- Vitalik Buterin called the need for urgent scalability for Ethereum and the need to implement rollups.
- The Ethereum founder called Layer 2 the safest way for scaling while preserving decentralization.
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has come in support of Layer 2 scaling solutions for the Ethereum blockchain network. Buterin shared his views during his latest speech at the 2021 Shanghai International Blockchain Week.
The recent support from the Ethereum founder comes just at a time when developers are already working for the launch of Ethereum 2.0 Proof-of-Strake (PoS). Buterin noted that Ethereum 2.0 surely offers scalability and earlier phases of the upgrade are already approaching it. However, the base layer scalability for applications will come in the last phase of the upgrade.
During his speech, Buterin also admitted that Ethereum needs to be more scalable urgently. This demand for scalability comes amid the explosive growth of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized finance (DeFi) on the Ethereum blockchain network.
Thus, Buterin added that Layer 2 is the future of Ethereum scaling. He also called it the safest way to scale Ethereum while preserving the core ethos of decentralization. Some of the popular Layer 2 solutions for Ethereum are Polygon Hermez, ZKSync, Loopring, Arbitrum One, and Optimism.
As the Ethereum 2.0 upgrades take place progressively, there’s a significant amount of work underway to make Ethereum more secure, scalable, and sustainable. The Beacon Chian upgrade last year in December was a milestone event. The Altair upgrade coming to Ethereum later today will also bring new features to the Ethereum Beacon chain.
Ethereum’s mainnet merge along with the Beacon chain’s proof-of-stake system will mark the end of the existing Proof-of-Work Ethereum network. This will likely happen sometime in the next year of 2022. Furthermore, another multi-phase upgrade Sharding will happen in 2022. Sharding improves Ethereum’s scalability and capacity using parallel running shard chains.
Vitalik Buterin speaks about Rollups
During his speech, the Ethereum founder also spoke about another Layer 2 solution dubbed Rollups that handles transactions outside the main Ethereum chain. Later, these Rollups post the transaction data on Layer 1. Vitalik Buterin further added:
The Ethereum ecosystem is all-in on rollups as a scaling strategy for the near and mid-term future… optimistic rollups, which are simpler and easier to build were likely to be preferred in the short-term.
The Ethereum founder also noted that the ZK rollups have a complex implementation but offer higher security. Buterin added that this solution is preferable for the long term. Once the ZK rollups are ready on Ethereum, even enterprise applications will be able to leverage it.
The Ethereum founder also requested application developers to start working actively on rollups and moving to its use quickly and safely. Buterin added that the Ethereum ecosystem is betting completely on rollups as a scaling strategy for the near and the mid-term. He added that optimistic rollups are simpler and easier to build and preferred in the short term.
