Bartek Kiepuszewski, the co-founder of L2Beat, a portal for monitoring Ethereum layer-2 actions, is worried concerning the safety and consistency of current 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, reminiscent of Manta and Optimism, depend on sequencers to put up information to Ethereum. Nonetheless, with out fraud-proofs, there isn’t a technique to confirm that the information revealed by the Sequencer on the Ethereum mainnet is correct or full.
Within the co-founder’s view, every time a sequencer posts the batch of transactions on the primary web, there isn’t a layer-1 state or occasion change. Per Kiepuszewski ‘s evaluation, this can be a worrying problem that ought to 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 just lately despatched a full “information blob” containing all layer-2 transactions.
Alternatively, it was famous that MantaNetwork reportedly posted the “root hash of a knowledge 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 may very well be a recipe for bother because the lack of transparency on Sequencer’s operations presents a serious concern, particularly for customers monitoring the mainnet however not working their layer-2 nodes.
Ethereum Layer-2s Command Billions With out Purposeful Fraud-Proof Programs
Technically, within the present state, Sequencers play a significant function in making certain 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 accordance with L2Beat data, Manta Community has turned off its fraud-proof whereas nonetheless being developed on Optimism. On the identical time, Arbitrum ‘s fraud-proof system remains to be not permissionless since validators should be whitelisted.
In all, in most main layer-2 protocols managing thousands and thousands in complete worth locked (TVL), there isn’t a public system to observe sequencers and whether or not they’re submitting legitimate particulars to the mainnet.
Characteristic picture from Canva, chart from TradingView