cointelegraph.com Open in urlscan Pro
104.18.198.52  Public Scan

Form analysis
3 forms found in the DOM

<form novalidate="novalidate" class="py-4 rounded-xl newsletter-subscription-form_k9oQq" data-ct-widget="newsletter-subscription-form">
  <p class="!mt-0 text-xs font-semibold leading-4 text-fg-primaryDefault ps-4 pb-1 sm:text-sm newsletter-subscription-form-enjoy_uvMCq">Explore more articles like this</p>
  <p class="!mt-0 text-base font-semibold leading-5 text-fg-inverted ps-4 pb-1 sm:text-lg newsletter-subscription-form-title_7jvjJ">Subscribe to our Crypto Biz newsletter</p>
  <p class="!mt-0 text-xs leading-4 text-[#98A4AA] ps-4 pe-1 pb-3 newsletter-subscription-form-description_wtZv+">Weekly snapshot of key business trends in blockchain and crypto, from startup buzz to regulatory shifts. Gain valuable insights to
    navigate the market and spot financial opportunities. Delivered every Thursday</p>
  <div class="flex me-3 newsletter-subscription-form-image_FGyNw">
    <div class="relative self-end flex justify-end items-start w-20 sm:w-28 h-0 sm:h-28"><img src="https://s3.cointelegraph.com/storage/uploads/view/9eae0e798df83a1530d957f23cb4573e.svg" decoding="async" fetchpriority="high" loading="lazy"
        class="absolute sm:static bottom-0 h-20 w-20 sm:w-28 sm:h-28"></div>
  </div>
  <fieldset class="inline-flex px-4 flex-col gap-2 sm:gap-2 sm:flex-row sm:items-center newsletter-subscription-form-fieldset_FaYGX"><input placeholder="Email Address" name="email" type="email"
      class="flex-grow py-2 ps-3 pe-2 outline-none border border-[#48575D] rounded-lg bg-bg-invertedStrong text-base text-white placeholder-[#66747C]g disabled:bg-transparent disabled:text-[#98A4AA] hover:outline-none newsletter-subscription-form-input_HCPZH focus:border-border-primaryMuted"><button
      type="submit" class="flex items-center justify-center min-w-48 shrink-0 bg-fg-primaryDefault hover:bg-fg-primaryStrong dark:text-black rounded-lg px-4 py-2 text-uiMDefault gap-2 gap-none" data-ct-theme="dark"><!----><span
        class="capitalize">Subscribe</span></button></fieldset>
  <p class="!mt-2 mx-4 inline-flex text-[#98A4AA] text-xs newsletter-subscription-form-tos_lBW2V">By subscribing, you agree to our <a target="_blank" href="/terms-and-privacy">Terms of Services and Privacy Policy</a></p><!---->
</form>

<form novalidate="novalidate" data-testid="footer-subscription-form" class="footer-subscription-form mb-6 md:mb-8 mx-5 tablet:mx-0" data-v-ed1b37b6="">
  <div class="footer-subscription-form__wrp" data-v-ed1b37b6=""><label for="footer-subscription-form-input" data-testid="footer-subscription-form-label" class="visually-hidden" data-v-ed1b37b6=""> Email Address </label><input
      id="footer-subscription-form-input" type="email" placeholder="Email" data-testid="footer-subscription-form-input" value="" class="input footer-subscription-form__input" data-v-ed1b37b6=""><button type="submit"
      data-testid="footer-subscribe-submit-button" class="btn footer-subscription-form__btn" data-v-ed1b37b6=""> Subscribe </button></div><!---->
</form>

