Summer of Rollup: Overview of Established and Emerging Rollup Projects

Written by: Stanley, Kernel Ventures

Compiled by: 0xxz, Golden Finance

1. Rollup track background

1.1 Track introduction

Rollup It is one of the Layer2 solutions. It transfers the calculation and storage of transactions on the Ethereum main network (i.e. Layer1) to Layer2 for processing and compression, and then uploads the compressed data to the Ethereum main network to expand the performance of Ethereum. The emergence of Rollup makes the gas fee of Layer 2 much lower than that of the main network, saving gas consumption, faster TPS, etc., making transactions and interactions smoother. Some mainstream Rollup chains that have been launched such as Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base, as well as ZK Rollup chains such as Starknet and zkSync are all commonly used chains on the market.

1.2 Data Overview

Rollup 链数据对比，图片来源：Kernel Ventures

It can be seen from the data that OP and ARB still dominate the current Rollup chain, but rising stars such as Manta & ZK Fair can accumulate a certain amount of TVL in the short term, but the number of protocols will still need to grow for some time. The mainstream Rollup protocol has been fully developed and the infrastructure has been improved, and other emerging chains still need to develop.

2. Rollup track analysis

This article will classify each chain and introduce some of the more popular Rollup chains as well as the old Rollup chains.

2.1 Old Rollup Chain

Arbitrum is an Ethereum Layer 2 expansion solution based on Optimistic Rollup technology developed by the Offchain Labs team. Compared with the main network, Arbitrum's transaction data is only settled on Ethereum, while the actual execution and contract storage are completed on the side chain, which makes the Gas fees required by Arbitrum greatly reduced. This design effectively reduces transaction costs and improves overall expansion performance. Arbitrum improves transaction speed and throughput by moving some processing logic off-chain, while maintaining security and interoperability with the Ethereum mainnet. This makes Arbitrum an attractive Layer 2 solution capable of bringing greater efficiency and scalability to the Ethereum ecosystem.

OP: Optimism is built based on Optimistic Rollup and uses a single round of interactive fraud proof to ensure that the data synchronized to Layer1 is valid.

Polygon zkEVM is an expansion solution for Ethereum Layer 2, built based on ZK Rollup technology. By adopting ZK proofs, Polygon zkEVM reduces transaction fees and increases network throughput while ensuring the security of Ethereum L1. This solution uses innovative technical means to bring higher efficiency and scalability to the Ethereum ecosystem and provide users with a better transaction experience. The launch of Polygon zkEVM enables the Ethereum network to better cope with the growing transaction needs and injects new vitality into the development of the entire blockchain industry.

2.2 Emerging Rollup Chain

ZK Fair

The main features of ZK Fair as a Rollup are:

• Built based on Polygon CDK, DA layer Will be using Celestia (currently held by a self-operated data committee), EVM compatible
• With USDC as Gas fee
• Rollup token ZKF 100% distributed to the community. 75% of the tokens will be distributed in four installments to participants of Gas consumption activities within 48 hours. Essentially, participants participate in the primary market sale of tokens by paying Gas to the official sorter. The corresponding The financing valuation in the primary market is only US$4 million.

ZK Fair TVL 增长趋势，图片来源：Kernel Ventures

ZK Fair’s rapid rise in short-term TVL is partly due to its decentralized “ownerless” nature. We learned from the community that the current mainstream The listing of exchanges such as Bitget & Kucoin & Gate are all done by the community and users to establish contact with the exchange, and then invite the official team for technical docking. They are all voluntary actions of the community, including izumi Finance on the chain, which are all community actions. The model takes the lead and is supplemented by project parties, and the community cohesion is strong.

We learned from ZK Fair development team Lumoz (former Opside) that the team plans to launch new Rollup chains with different themes in the future, such as the currently hot Bitcoin-based Rollup chain, as well as social and financial Derivatives, etc. In the future, new chains may be launched in the form of cooperation with project parties, similar to the popular Layer 3 concept, that is, one Dapp and one chain. Through discussions with the team, we learned that some subsequent chains will also have In Fair mode, the team will distribute a portion of the original chips to participants on the chain.

Blast

Blast is a second-layer network based on Optimistic Rollups technology and compatible with Ethereum. It only took 6 days for the TVL on the chain to exceed 500 million US dollars. Forcing $600 million, it directly doubled the price of Blur tokens.

