Short Notes on Based Rollups
My initial thinking was that base rollups were kind of “dead”.
Since nobody –other than the already deployed Taiko– were making noise about it, I left the subject aside.
While visiting Bangkok in November I heard about an offsite meeting of people working on the sequencing side of things. I decided that as soon as I got back I had to take a second look. Since then the journey to learn about base rollups has been more complex than originally though about.
If you need to take a step back and understand L2s and sequencing this talk by Daniel Zachary Goldman is really interesting and covers the basics.
Based Rollups are essentially L2s that choose to use Ethereum L1 as a means to order their transactions. While transactions are still executed in the L2 “level”, validators now have the ability to sequence a rollup block –not just a L1 block. It can permissionlessly include a rollup block as part of the next L1 block.
The motivation for teams that are building based rollups comes from different sources. L2s could create mechanisms that are not 100% credibly neutral, MEV captured from sequencing flowing away from L1, Ethereum alignment and network effects, among others. But most agree its a good push towards achieving greater composability of transactions and less overall fragmentation of developer and user experience.
The landscape is alive and well (with and beyond Taiko)
The landscape extends well beyond teams building based rollups. Not included: the many teams building sequencing solutions, actively building preconfirmation solutions, proving technologies, interested in/thinking around based rollups (Espresso marketplace, Nethermind, Aztec, among others).
From a personal standpoint I would not say I’m 100% base-pilled. But there is simply no way that base rollups research and design do not end up sprouting many cutting edge projects and pushing the whole Ethereum sphere forward.
If I’m missing more teams please reach out. Would love to read about your rollup design.
Resources that might save you time if you want to understand BR too:
Based rollups—superpowers from L1 sequencing Why Based Rollups Are Ethereum's Best Bet with Sam Battenally
Sequencing and Preconfirmation Calls Preconfirmation tagged Ethresear.ch