An overview of the evolution of Ethereum scaling solutions: OP Stack, Arbitrum Orbit, Polygon 2.0...

By Stacy Muur

Compilation: Deep Tide TechFlow

The L2 wars are heating up, and the future of Ethereum scaling is expected to revolve around L3, SuperChain, and Hyperchain. How to keep up with this wave of trends? Let's take a deep dive into the frontiers of L2 development.

Why did it evolve into such a pattern? While Ethereum operates as an L1, it must be capable of operating at the same scale as the Internet. However, no single L2 currently has this capability.

From a high-level perspective, Web3 developers currently have three options:

• Deployed on Ethereum at the expense of scalability.

• Opt for an L2 solution, but risk dependency on a specific ecosystem.

• Deploy and maintain its own chain, but may result in liquidity fragmentation.

Additionally, achieving interoperability is a major challenge. Our efforts to address this challenge using cross-chain bridges have proven vulnerable and have been subject to attacks by malicious actors. New challenges require innovative solutions. New challenges require innovative solutions.

The next wave of Rollups, such as OP Chains on Optimism, L3 on Arbitrum Orbit, or Hyperchains on zkSync, will empower individual entities with different goals to create their own custom environments. You can think of it as deploying a new Rollup chain = creating a new webpage.

Let's take a closer look at the solutions provided by the core extension actors.

Optimism & OP Stack

In October 2022, Optimism proposes:

• • OP Stack - a modular open-source blueprint for creating scalable and interoperable blockchains of all types.
• • Superchain - Tightly integrated and unified L2 built on top of OP Stack.

In simple terms, OP Stack can be seen as a "build L2" supermarket. It offers different layers (modules) that can be easily customized to meet the specific needs of a project.

By utilizing this approach, they can unlock the future potential of the Hyperchain.

In early June, Optimism announced that they were migrating their L2 Rollups to Bedrock. This launch represents the first official launch of the OP stack, making the OP mainnet the most cost-effective Ethereum L2 Rollup for token swaps.

In addition, Bedrock has the following advantages:

• Reduced deposit time from 10 minutes to 3 minutes.
• Enhance proof modularity by supporting failure proofs and ZK proofs.
• Allow multiple transactions to be executed within a single Rollup "block".

After completing the Bedrock upgrade, the next step for Optimism is to transition to the Hyperchain.

HyperChain is a decentralized network composed of L2 (OP Chain) that will share security, communication layer and open source technology stack (OP Stack).

what's next Alpha part starts here.

• Optimism's L2 Rollup chain - the first member of the super chain.
• Coinbase's upcoming Base L2 - the second member, is expected to announce the mainnet launch this year.
• Worldcoin is also committed to building on the OP Stack.
• AEVOXYZ, a decentralized options exchange, recently partnered with Conduit to launch an OP Stack-based Rollup.
• opBNB on BNB Chain also utilizes OP Stack.
• Zora Network developed by OurZORA is a L2 solution built on OP Stack.

Arbitrary Orbit

Arbitrum is currently the largest and most dominant L2 network in terms of TVL (Total Value Locked), with a total value of more than $5.9 billion, accounting for more than 60% of the market.

Arbitrum offers 4 core products:

1. Arbitrum One: This is the first mainnet Rollup of the Arbitrum ecosystem.
2. Arbitrum Nova: An AnyTrust solution designed for projects with cost-sensitive and high-volume expectations.
3. Arbitrum Nitro: This technology software stack drives Arbitrum L2, making Rollup faster, cheaper, and more compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
4. Arbitrum Orbit: This development framework allows L3 to be created and deployed on the Arbitrum mainnet.

L3 Rollup, also known as Appchain, plays a vital role in settling transactions to the Arbitrum chain. They are the foundation for the next phase of Arbitrum's scaling journey and are the solution to realize their vision.

Arbitrum places great emphasis on customizability. Orbit is designed to be compatible with the upcoming Arbitrum Stylus upgrade. This compatibility opens up the possibility for developers to build dApps in C, C++, and Rust, and extends Arbitrum's versatility and reach.

zkSync & Hyperchain

Now, let's turn to zkSync and its future vision for Ethereum scaling.

Hyperchains is zkSync's vision of L3, conceived as a vast trustless blockchain ecosystem with customizable links.

In simple terms, Hyperchain refers to the independent ZK chain on Ethereum. These chains are connected to each other through a series of customizable and completely trustless super cross-chain bridge networks. This approach helps overcome vulnerabilities often associated with non-native bridges.

StarkWare & Fractal Scaling

In theory, the system could have an infinite number of Hyperchains representing the whole. This is what StarkWare needs to do as a Fractal Scaling pioneer.

In summary, StarkWare's multilayer network paper proposes that L2 is designed for general purpose extensions, while L3 should be used for custom extensions. However, StarkWare has not made any further announcements beyond the initial release of this paper.

Polygon 2.0

Polygon made a recent announcement about the next phase of their L2 development in early June. Polygon 2.0 aims to create a "value layer for the internet".

The solution aims to improve interoperability between Polygon zkEVM, PoS and Hypernet through a series of upgrades. By combining zero-knowledge technology with existing PoS mechanisms, Polygon aims to enhance security and privacy protection.

In Polygon 2.0, their goal was to combine the best of both technologies. A recent announcement by the Polygon team revealed their plans to convert Polygon PoS to zkEVM validium by the end of Q1 2024.

In general, the evolution of Ethereum’s expansion solution is a topic worthy of close attention in the next few months. Each L2 giant has given its own plan, but it is still unclear who will win the game.