Blast started when founder Pacman believed that the hundreds of millions of dollars in funds in the Blur bid pool had been passively sleeping and failed to earn any income, and this situation existed in almost every application in every chain, which meant These funds are suffering passive depreciation due to inflation. Specifically, when a user deposits funds into Blast, Blast will then use the corresponding ETH locked on the Layer 1 network for native pledge of the network, and automatically return the obtained ETH pledge income to the users on Blast. Simply put, if a user holds 1 ETH in an account on Blast, it will likely grow automatically over time.

Manta

Manta Network is a gateway for modular ZK applications, leveraging modular blockchain and zkEVM to establish a new paradigm of L2 smart contract platforms, building modules for the next generation of dApps It is a modular ecosystem that currently provides two networks:

This article mainly introduces Manta Pacific, which is a modular L2 ecosystem built on Ethereum. It solves the availability problem through modular infrastructure design and allows modules to zkDA and zkEVM are seamlessly integrated. Manta Since becoming the first Ethereum L2 integrated into Celestia, Manta Pacific has helped users save over $750,000 in gas fees.

Metis

Metis has been in operation for 2 years, but its recent decentralized sequencer (Sequencer) has attracted attention again. Metis is a Layer 2 based on the Ethereum chain. It is the first innovative use of decentralized sequence pool (PoS Sequencer Pool), mixed OP and ZK Rollup to improve the security, sustainable operation and decentralization of the network.

In Metis’s design, the initial orderer nodes are created by whitelisted users, and there is also a parallel staking mechanism. Users can become new sequencer nodes by staking the native token METIS, while allowing network participants to supervise the sequencer nodes, improving the transparency and credibility of the entire system.

3. Technology core analysis

3.1 Polygon CDK

Polygon Chain Development Kit (CDK) is a modular open source software toolkit for blockchain developers to A new L2 chain is launched on Ethereum.

Polygon CDK leverages zero-knowledge proofs to compress transactions and enhance scalability. It also prioritizes modularity and promotes flexibility in designing application-specific chains. This enables developers to choose virtual machines, sequencer types, gas tokens, and data availability solutions. It has the following features:

High modularity: Polygon CDK allows developers to customize L2 chains according to specific requirements. Can meet the unique needs of various applications.

Data Availability: Chains built using CDK will have a dedicated Data Availability Committee (DAC) to ensure reliable off-chain data access.

3.2 Celestia DA

Celestia first proposed the concept of modular blockchain, decoupling the blockchain into three layers: data, consensus, and execution. These three layers in a single blockchain All work is done by a network. Celestia focuses on the data and consensus layer, and L2 allows Celestia to be responsible for the data availability layer (DA) to reduce interaction gas fees. For example, Manta Pacific has adopted Celestia as the data availability layer. According to Manta Pacific official news, DA fees were reduced by 99.81% after migrating from Ethereum to Celestia.

3.3 OP vs. ARB

Optimism is not the only existing Rollup solution. Arbitrum offers a similar solution. Arbitrum is the closest alternative to Optimism in terms of features and popularity. Arbitrum allows developers to run unmodified EVM contracts and Ethereum transactions on layer 2 protocols while still enjoying the security of Ethereum’s layer 1 network. In these respects, it offers very similar characteristics to Optimism.

The main difference between Optimism and Arbitrum is that the former uses a single round of fraud proofs, while Arbitrum uses multiple rounds of fraud proofs. Optimism's single-round fraud prevention (FP) relies on L1 to perform all L2 transactions. This ensures that FP verification is instantaneous.

Since its launch, ARB has been significantly better than OP in various L2 business data, but this began to gradually change after OP began to promote OP stack. Although OP still cannot reach the size of ARB, However, there is already a rising trend, and the increase in this round of OP tokens is huge, nearly doubling in three months. Op stack is an open source L2 technology stack, which means that other projects that want to run L2 can use it for free to quickly deploy their own L2, greatly reducing the cost of development and testing. L2s that adopt OP stack can achieve safety and efficiency among themselves due to the consistency in technical architecture. After the launch of OP stack, it was first adopted by Coinbase. The L2 Base built by OP stack had a demonstration effect of Coinbase. Then Op stack was adopted by more and more projects, such as Binance's opBNB, NFT project Zora, etc.

4. Future Outlook of the Track

4.1 Fair Launch

The Fair launch mode of this round of Inscription Track has a wide audience, allowing retail investors to directly obtain the original chips, which is also the reason why Inscription Reasons why it’s still popular today. ZK Fair uses the essence of this model, that is, public launch. In the future, more chains may follow this model, causing TVL to rise rapidly.

