Recapping the Rollups Roadmap on Bankless

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.

Rollups depend on Ethereum for security and decentralization , while Ethereum depends on rollups to expand the economic activity of the ecosystem .

However, L1 settlement alone is an incomplete picture of what the rollup-centric roadmap aims to accomplish. Ethereum also serves as an affordable settlement and DA layer for rollups. I see rollups (and their corresponding rollup platform à la Optimism Superchain and Arbitrum Orbit) as independent fiefdoms. Each platform will compete to give users ... See more

Fundamentally, I consider ETH to derive most of its value from being a global, permissionless store of value, and while it is engaging to discuss the value accrual story as it relates to scaling of the ecosystem, long-term user and developer growth should take precedent over short-term focus on token mechanics. The rollup-centric roadmap makes a lo... See more

Interestingly, Ethereum’s rollup-centric roadmap is implicitly a gambit in this direction. ETH is sacrificing REV to its L2s rather than capturing it all to itself, in return for spreading the moneyness of ETH the asset. It’s unclear if its L2s will win out, or if they’ll continue to aggressively use and spread ETH in the future, but it’s clearly t... See more

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.

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.