Straight Outta Ethereum: the Pluralistic Future of L2s

This post is taking part in the Lens x Kiwi Writing Contest

“Yeah, to all the miners and hundred gwei billers”

📼 Intro: Mo' Layers, Mo' Problems

Since Ethereum unveiled its “L2 Centric” roadmap, numerous projects have emerged, all aiming to create the ultimate scalability solution that would revolutionize the blockchain. However, this wave of innovation, which has been shaking up Web3 for several years now, has led to an explosion in the number of players, with no clear solution in sight.

In this ultra-competitive environment, with a “winner takes all” mentality, Vitalik Buterin asks us the following question: “What are specific things that L2s can do to make their relationship between each other and with L1 more collaborative, and maximize positive-sum games?”

📼 A-Side: There's a war goin' on onchain, no wallet is safe from

🎤 Survival of the scalable, only the fast txs survive

From ETH Coast to West Coast, the race was on, and it seemed there was no second place for the laggards. Many paradigms emerged, like state channels, plasma or validiums.

But rapidly, a concept gained the most attention: Rollups. Chains that could truly rely on Ethereum's security for vertical scalability. The challenge was proving transactions to deposit them on Ethereum L1: an Optimistic solution with fraud proofs seemed technically feasible. Then there was a “ZK” solution, using Zero-Knowledge validity proofs, which Vitalik considered more interesting but years, if not decades, away from being technically achievable. One year later, the first zk-Rollups appeared.

New scalability solutions began to flourish, each with its own specifics: Optimistic, ZK, with sharding, parallel execution, DA sources...

Everyone wanted to bring the ultimate solution, but each new project tore Ethereum's unity a bit more, draining liquidity, developers, and users. Ethereum became fragmented, centralized, and buggy: something had to be done.

🎤 S.C.R.E.A.M. (Super Chains Rule Everything Around Me)

In 2024, everything broke down. A low rumble of discontent echoed in the streets: people were fed up with fragmented funds, isolated applications, and tired of using bridges. The crowd wanted a unified Ethereum.

The Gs in Ethereum scalability quickly heard them and were quick to take the mic with a solution: unification was underway.

Ironically, their proposed solutions were rooted in the very principle that caused the war in the first place: each proposed their own “unified bridge” standard you had to subscribe to.

In the end, every Rollup is fighting to be the one that writes its state root on Ethereum's. Whether it's through the Optimism's Superchain, Polygon's AggLayer, or zkSync's Elastic Chain, the goal is to sign up for a monopoly; any hustler who refuses to yield their execution to the ti-dop is denied any chance of composability.

The solutions were the same, with a “winner takes all, losers get played” mentality.

A new standard war is underway, and once again, users will find themselves trapped in a monopoly.

Time is a flat circle.

Or is it?

📼 Interlude: Protect Ya Chain

So if multiple Rollups have encouraged fragmentation, and efforts on super chains, shared sequencers, bridges, are fostering tribalism and monopoly, how can we stop this and start to collaborate instead? What's the answer?

📼 B-Side: All Eyez on the Based/Boosted Singularity [1]

🎤 Based Rollups Ain't Nuthin' ta Fud Wit

That's when a new player in town appeared, developed by the Taiko Labs team: what if, instead of data posting (settlement, DA, and consensus) ourselves from L2, we left this job to the entity most aligned with Ethereum L1?

The L1 validators.

That's right: the principle of Based Rollups is to let L1 validators handle L2 transactions. Moreover, unlike super-chains and aggregation solutions, there is no need for a monopoly. Any chain becomes Based if it entrusts its validation to Ethereum L1, and it becomes synchronously composable with any other Based Rollup (although the role of based preconfs is crucial to making this easily achievable).

The first Based Rollup, Taiko, launched three months ago, proving that the design works. Other rollups are following suit, such as Aztec, Rise, Spire, and Puffer.

🎤 Still E.T.H.: Horizontal Scaling with Booster Rollups

A new paradigm is emerging, continuing the legacy of Based Rollups: Booster Rollups. These are “Type 1-enough” Rollups capable of executing L1 contracts without modification. Developers will deploy their dApps on L1, and they will automatically be available on all Booster Rollups, at the same address. Transactions can be bundled across different L2s (atomic cross-rollup transactions), and even between L1 and L2, transparently for the user - composability L1<>L2, L2<>L2.

Furthermore, Booster Rollups can retain a portion of L1 validators' revenue to ensure their sustainability, unlocking business models.