4.2 Rollup annexes L1 market share

In terms of experience, there is no real difference between Rollup and L1. Even its efficient transactions and low handling fees are often more attractive to users, because most users will not do this. Pay attention to technical details and only make decisions based on experience. Some fast-growing Rollups have excellent experience, extremely fast transaction speeds, and generous incentives for users & developers. With the precedent of ZK Fair, future chains may follow this method and further annex L1.

4.3 Clear plan & ecological health

In this round of Rollup narrative, ZK Fair & Blast and other chains, project owners generously provide incentives, making the ecology healthier and reducing a lot of hair-raising and Meaningless TVL, such as zkSync, has not issued coins for many years after being online. It relies on high financing and technology to continue to participate in "PUA". Although its TVL is very high, new projects on the chain, especially projects with new narratives and new themes, are very Stop running out.

4.4 Public Products

In the new round of Rollup, many chains have proposed the concept of fee sharing. ZK Fair is 75% of the fee sharing to all pledgers of ZKF tokens, 25 % of the handling fee is shared with Dapp deployers, and Blast also shares handling fees with Dapp deployers. Therefore, many developers are not limited to the income of the project, nor are they limited to the income of ecological fund Grants. With the income of Gas, they can Develop more free public goods.

4.5 Decentralized Sequencer

The fee collection of L2 and the cost payment of L1 are both executed by the L2 sequencer (Sequencer), and the profit also belongs to the sequencer. Currently, the OP and ARB The sorters are all officially run, and profits go to the official treasury.

The mechanism of the decentralized sorter is likely to operate on the POS mechanism, that is, the decentralized sorter needs to pledge L2’s native tokens such as ARB or OP as a credit deposit, and the deposit will be deposited when it fails to perform its duties. Will be Slashed. Ordinary users can pledge themselves as a sorter, or they can use a pledge service similar to that provided by Lido. Users provide mortgage tokens, and professional and decentralized sorter operators perform sorting and uploading services, and pledge users can get most of it. The sorter receives L2 fees and MEV rewards (90% under Lido's mechanism). This model can make Rollup more transparent, more decentralized, and more trustworthy.

4.6 Business Model Breakthrough

Almost all Layer2 companies make profits through the "second landlord" model. The so-called second landlord means renting a house directly from the landlord and then re-renting it to other tenants. The same is true in the blockchain world. The Layer2 chain collects gas fees from users (tenants) and then pays them to Layer1 (landlord). Therefore, the scale effect is very important in theory. As long as there are enough people using Layer2, in fact, it will essentially provide The fees paid by Layer1 will not change much (unless the volume is huge, such as OP, ARB), so if the transaction volume of a chain cannot reach expectations within a certain period of time, it may be in a state of loss in the long term, which is also mentioned before The reason why zkSync-like chains like PUA users is that with enough TVL, there is no need to worry about no users to trade.

But this business model cannot be sustained in the past. Look at zkSync. It is a chain with excellent financing situation, but for some smaller chains, it may not be very useful for PUA users. Therefore, the rise of ZK Fair as a "grassroots" mentioned above is worth learning from other chains. When blindly paying attention to TVL, we must also think about the long-term continuation of TVL. And as more and more L2s are born, the handling fees of L1 will decrease, thus reducing the biggest advantage of L2. This is also one of the problems faced by L2, how to acquire users not only from the perspective of low price.

5. Summary

The article takes ZK Fair’s TVL reaching US$120 million in a short period of time as the starting point. Rollup tracks are discussed, including old favorites like Arbitrum, Optimism and newer ones like ZK Fair, Blast, Manta, Metis.

And at the technical level, the modular toolkit of Polygon CDK and the modular concept of Celestia DA were explained. Comparing the differences between Optimism and Arbitrum, it was mentioned that the decentralized sorter may adopt a POS mechanism to make Rollup more transparent and decentralized.

In the future outlook, the broad audience of the fair launch model is emphasized, and Rollup may annex L1 market share. It is pointed out that there is no substantial difference between Rollup and L1 in terms of experience, and efficient transactions and low fees attract users. Emphasizing the importance of public products, as well as the concept of fee sharing proposed by the new round of Rollup. Finally, we mentioned the disruption of the business model and focused on the long-term continuation of TVL.

To put it simply, the characteristics of this new round of Rollup are: new projects, tokens, modularity, generous incentives, making the initial business of the project and the flywheel of currency prices turn faster.

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