ZK-Rollups Will Require "Years of Fine-Tuning," According to Vitalik Buterin
Vitalik Buterin has updated his blog with a new post on the future of rollups.
He asserts that as rollups gain traction, block production is likely to remain centralised and
that it may take years for users to adopt rollups as a means of storing their assets.
The co-founder of Ethereum is optimistic about the future of rollups.
Vitalik Buterin Discusses the Rollup's Future
Vitalik Buterin has updated his blog with a new post on rollups and blockchain scalability.
The 1,500-word essay, titled "Endgame," discusses how the technology can be used
to decentralise block production. According to Buterin, the average "big block chain" today
has a high block frequency, block size, and transaction speed, but also becomes highly
centralised as a result of the high node running costs associated with creating large blocks.
Numerous Ethereum competitors, such as Solana, tout lightning-fast transaction times but require
expensive hardware to run nodes, prompting concerns about the degree of decentralisation.
Buterin continues by stating that while rollups improve block validation, they still result in
centralised block production, and that there are two likely outcomes of a rollup-centric world:
one in which "everyone migrates" to a single highly scalable rollup,
or one in which network activity is distributed across multiple solutions.
However, Buterin notes that block production will remain centralised in both cases due
to "the network effects within rollups or the network effects of cross-domain MEV."
He does, however, note that techniques such as committee validation, data availability sampling,
and bypass channels can be used to regulate the market for block production.
The post makes a direct reference to Ethereum, noting that the network is
"extremely well-positioned" to adapt to a rollup-centric environment due to its
explicit roadmap commitment to rollup integration.
"Ethereum is open to all possible futures and is not required to take a position on which one will
win," an excerpt reads, referring to the two scenarios in which one or more rollups thrive.
Other "big block chains," Buterin writes, will have to decide whether to pursue
decentralised block production and resistance to censorship.
Buterin has previously stated that Layer 2 rollup solutions will be a critical component of
Ethereum's path to scalability. Today's rollups are classified as optimistic or zero-knowledge.
Optimistic Rollups, such as Optimism and Arbitrum, bundle transactions and send data off-chain to
reduce transaction times and gas fees, though withdrawals are subject to a seven-day dispute
period. Meanwhile, ZK-Rollups such as Starkware's StarkNet generate cryptographic proofs to
demonstrate the legitimacy of transactions when they are sent back to the base chain.
Ethereum's Layer 2 rollup solutions have gained traction in recent weeks as the network continues
to struggle with persistent gas fee issues. Numerous Ethereum-native DeFi projects have begun
launching on Optimistic Rollups, while StarkWare's StarkNet launched last week on mainnet.
However, Buterin notes that it will take "years of refinement and audits"
before people feel comfortable storing their crypto assets in EVM-compatible ZK-Rollups.
Buterin's post comes at a time when Ethereum and other Layer
1 blockchains are experiencing extreme volatility.
ETH fell 17% below $4,000 on Friday as part of a market-wide selloff, while other smaller-cap coins
suffered even greater losses. It has since recovered and was trading at $4,207 at press time.
At the moment, it controls approximately 20.73 percent of the global cryptocurrency market.