The first Booster Rollup, Gwyneth, is under development at Taiko Labs, already racking up serious street cred in the blockchain game.

Thus, vertical scaling of L2s is combined with horizontal scaling, with each connected Booster Rollup adding RAM and SSD to Ethereum. No more liquidity fragmentation, no more isolation, no more monopoly. From tribalism to pluralism.

🎤 Pluralism State of Mind

Once this technical architecture is implemented, there will be no barriers left for collaboration between Rollups and breaking down the tribalism that plagues Web3. But specifically, how does this help Rollups embrace a new way of thinking, Pluralism, and adopt cooperation (positive-sum games)?

1. No more binary choices, but gradients

Recently, I came across a Chrome window prompting (or rather forcing, for us Europeans) me to choose a default search engine. Although this feature has been available for quite some time, what struck me was how Google describes the different search engines in a single sentence: a sentence that describes what makes the search engine unique, not from a technical point of view, but from a “flavor” standpoint. Ecosia for someone who wants eco-friendly incentives, DuckDuckGo for someone who values privacy, Bing for those who want to use AI.

Could we replicate this behavior with Based Booster Rollups? The user would be agnostic to the L2 they use. It doesn't matter; they're in the Ethereum ecosystem. If they deposit funds into their wallet, they're asked which chain they want to store it on. Maximum security? Ethereum L1. Best yield on stablecoins? Blast. Yield on their funds redistributed to public goods for RetroPGF? Based Boosted Optimism.

Same for transactions. They would have parameters to choose which Based Booster Rollup to use by default for their transactions: maximum speed, minimal slippage, a portion of the tx fees redistributed to public goods, or even an Ecosia L2 that plants a tree per transaction. This way, one doesn't get attached to a single Rollup, perhaps making it their entire personality; instead, one embraces the complexity and nuances of life, simply adjusting the sliders to use multiple L2s according to their needs or ideals.

2. From forced identification to a rabbit hole of possibilities

Today, when a user wants to start using an Ethereum L2, they must first choose their Rollup. A technical user might opt for a specific technology (such as Optimistic or ZK), while a non-technical user might choose based on the Rollup's image or community (e.g., Immutable X for gaming, or Base for a more corporate environment). But in both cases, once they've chosen, they often find themselves locked into that ecosystem. Switching Rollups involves bridging costs, losing access to Rollup-specific dApps : there is some pressure to stay within that ecosystem.

With Based Booster Rollups, all of that changes. Rollups become compatible with and composable with each other, meaning users are no longer limited to a single chain. They can switch between Rollups according to their current needs, without additional costs or complexity.

Developers will also benefit from this compatibility: an application deployed on one Based Booster Rollup will automatically be available on all others, eliminating the risk of their work being lost if a Rollup bites the dust. This opens the door to a more flexible and resilient ecosystem where choices are no longer limited, and diversity becomes an asset rather than an obstacle.

3. Technical diversity as a feature, not a bug.

Since the appearance of life and the first unicellular organisms, we have evolved and diversified: some species left the water to walk on land. Others conquered the sky with their wings. Life resumed after the extinction of the dinosaurs, thanks to small mammals that were, by chance, better suited to the new living conditions. Life has explored and exploited all opportunities, creating ever more diverse animals, all with one goal: resilience.

And Ethereum, the foundation of an entirely new ecosystem, must also be resilient: to do so, it must have no single point of failure. Based Booster Rollups can cooperate by diversifying: if a bug arises in a Rollup, proving system, the others seamlessly take over for the user while it resolves its problem.

📼 Outro: Rollup's Paradise

In my opinion, to encourage a collaborative relationship between L2s (positive-sum game) and escape the current competition (zero-sum game), there's a solution: adopting a Based and Boosted architecture.

• Based: Let L1 validators handle data posting to ensure perfect security, liveness, and cultural alignment with Ethereum and eliminate competition between Rollups.
• Boosted: Deploy dApps on L1 so they're accessible on all Boosted Rollups, at the same address, and funds/transactions can be spread across multiple L2s to embrace cooperation.

Then, the collaborative relationship will naturally enrich itself once this point is passed. Each Rollup will stand out culturally (speed, ecological footprint, public goods, etc.), and users/developers will naturally adopt a pluralistic approach according to their different values and usecases.

Can’t wait to peep how the Based/Booster Singularity is gonna drop!

Thanks for reading!

[1] Credit to the Taiko team for the term « Based Singularity ».

[2] Credit to the Taiko team for the Booster Rollup design.