The Ethereum Society has been in unrest for the past few weeks, with members raising the alarm that the chain will lose its competitive advantage if it does not address some core design problems.

A key focus of the outrage has been LAG-2 fragmentation. In recent years, Ethereum has embraced a LAG-2 scaling card-one plan that encouraged the development of third-party help network called “Layer-2-Rollups” to help scale the base Ethereum ecosystem. Offset activity to these Upstart networks has helped reduce fees and improve speed users, but it has led to a massive, deeply fragmented ecosystem of layers 2s.

While Layer-2 networks all postal data back to Ethereum, they often struggle to communicate directly with each other, which means passing assets and data between them can become expensive and cumbersome. There is also the risk of Centralized sequencers: Dependency of company-controlled black boxes to pass transaction data between blockchain layers.

As Layer-2 chains continue to spread, some Ethereum developers are pushing Rollup-Tech, taking a new approach to security and interoperability: “Based Rollups.”

Based Rollups

Based Rollups differs from most existing rollups because they change execution tasks such as treatment transactions-back to Ethereum’s LAG-1 rather than dealing with them on a separate LAG-2 network.

When someone acts on a LAG-2 rollup, their transaction is treated through a component called a “sequencer.” Sequencer batches more transactions and submits them to Ethereum for settlement. In most Rollups today, this Sequencer is centralized, which means that a single device (usually the company that built Rollup) controls ordering and posting transactions.

Centralized Sequencers are currently a topic of debate in the Ethereum community. While Sequencers provide efficiency and generate revenue for rising operators in strategic ordering of transactions, they also introduce a single error. A functional failure or malicious sequencer can delay or manipulate transactions, raising concerns about censorship and reliability.

Based Rollups avoid this vulnerability by using Ethereum’s built-in sequencing-it massive society of validators-snarers than a single centralized sequencer.

Layer-2 road plan development

By 2022, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Barterin made his vision for a Rollup-centered roadmap. The plan suggested using LAG-2 rollups to side-step basic chain high fees and slow transaction speeds.

Different Rollups use different strategies to keep costs down and increase speeds, but they are all designed to maintain decentralization and security – meaning (in theory) the networks should not be centrally run and the transactions they shepherds to Ethereum are free In order to manipulate.

Rollups such as optimism, arbitum, base, zksync and blast have quickly grown to support larger transaction volumes than Ethereum itself. According to L2Beat, there are currently 140 Live Layer-2 networks, but the experience of operating between DE-passing assets and other data between networks has been clumsy. As Ethereum becomes larger and LAG-2 networks become more integrated into its function, which improves communication between LAG-2s-with other words to improve “composability”-has become more important than ever.

Because based Rollups shares Sequencer from the Layer-1 chain (sometimes called Layer-1 “Proposer”), they can call smart contracts on other based rollups within seconds, making it easier to access and exchange data across LAG- 2S.

“They effectively share a sequencer with each other and also with Layer-1, and it now allows the Sequencer to coordinate messages that pass between different based rollups, whereas usually messages passing are happening in an asynchronous way,” Ben Fisch said , CEO of Espresso Systems, in an interview with Coindesk.

Since Based Rollups All use Ethereum’s built-in sequencing, they can interact with each other immediately, in blockchain-terne-all within the same Ethereum block.1

“You could have during an Ethereum block, a based merger of withdrawing assets, doing something in Layer-1, depositing the assets back, doing something in Layer-2 and withdrawing assets,” Fisch told Coindesk.

Some disadvantages

A few projects seem to use based technology, but only one based Rollup, Taiko, is currently live.

While Rollups like Taiko constitute clear advantages, they have to overcome some technical obstacles before they can be adopted more.

A major challenge is evidence generation. When a based Rollup submits transaction data to Ethereum, they must generate and publish evidence every 12 seconds – to match Ethereum’s block time. Currently, LAG-2-Rollup uses two types of evidence systems: zero-knowledge (ZK) evidence that ends in minutes, and optimistic evidence that takes up to seven days to wipe out potential fraud.

In order for based Rollups to function effectively, evidence generation rates had to adapt to Ethereum’s block time – a significant technical jump. However, Fisch says a breakthrough on this front could be “imminent.”

The other pitfall is Ethereum’s block manufacturers, or “Layer-1 suggestions.” In based Rollups, these proposers take over the role of sequencing transactions. But their primary motivation is not necessarily justice – it’s the profits

“LAG-1 suggestion player is not confidence in devices that work in interest in Layer-2, they are financially motivated to make as much money as they can,” Fisch said. “So they can confirm some transactions for end users and then see a MEV option that makes them publish something completely different.”

MEV or maximum extractable value refers to the practice of re -ordering transactions to maximize profits, often at the expense of ordinary users. If proposes manipulating transactions, it can create instability in based rollups. To tackle this, developers are working on solutions such as based pre-confirmations aimed at adding financial incentives for proposer to act in Rollup’s interest.

So while based rollups can present a promising way of reducing fragmentation between LAG-2s, they are not a miracle. “My personal opinion is that based rollups are part of the solution, they are not the only solution, and not all LAG-2s that should necessarily or will be based,” Fisch said.

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