Introducing Vitalik Buterin’s plan to solve cross-chain L2 interoperability

“I think people will be surprised by how quickly ‘cross-L2 interoperability problems’ stop being problems,” remarked the Ethereum co-founder. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently outlined his idea for cross-chain interoperability between Ethereum layer-2 networks, which has the potential to significantly improve the Ethereum ecosystem experience.

Buterin responded to a query on the most promising approaches to tackle cross-layer-2 interoperability in an X post on August 6. The query came in response to Buterin’s August 5 post, in which he stated, “I think people will be surprised by how quickly ‘cross-L2 interoperability problems’ stop being problems and we get a smooth user experience across the entire Ethereum-verse.”

He stated that he saw “lots of energy and will to make this happen,” before listing several Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) on the One stage on the roadmap is EIP-3370, which establishes a new address standard that wallets and decentralized applications can use to display chain-specific addresses with a human-readable prefix.

EIP-7683 is another step on the upgrade road, to standardize how different Ethereum layer-2 networks communicate and execute trades across chains. Currently, consumers find it difficult and inefficient to transfer assets between different networks, therefore developing a new standard set of rules that all chains may adhere to would relieve this problem. EIP-3668, which proposes a standardized approach for Ethereum smart contracts to access off-chain data, is also on the roadmap.

Buterin refers to these as “layer-2 light clients” since they aim to standardize how Ethereum contracts can access off-chain data. This makes it easier and more efficient for developers to create applications that demand big volumes of data while avoiding costly on-chain storage charges. He also suggested “cross-L2-replayable account state updates,” which he clarified in a 2023 blog post. This describes how layer-2s obtain recent L1 state updates while retaining security and low latency.

Buterin proposed other phase 2 upgrades that would increase cross-chain L2 compatibility, such as keystore rollups and proof aggregation. Regarding compatibility with existing zero-knowledge and optimistic rollups, he stated that “stage 1” updates are “completely independent of the details of rollup tech” before concluding that “Eventually, I think all rollups will go zk (and existing zk rollups will have to redo their tech stack), to finalize to Ethereum once per slot.” But that’s at least five years away.” Earlier in 2024, investment manager VanEck estimated that Ethereum L2 scaling networks would reach a $1 trillion market capitalization within six years.

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