After the Cancun upgrade, L2 urgently needs a "decentralization" movement

23-12-27 13:21

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Original author: BITWU.ETH

Editor's note: In this round of bull market, the market heat of ETH is not as good as that of BTC ecology and SOL. However, the upcoming upgrade of Cancun also inevitably arouses people's thinking: where will the Ethereum Layer 2 network go with the Cancun upgrade? Related reading: "How will the market pattern of Layer 2 evolve after the Cancun upgrade?". For the future development of Layer 2, crypto blogger BITWU.ETH also expressed his views on X, which are summarized by BlockBeats as follows:

【L2 urgently needs a "power delegation" movement, thinking and new investment logic brought by the recent heat of Metis and ZKfair】

Recently, the hottest events in the industry, besides ZKFair's Gas airdrop exploding, are the price increase of Metis.

ZKFair4 Gas airdrop has started and TVL has exceeded 100 million. Metis has achieved three times unlimited imagination in nine days!

Why is ZKFair popular? Why can Metis take off in this world? In essence, it is similar to the fair launch of BRC20. The market is tired of the excessive control of VC institutions, where they have a say in everything.

From the meme section of BRC20 to the L2 section of ZKFair, to the first decentralized sorter of Layer2, what everyone is ultimately pursuing is the same thing: fairness, fairness, and more fairness!

One, the market logic has changed, but the charm of the ETH system remains

You can observe the hotspots of this round of market, such as BRC20 and MEME. These sectors were originally late-starting sectors in the past crypto cycle, but in this round of market, they have led the market ahead of others. The mainstream investment values that were once proud have encountered a crisis.

ETH is facing the most severe FUD in this round, with BTC's strong ecosystem on one side and SOL's new life after the FTX incident on the other. The market seems to be moving away from ETH, especially with the impact of the single-chain logic represented by SOL on the ETH L2 expansion system, as well as the zkSync and Starknet airdrops. There are even comments in the market that SOL has surpassed ETH, which is lamentable and even nerve-wracking.

However, the core of the ETH ecosystem is not Vitalik Buterin or the Foundation, but the countless developers rooted in it. They always come up with new ideas, even subverting others and themselves. This is the fundamental foundation of the ETH system.

zkSync, Starknet, and ZKFair are all part of the ETH ZK L2 sector. Since they have chosen to continue PUA, let ZKFair come out and slap you in the face. This is the charm of ETH.

With the arrival of the Cancun upgrade, the speed of L2 will be greatly improved and transaction costs will be reduced. The game between L2s will become more intense, especially when it comes to the issue of profit distribution.

And this problem specifically focuses on the Sequencer.

二、Metis's decentralized sorter will shake up the L2 world

If ZKFair is targeting zkSync and Starknet, then Metis is targeting all L2 solutions.

First, let's talk about what an L2 sorter is:

After users on L2 initiate transactions, they are sorted by a sorter and consolidated into a block that is packaged onto the ETH mainnet. Currently, all L2 sorters are centralized, which may seem fine, but in reality, if they act maliciously, they can continuously delay your transactions and even seize undue profits.

At first, it seemed that all L2s were pushing for the decentralization of the sorter, but it didn't materialize until we saw that a certain L2's revenue reached tens of millions of dollars in a year. It was then that we realized that the technical issue of the sorter was not the key, but rather an issue of interests.

All parties are guarding this golden rice bowl. The official collects interest while lying down every day. Why decentralize? This is the difficulty of the problem.

Metis has launched a decentralized sorter plan, which began community testing in January. The plan aims to eliminate the risk of single-point failure caused by a single sorter by introducing a sorter pool. In addition, sorters can be staked and operated, solving the significant challenge of L2 token empowerment. To operate a sorter, Metis tokens must be pledged.

You can see the recent rise of Metis, which indicates that the market is willing to buy it.

Arb, Op and other top L2s have not yet adopted decentralized sorters. Essentially, it is difficult to decentralize and relinquish control as the project grows larger. By controlling the sorter, they control the pricing power of Gas and profit from it, which can be seen as blocking people's financial paths like killing their parents.

Referring to how difficult it is to decentralize power by looking at the real world, we can see the commendable aspect of Metis' actions. The difficulty lies not in technology, but in the delegation of power.

Three, Cancun Upgrade, New L2 Landscape, New Investment Logic

Referring to the OP post that Lao Wu posted earlier, my attitude towards investing in OP is that I do not believe it has alpha returns. The logic is simple: OP's token model continues the low circulation and high release model of the previous round, which is very unfavorable for secondary retail investors, despite its success to some extent.

The arrival of Cancun upgrade will stimulate more participants to enter the market, and it's hard to say who will come out on top. I think everyone can refer to a principle of "decentralization of power". What is power? In short, power determines the distribution of interests, which is a cake-cutting problem. This is the new enlightenment brought by this round of BRC20, ZKFair, and Metis.

Metis has been committed to implementing power from the bottom up since its inception, from P2P and Verifier Network to the current decentralized Sequencer and Hybrid Rollup. The most important thing is that, compared with the model I wrote about the difficulty of empowering Op and having high growth effects, Metis has now launched a decentralized sequencer, which can force Op and make Op project parties consciously put down their golden rice bowls. I think this is a complementary and good role.

Arb, Op, zkSync, Starknet, and Linea are all L2 solutions with obvious traces of the previous generation. Each of them carries a prestigious title and even holds legitimacy. In the new L2 era, the old logic and stars of the past may be overturned. The L2 market needs a new king to wield the sword of "decentralization" to redefine the new era and redistribute the cake.