1, so I don't think it will gain meaningful adoption. .. Could it be that Solana’s Layer 2 is useless compared to Ethereum? Let's take a look at what these projects actually build.

Zeta Markets

Zeta Markets is developing a Layer 2 solution called ZX. ZX is an optimistic rollup based on Solana that aims to increase the speed and scalability of decentralized transactions by enabling trustless on-chain settlement using zero-knowledge proofs (zk-proofs).

Features of ZX

1. High throughput: ZX is capable of processing 10,000 transactions per second (TPS), significantly Improved transaction performance.

2. Low latency: Transaction confirmation time is less than 10 milliseconds, close to the performance of centralized exchanges.

3. #Seamless trading experience: Provides one-click trading function to simplify user operations.

4. High leverage options: Supports 50x leverage and provides multiple collateral options.

5. Zero-knowledge proof: Use zk-proofs to achieve trustless on-chain settlement to ensure the transparency and security of transactions.

6. $Z Token: ZX’s native token $Z will serve as the gas fee for transactions and incentivize participants.

ZX’s architecture diagram

Why Build L2 on Solana to achieve the above functions?

According to Zeta Markets’ litepaper, the reasons for building Solana Layer 2 mainly include the following points:

• Improve trading Performance: Although Solana's Layer 1 already has high throughput and low latency, in order to further improve the performance of decentralized transactions, ZX uses optimistic rollup and zero-knowledge proofs (zk-proofs) technology. These technologies can achieve performance close to centralized exchanges while maintaining decentralization and security (such as transaction throughput of up to 10,000 TPS, while the real TPS on Solana L1 is 1000 ~ 2000).

• Addressing congestion issues: Solana may experience network congestion issues during periods of high transaction volume. By moving some transaction processing to Layer 2, ZX can reduce the burden on Layer1, thereby improving the overall network efficiency and stability.

• Reduced transaction fees: Although Solana’s transaction fees are already relatively low, through Layer 2 solutions, ZX can further reduce users Transaction costs, especially in high-frequency trading and large-scale trading scenarios.

• Enhanced User Experience: ZX is designed to provide a seamless trading experience, including one-click trading and less than 10 milliseconds transaction confirmation time. On Solana L1, blocks are spaced 400 milliseconds apart. These improvements will bring the user experience closer to that of centralized exchanges, while retaining the advantages of decentralized exchanges, such as self-custody and transparency.

• Ecosystem integration: Solana’s DeFi ecosystem is growing rapidly, and the introduction of ZX will further enhance the liquidity of this ecosystem and interoperability. ZX plans to leverage Solana’s low transaction fees and fast block times to speed up the finalization of Rollup blocks, thereby improving the user experience.

In summary, Zeta builds Solana’s Layer 2 solution ZX, aiming to improve the performance of decentralized transactions, reduce transaction fees, enhance user experience, and solve network congestion question. These improvements are necessary to meet growing DeFi demand and improve the overall competitiveness of the Solana ecosystem.

marginfi

marginfi is the second lending protocol in TVL on Solana. Its newly launched liquidity layer is what everyone knows as L2. ?

Really not! Despite the layer in the name, marginfi's liquidity layer is not a regular L2, but an integrated "liquidity layer" protocol designed to provide liquidity support for DeFi applications on Solana.

Features of the liquidity layer

• Integrated liquidity layer: marginfi As Solana’s first liquidity layer, it allows traders No need for cross-chain bridging to access liquidity.

• Risk Management System: Marginfi’s risk management system manages risk for the marginfi liquidity layer, and each bank can define its own risk parameters.

• Multi-asset support: Users can borrow and lend 16 assets at the same time, providing greater liquidity management flexibility.

• High Yield: Through native staking and native token income, users can obtain integrated local income.

• Decentralized application support: Provide necessary infrastructure for decentralized applications such as transactions, indexing and payments.

As a liquidity layer focused on providing liquidity support and risk management for DeFi applications on Solana, the liquidity layer is not a Layer 2 solution in the conventional sense—— It does not have its own execution environment, does not require sequencers, full nodes, etc. But this unconventional L2 with Solana characteristics may be a more valuable layer for the L1 network.

A layer that can access liquidity without cross-chain bridging, or Ethereum L2 with fragmented liquidity, which one would you choose?

The core is different from Ethereum L2

Due to various differences in architecture and design, Solana L2 and Ethereum L2 have the following Notable Differences:

• Transaction Fee Fluctuation:

Although Ethereum L2’s transaction fees has been reduced significantly, but there are still fluctuations, especially at times of high network load. In contrast, Solana’s L2 solution continues to maintain low transaction fees, typically below $0.01, and fees are stable and do not fluctuate significantly due to changes in network load.

• Transaction speed:

Although the transaction speed of Ethereum L2 has improved, But it's still not as good as Solana's native network. Solana’s transaction confirmation time is very short, usually around 400 milliseconds, while Ethereum L2’s transaction confirmation time can be between 5-10 seconds. Solana’s L2 solutions like ZX are capable of processing 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) with transaction confirmation times of less than 10 milliseconds, significantly increasing transaction speeds.

• Interaction complexity

##Such as marginfi’s liquidity layer solution and native network Seamless integration to access liquidity without cross-chain bridging, simplifying the usage experience.

Summary

In fact, Solana’s L2 solution was designed with common criticisms of Ethereum L2 in mind and provides a good user experience. , low transaction fees, extremely high security and fast transaction speeds. Compared with Solana L1, it can also supplement functions to meet more needs. Let us wait and see with Kyle what the future development of Solana L2 will be.

The above is the detailed content of L2 is coming, will Solana become what she once hated?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!