Within the Netherlands, we’ve got a saying: “Meten is weten,” which, actually translated, means “measuring is understanding.” We choose to have a look at conditions straight, as a result of solely then do we all know what we’re up in opposition to — and what must be modified.
And it doesn’t take a lot measuring of Crypto Twitter to know that we’re deep within the L2 hype cycle. The sense is that L2 blockchains are extra consumer pleasant, safer and higher for scalability, and we (as a collective) ought to give attention to their improvement.
Forgive the directness — however that’s a mistake if we wish Web3 adoption to extend.
Right here’s what we all know retains customers from Web3: safety dangers and poor efficiency. Now, L2s on their very own don’t convey these issues, as expertise is impartial. It’s our personal hyperfocus on L2s that’s the situation. This hyperfocus has created an surroundings the place safety dangers and poor efficiency go from minor velocity bumps to main adoption obstacles.
It’s counterintuitive {that a} excessive quantity of give attention to a expertise would result in safety dangers, however it’s true.
It’s referred to as inattentional blindness — once we overlook a “stimulus” (like an exploitable sensible contract or overcentralization) even when it’s proper in entrance of us. A well-known experiment was executed to show this impact, the place members had been requested to carry out a visible process. Afterwards, they had been requested in the event that they seen the particular person within the gorilla costume. Half of them didn’t.
The identical impact is occurring with L2s. We’re paying a lot consideration to their potential that an unacceptable degree of centralization (the principle within the gorilla swimsuit) has gone proper previous us: centralized sequencers.
Sequencers are accountable for batching transactions and submitting them to the chain. As a single level of failure, they need to evolve from their present design to one thing extra sturdy. Nevertheless, what’s much more regarding is that they’re usually managed by the L2 group and, subsequently, might be stopped at will. Simply this week, Ethereum L2 Linea determined to “pause its sequencer” to halt an exploit on its chain.
Conditions like this draw the eye of regulators, and for good cause. It’s their duty to prosecute when their residents undergo theft (the exploit) and to create and implement legal guidelines for client safety. If Visa or Mastercard stopped operating transactions for a day as a result of they needed to forestall being hacked, they might virtually actually be fined to compensate for the missed invoice funds and late charges skilled by their customers.
And if we need to hit billions of customers, we’d like each a solution to this centralization drawback and to be prepared for the elevated oversight when (not if) somebody decides to cease the chain.
The opposite space of “hyperfocus” that has led to blind spots for Web3 adoption is our overestimation of L2 transaction capability.
We all know that L1s have issue processing many transactions per second on the size of tens of millions, a lot much less billions, of individuals. This makes Web3 really unscalable — and L2s had been a welcome addition to the ecosystem to assist remedy the problem. However now that we’re very a lot within the superchain future, there’s nonetheless inadequate capability (even when the sequencer is on).
Learn extra from our opinion part: Don’t fossilize Bitcoin
Within the want to succeed in the variety of transactions per second of Mastercard or Visa, the main focus was on creating extra L2s: In actuality, we should always have additionally considered creating extra L1s. The rapid impact of doing so would imply extra base chains on which to construct layers and rollups, which is nice for transaction capability and efficiency.
Nevertheless, the long term and extra essential impact of focusing extra on L1st is innovation. Simply have a look at Solana’s outsize impact on our ecosystem and consumer development. The method of innovation includes altering what appears unchangeable, and in doing so, creating new technological foundations, totally different worth seize mechanisms and higher methods of working. This variety is nice for transaction capability, however it additionally hedges us in opposition to the opportunity of a monolithic technological future.
And it’s a monolithic future we’re susceptible to creating. The extra we emphasize layer 2s, the extra we really centralize ourselves round one chain. Apart from the safety threat and poor efficiency this may inevitably create, there’s simply no truthful and equitable future the place one chain is the basic foundation of all the digital economic system.
The excellent news is that if we’re critical about Web3 adoption, we don’t must kill off the L2s. We don’t must unroll the superchain. We don’t must focus solely on the particular person in a gorilla swimsuit. All we have to do is dedicate simply part of that hyperfocus to L1 improvement.
Lukas Bronsvoort is the CEO of Klayr Labs, a layer-one web3 startup with a mission to convey digital possession to extra individuals. He leads the Dutch firm that oversees and maintains the layer-one blockchain previously often called Lisk. Lukas hails from the blockchain ecosystem and has beforehand co-founded a number of ventures, together with Colecti, an NFT market, and Liskscan, a preferred blockchain explorer. He beforehand served as a digital transformation supervisor at BNP Paribas, the place he specialised in creating impactful partnerships and suggested on digitization methods. He studied advertising and marketing on the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam) for his grasp’s diploma and on the HU College of Utilized Sciences Utrecht for his bachelor’s diploma. He is a superb supply on the diverging targets of layer-one blockchains vs. layer-two blockchains and the way forward for web3, cryptocurrency, digital belongings, and NFTs.