Key Points
- Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder, proposes a plan to enhance cross-chain interoperability within Ethereum Layer 2 networks.
- The plan includes Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) and aims to standardize rules for cross-chain communication.
Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, has put forward a strategy to bolster the cross-chain interoperability capabilities of Ethereum Layer 2 networks.
Buterin is confident that this solution will significantly improve the user experience within the Ethereum ecosystem.
Addressing Cross-Layer-2 Interoperability Issues
The proposal from the Ethereum co-founder came in response to a query about the best way to tackle issues related to cross-layer-2 interoperability.
Buterin stated, “I think people will be surprised by how quickly ‘cross-L2 interoperability problems’ stop being problems and we get a smooth user experience across the entire Ethereum-verse.”
He also mentioned that there is strong backing and a will to make this happen, and pointed out the numerous Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) on the roadmap to cross-L2 compatibility.
EIP-3370, one of the steps on the roadmap, proposes a new address standard for dApps and wallets to display chain-specific addresses through a human-readable prefix.
Another step is the upgrade to EIP-7683, which will introduce a standard method for different Ethereum Layer-2s to communicate and execute trades across multiple chains.
Buterin believes that a standard set of rules should be established for all networks to resolve issues related to cross-chain communication, as it is currently quite complicated for users to trade assets across different networks.
Improving Cross-Chain Communication
The EIP-3668 proposal details a method for Ethereum smart contracts to access off-chain data in a standardized way.
Buterin referred to this as “layer-2 light clients”, which aim to standardize how Ethereum contracts access off-chain data, thereby simplifying and enhancing the efficiency of developing applications that require extensive data without incurring high on-chain storage costs.
He also mentioned “cross-L2-replayable account state updates”, which illustrate how Layer-2s receive the latest L1 state updates while maintaining low latency and security.
In addition, Buterin mentioned a few Phase 2 updates such as proof aggregation and keystore rollups to enhance cross-chain L2 compatibility.
Concerning compatibility with existing zero-knowledge and optimistic rollups, Buterin stated that these “stage 1” updates are “completely independent of the details of rollup technology”.
He added, “Eventually, I think all rollups will go zk (and existing zk rollups will have to redo their tech stack), in order to finalize to Ethereum once per slot. But that’s like 5+ years away.”
