Making Sense of Based Rollups on Bankless

Based rollups use the L1 for consensus, data availability, and settlement layers, while handling execution independently.

To address this, the community chose a rollup-centric approach. The idea is simple: Instead of hosting all applications on Ethereum, the focus is on rollups that offer faster, cheaper transactions while still settling back on Ethereum. As a result, you get faster, cheaper transactions, but still keep Ethereum’s security.

In contrast, based rollups direct user transactions to block builders who manage both Ethereum and the rollup. This use of Ethereum’s infrastructure allows based rollups to benefit from the same guarantees provided by Ethereum, enabling transactions to achieve finality more reliably than in non-based rollups.

In a traditional rollup, users send their transactions to a dedicated sequencer — essentially a single machine operated by the rollup team. This sequencer is responsible for collecting user transactions, determining their sequence, and packaging them into blocks that are posted on Ethereum.

Based rollups use Ethereum for everything from ordering transactions to settling them. While this approach may not seem radically different from traditional rollups, it fundamentally shifts how sequencing is handled . Instead of relying solely on separate sequencers, based rollups leverage Ethereum itself for transaction sequencing.