According to Cointelegraph, Eclipse, the first Ethereum layer 2 utilizing the Solana Virtual Machine for transaction execution, is set to launch its mainnet by the end of October. Vijay Chetty, CEO of Eclipse Labs, disclosed this information during an interview at the Solana Breakpoint conference in Singapore on September 20. Currently, Eclipse is on a developer mainnet, allowing developers and builders access, but without enabling any front ends or user interfaces yet.

Eclipse aims to merge the strengths of Ethereum, Solana, and the layer-1 blockchain Celestia, which will be used for data storage, to bring 'Web2 scale to Web3.' Chetty emphasized the vision of combining the best components of each blockchain to avoid their respective limitations. He pointed out that Solana's decentralization constraints and Ethereum's slow transaction throughput have hindered their widespread success. While Ethereum layer 2s offer higher transaction throughput, many blockchains store data off-chain due to costs and other factors. Eclipse's integration of Celestia seeks to address this issue.

The Ethereum layer-2 market is highly competitive, with Arbitrum One, Base, and OP Mainnet being the largest solutions, holding $13.7 billion, $6.5 billion, and $6 billion in total value locked, respectively, according to L2BEAT data. To gain traction, Eclipse plans to integrate several existing 'Solana blue chip apps' and develop native applications. Decentralized exchanges Mango and Orca, along with the lending and borrowing platform Solend, are among the Solana apps expected to expand to Eclipse, some of which will be rebranded.