Bartek Kiepuszewski, the co-founder of L2Beat, a portal for monitoring Ethereum layer-2 actions, is worried in regards to the safety and consistency of present off-chain scaling options, suggesting that with out fraud-proofs, there’s room for fraud and irregularities.
Focus On Optimism And Manta: What’s Going On?
Taking to X on December 20, Kiepuszewski observed that some layer-2 options, comparable to Manta and Optimism, depend on sequencers to put up information to Ethereum. Nonetheless, with out fraud-proofs, there isn’t any strategy to confirm that the info printed by the Sequencer on the Ethereum mainnet is correct or full.
Within the co-founder’s view, each time a sequencer posts the batch of transactions on the primary internet, there isn’t any layer-1 state or occasion change. Per Kiepuszewski ‘s evaluation, it is a worrying problem that must be addressed to make sure no matter is posted is legitimate.
As an illustration, the co-founder cited current transactions posted by Optimism and MantaNetwork, two fashionable layer-2 scaling options for Ethereum. Kiepuszewski analyzed that Optimism not too long ago despatched a full “information blob” containing all layer-2 transactions.
Alternatively, it was famous that MantaNetwork reportedly posted the “root hash of an information blob” to CelestiaOrg. The issue, the co-founder went on so as to add, is that regardless of these operations, Ethereum couldn’t decide whether or not their hashes had been legitimate or not.
The co-founder argues that this could possibly be a recipe for hassle for the reason that lack of transparency on Sequencer’s operations presents a significant concern, particularly for customers monitoring the mainnet however not working their layer-2 nodes.
Ethereum Layer-2s Command Billions With out Purposeful Fraud-Proof Methods
Technically, within the present state, Sequencers play an important position in guaranteeing that transactions submitted by customers of any layer-2 scaling platform like Optimism or Arbitrum are processed and confirmed to be legitimate earlier than they’re transmitted to the Ethereum mainnet.
Nonetheless, whereas Ethereum layer-2 scaling options at present handle over $15 billion, primarily based on L2Beat information, with out public fraud-proofs, what sequencers publish on the mainnet turns into unclear.
In response to L2Beat information, Manta Community has turned off its fraud-proof whereas nonetheless being developed on Optimism. On the similar time, Arbitrum ‘s fraud-proof system continues to be not permissionless since validators should be whitelisted.
In all, in most main layer-2 protocols managing hundreds of thousands in whole worth locked (TVL), there isn’t any public system to watch sequencers and whether or not they’re submitting legitimate particulars to the mainnet.
Function picture from Canva, chart from TradingView