Layer2

In their quest for scalability and cost-effectiveness, many layer-2 networks adopt a centralized approach to on-chain transaction processing, introducing a single point of failure vulnerability. The Metis blockchain, however, has pioneered a distributed sequencer pool to improve security a ...

Decentralized crypto trading with leverage has grown in popularity over recent years — but something is holding the sector back: a lack of reliable platforms for noncustodial transactions.Users often face clunky and poorly designed interfaces that are difficult to understand and nea ...

Crypto venture capital firm Paradigm criticized Blast’s protocol marketing strategy, claiming the startup “crossed lines in both messaging and execution." The VC firm is a seed investor in Blast.The head of research at Paradigm, Dan Robinson, shared a statement on X (formerly T ...

Web3 protocol Blast network has gained over $400 million in total value locked (TVL) in the four days since it was launched, according to data from blockchain analytics platform DeBank. But in a Nov. 23 social media thread, Polygon Labs developer relations engineer Jarrod Watts claimed that the n ...

Gas fees on Ethereum layer-2 Polygon (MATIC) surged more than 1,000% to reach a peak of $0.10 as users inundated the network with the minting of Ordinals-inspired tokens dubbed POLS. In a Nov. 16 X (formerly Twitter) post Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal shared his surprise at the elev ...

Ethereum Layer 2 networks reached a new milestone on November 10, reaching $13 billion of total value locked (TVL) within their contracts, according to data from blockchain analytics platform L2Beat. According to industry experts, this trend of greater interest in layer 2s is likely to continue, ...

Plasma, a once-prominent Ethereum layer 2 scaling solution, should be revisited by teams currently working on zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machines (EVMs), says Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.Invented in 2017, Plasma diverts data and computation — except deposits, withdrawals ...

Crypto exchange OKX has launched a testnet for an upcoming Ethereum layer-2 network named “X1,” according to a Nov. 14 announcement. The network is being developed using the Polygon chain development kit (CDK) and will use zero-knowledge proofs to validate deposits and withdrawals between layers. ...

A recent spike in transaction fees on Ethereum and Bitcoin appears to have reignited the debate around solutions for scalability and the role of layer 2s.Over the last 24 hours, cryptocurrency users began sharing screenshots showing double, occasionally triple-digit transaction fees on Eth ...

As the race between Ethereum layer-2 networks heats up, users are left with questions about each network’s unique nature, use cases and plan for attracting more users to Web3. In Episode 36 of Hashing It Out, Elisha Owusu Akyaw (GhCryptoGuy) discusses app-specific rollup protocols with Cartesi co ...

The developers of the NEAR and Polygon networks are teaming up to create a zero-knowledge (ZK) prover for Web Assembly (WASM) blockchains, according to a joint announcement on Nov. 8. The new prover, called “zkWASM,” will for the first time allow WASM-based networks to join the Polygo ...

Crypto exchange Kraken neither confirmed nor denied rumors of the company’s plans to potentially release a layer-2 solution similar to what its competitor Coinbase did with Base network earlier this year. The rumors were fueled by reports citing anonymous sources and a job posting fro ...

The long-awaited “crypto spring” may be upon us as Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrency markets rise in anticipation of a full-on bull market. Over the recent crypto winter, many different projects have been growing, gaining users and building new networks. Some of these, like Polyg ...

Ether (ETH) price has declined by 14.7% since its peak at $2,120 on April 16, 2023. However, two derivatives metrics indicate that investors have not felt this bullish in over a year. This discrepancy warrants an investigation into whether the recent optimism is a broader response to Bitcoin (BTC ...

Polygon Labs has launched the Ethereum contract for the new Polygon token, POL, according to an October 25 announcement. The new token is intended to replace the ecosystem’s current token, MATIC. However, the team said users presently don't need to exchange their MATIC for POL. ...

On October 20, the team behind Ethereum layer-2 Base network announced that it's launching an eight-week training course to turn traditional software developers into blockchain developers. Called “Base Bootcamp,” the new program doesn't cost anything to attend. However, it's designed ...

Scroll, a new contender in the zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) space that works to scale the blockchain, has confirmed the launch of its mainnet.The team behind Scroll announced the launch in an Oct. 17 post and added that existing applications and developer tool kits on Et ...

Developers of Ethereum layer-2 nonfungible tokens (NFT) scaling solution Immutable (IMX) will delay the vesting of 125 million IMX in token rewards, worth $67 million at the time of publication, to July 2024.According to the October 17 announcement by Robbie Ferguson, Immutable's co-founde ...

Manta, a blockchain network focusing on zero-knowledge (ZK) applications, will migrate its software from OP Stack to Polygon CDK, according to an October 16 announcement. This means that Manta will not be integrated into the upcoming Optimism Superchain and will instead become part of the Polygon ...

Since its launch in August 2021 with its built-in security feature, Arbitrum's mainnet has remained untouched by any fraud proof submissions, as confirmed by Ed Felten, the co-founder and chief scientist of Offchain Labs, the team behind Arbitrum. Arbitrum operates as an Ethereum layer-2 solution ...

Base network’s “Onchain Summer” promotion in August resulted in over 700,000 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) minted by over 268,000 unique wallets, according to a Sept. 6 announcement from the team.Coinbase launched Base, its Ethereum layer-2, on Aug. 9. To spur adoption, the network’s team imp ...

Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) has launched natively on both Base and Optimism networks, allowing Circle account holders to send USDC stablecoin from their accounts to Base or Optimism. Coinbase has also made USDC transfers to Base available, according to a Sept. 5 social media post. Circle claim ...

The total number of wallets on Shiba Inu’s newly launched layer-2 blockchain, the Shibarium network, has surpassed the 1 million mark in a meteoric rise since its relaunch. The milestone — announced in a Sept. 3 blog post by the official Shibarium team — means there were at least 900, ...

The total number of wallets on Shiba Inu’s newly launched layer-2 blockchain, the Shibarium network, has surpassed the one million mark in a meteoric rise since its relaunch. The milestone — announced in a Sept. 3 blog post by the official Shibarium team — means there were at least 90 ...

Base project RocketSwap Labs has outlined its emergency program to bounce back from a brute force hack that swiped $865,000 or 471 Ether (ETH) from the protocol on Aug. 14.The team explained on Aug. 15 that they plan on redeploying a new farm contract and open-source it on-chain, reli ...

The Lightning Network is a layer-2 solution built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain, and its primary objective is to address the Bitcoin network’s scalability issues. It also allows for faster and cheaper transactions by facilitating off-chain payments through a network of payment channels.&n ...

Coinbase’s Base network has released a user interface (UI) for its official bridge, allowing end-users to onboard for the first time without relying on developer tools, according to an Aug. 3 announcement. The team has set Aug. 9 as Base’s “official” release date. They wil ...

The Optimism network has surpassed Arbitrum in transaction volume for the first time in six months, according to July 27 data from blockchain analytics platform Artemis. Both networks are layer 2s of Ethereum that use optimistic rollup technology, which compresses and batches transactions before ...

CLabs, the organization responsible for developing the Celo blockchain, is seeking to return to the Ethereum ecosystem by transitioning from an independent EVM-compatible layer-1 blockchain to an Ethereum layer-2 solution. According to a proposal discussion on Celo's governance forum, ...

The Binance-operated BNB Beacon Chain mainnet is set to add a new feature in its upcoming hard fork, which will give the blockchain the ability to “halt” the production of new blocks if certain conditions are met.In a July 12 statement from BNB Chain, the “ZhangHeng&rdquo ...

The Ethereum ecosystem welcomes another layer-2 scaling solution as ConsenSys begins onboarding partners to its Linea network, which has produced significant scaling milestones in testing.Linea is an Ethereum layer-2 scaling network that allows developers to build or migrate dece ...

Layer-2 blockchain Public Goods Network launched a testnet on July 7, promising to spend “the vast majority of net sequencer fees” on public goods instead of paying them out to the development team or token holders, according to an announcement from the network’s developers. In ...

Starknet’s Quantum Leap upgrade has been deployed on testnet, with the Ethereum layer-2 scaling protocol claiming it's capable of processing "hundreds of transactions per second."If achieved, it would be at least a 50X improvement from its current throughput, thanks to the Version 12 ...

A revolution is unfolding in the world of global payments, led by the transformative power of layer-2 technology and serving traditional banking infrastructure, such as financial messaging and card payment networks. Working together, there is a shift in the fundamentals of financial intera ...

Polygon Labs, creator of the Polygon network, has proposed an architecture for its forthcoming “Polygon 2.0” project. The team suggested in a June 29 blog post that the new project should be made up of four different “layers” that will combine to create a web of networks u ...

Base, a new layer 2 application-focused protocol by Coinbase, has just one criterion left to fulfill before being ready for mainnet launch.On June 29, the team said the Optimism-powered, Ethereum-secured network has been subject to six months of rigorous security audits — both intern ...

Worldcoin is the cause of a slew of Safe deployments to the Optimism (OP) network over the past week, according to a June 27 social media post from Tiago Sada, head of product for Worldcoin developer Tools for Humanity. The deployments had caused a stir on Twitter, as users wondered who wa ...

Transactions on the Optimism network surged 67% following its June 7 “Bedrock” upgrade, according to a June 26 Twitter thread from blockchain analytics firm Nansen. The network had been seeing less than 300,000 transactions per day before the upgrade, but this figure increased to over ...

Starknet, a zero-knowledge layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum, is one step closer to becoming fully Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible, pending an August testnet launch of Kakarot, a new zkEVM.On June 3, the Kakarot team announced it had received new backing from Ethereum co-foun ...

Polygon co-founder Mihailo Bjelic has proposed upgrading the Polygon proof-of-stake (PoS) network to a “zkEVM validium” version, according to a June 20 forum post. If the upgrade is implemented, the new version will rely on zero-knowledge proofs to increase security. ...

Binance-founded layer-1 blockchain BNB Chain has introduced a new layer-2 chain that it hopes will address its “scalability challenge.”On June 19, BNB Chain unveiled opBNB, which has launched as a testnet. The new layer-2 scaling solution is based on the Optimism OP Stack, whic ...

While the Arbitrum governance token ARB has been in a consistent downturn since the airdrop in late March, its ecosystem shows healthy growth. A recent Nansen report shows that Arbitrum’s activity improved after the airdrop, stabilizing “at a level higher” than befor ...

The Optimism network concluded its “Bedrock” upgrade on June 7, reducing deposit times, lowering layer-1 fees and enacting additional security features, according to an announcement from network developer OP Labs. The upgrade is part of a series of reforms the developer says will help ...