Author: Caldera, Source: Author’s Twitter @Calderaxyz
It’s 2035. There are millions of EVM Rollup chains on some powerful Rollup framework, but there is still no neutral and seamless way to connect them.
Each framework is like a giant city-state, with its own intricate set of rules and regulations.
In the good cases, hundreds of millions of dollars have been hacked in bridge attacks, so people tend to stick to their ecosystems and not take risks unless there is a good reason. Power continues to consolidate in these monopolistic Rollup frameworks, and they have no incentive to behave nicely.
In this future, the promise of blockchain technology looks very different from its potential reality.
Today, Ethereum is at a similar point to the Internet in the early 21st century. At the time, each network used different protocols, standards, and technologies, making it difficult to achieve seamless communication and interoperability. From email to file sharing, almost every aspect of the Internet that we take for granted was once a mess.
Rollups on Ethereum are at the same moment. They allow the network to scale, but they also create a fragmentation between different Rollup frameworks.
In the future there may be millions of EVM Rollup chains distributed across dozens of Rollup frameworks, but there is still no neutral and seamless way to connect them all.
But first, we need to address what went wrong so we can start fixing it.
Every Rollup Increases Systemic Risk
Currently, each new Rollup introduces its own security model, which can have a compounding negative impact as more chains interact across the Rollup framework. As more bridges are introduced to connect these Rollups, they also introduce more risks because there are more interdependencies and potential attack vectors.
This is because there is no single “source of truth” between Rollup frameworks, and bridging them makes it nearly impossible to discern which transactions on a Rollup can be considered part of its canonical history. Cross-Rollup transactions are risky, and will only get worse as more Rollup frameworks and chains are created.
Each Rollup is an island
Currently, the Rollup ecosystem is siloed, and these silos are growing increasingly distant from each other. Developers are building isolated Rollup frameworks, each with their own vision of interoperability — as long as it stays within the walled garden of their technology stack.
There is currently no scalable, neutral solution that can connect Rollups on all major Rollup frameworks.
Meanwhile, the user experience across the Rollup framework is almost non-existent except when users roll the dice and bridge funds.
Sending value between these frameworks should be seamless, without the attack vectors, costs, and delays that occur when using bridges. Users should be able to easily validate multiple chains across frameworks.
For builders, every rollup means more work
Today, it is almost impossible to build dApps, protocols, and infrastructure that can effectively utilize multiple Rollup frameworks at the same time. If developers want to create a full-chain infrastructure that can be used across ecosystems, they must build and deploy these solutions for each Rollup framework one by one, which consumes a lot of resources and time.
Ideally, there should be a single destination for developers who want to integrate multiple Rollups and Rollup frameworks into their projects. From this platform, developers will be able to launch infrastructure and applications across Rollup frameworks on a unified platform.
Creating a connection layer between Rollup frameworks is critical if we want to achieve composability and interoperability at scale on Ethereum. Otherwise, each Rollup framework will continue to develop as an island, with fragmented communities, value and liquidity capture, and redundant applications built for each stack.
If we want to build a world where Rollups can communicate and transact seamlessly across multiple frameworks and applications, we have to build it ourselves.