<form autocomplete="off" data-testid="search-input-mobile-submit" class="container header-mobile-search-form" data-v-66e3094c=""><button type="submit" class="btn header-mobile-search-form__btn" data-v-66e3094c=""><span class="btn__wrp"
      data-v-66e3094c=""><span class="btn header-mobile-search-form__magnifier-icon" data-v-66e3094c=""></span></span></button><label class="header-mobile-search-form__label" data-v-66e3094c=""><input placeholder="Search" type="text" name="query"
      data-testid="search-input-mobile" autocomplete="off" autofocus="autofocus" value="" class="input header-mobile-search-form__input" data-v-66e3094c=""></label><button class="btn header-mobile-search-form__btn" data-v-66e3094c=""><span
      class="btn__wrp" data-v-66e3094c=""><span class="btn header-mobile-search-form__cross-icon" data-v-66e3094c=""></span></span></button></form>

Text Content

$

BTC $95,505 -0.38% ETH $3,580 -0.99% BNB $689 +7.20% SOL $228 +1.85% XRP $2.58
-7.00% TON $6.65 +1.83%
 * 
   English
 * Advertise
 * About

News
Bitcoin
Ethereum
Altcoins
Blockchain
Business
Policy & Regulations
AI
NFTs
DeFi
Adoption
Markets
Market News
Market Analysis
Top 10 Cryptocurrencies
Calculator
Heatmap
Rankings
Price Indices
Memecoins
Crypto Exchanges
Magazine
People
Top 100 2023
Top 100 2022
Top 100 2021
Top 100 2020
Opinion
Expert Take
Interview
Learn
Research
Podcasts

Ad
Adrian Brink
Dec 02, 2024


ROLLUPS ALONE WON’T UNLOCK BLOCKCHAIN’S TRUE POTENTIAL

Ethereum’s scalability solution may create more problems than it solves. Here’s
why we need to look beyond rollups.

898 Total views
4 Total shares
Listen to article
5:43

Opinion
COINTELEGRAPH IN YOUR SOCIAL FEED
Follow ourSubscribe on

 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 

Opinion by: Adrian Brink, co-founder of Anoma

Rollups have become the go-to solution to Ethereum’s scalability issues. As the
ecosystem expands, however, the challenges created by rollups — including
continued state and liquidity fragmentation and their inability to create a
unified user experience — are becoming critical barriers to Ethereum’s
evolution. 

Rollups alone do not unlock any fundamentally new functionality or capabilities
for developers. We need new approaches to blockchain architectures to unlock
Ethereum’s true potential rather than continuing to innovate at the margins.

The dangers of rollup fragmentation

Most rollups are essentially copies or slight modifications of the Ethereum
Virtual Machine (EVM). While they reduce transaction fees by moving computation
off the main chain, they do not address the need to scale state or drive new use
cases or innovation. It is the same for alternative virtual machines (altVMs),
as they provide developers with new programming language options. However,
altVMs do not fundamentally bring new functionality to the ecosystem. Rollup
usage has primarily been dominated by points farming schemes, lacking practical
applications to move the space forward.

Rollup proliferation results from a broken, fragmented state and liquidity
landscape that limits user and developer experience and adoption. To unlock
innovation, we need new approaches to application development. To enable true
scalability, we need better state and data management approaches.

The true scalability challenge lies in data and state.

Rollups alone are not proper scaling solutions. It would be more accurate to
define them as an execution-sharding solution. Scaling computing is not a
complex problem — the complicated problem is scaling state and data access and
distribution. Rollups still rely on Ethereum for data availability and security.
While this improves transaction processes, it does little to increase Ethereum’s
base layer capacity in the long run. 

Although zero-knowledge (ZK) rollups provide significant cryptographical
advancements and are moving us away from the need to do everything onchain. The
ecosystem does not need 200 different copies or slight moderations of the EVM,
each with its decentralized exchange (DEX). 

Rollups currently don’t do enough to address the real bottleneck in blockchain
scalability: data storage and state management. We need solutions that can scale
data and state.

Plasma and intents will unlock true scalability and spark innovation.

The only viable solution currently for true scalability is Plasma-like
constructions. Plasma eliminates reliance on a single data availability layer.
It enables a world where significant data and computing can be kept offchain —
e.g., on users’ edge devices. The amount of data a rollup needs to post to the
main chain is proportional to the amount of usage it gets, which is not a proper
scaling solution. With Plasma, we can post a constant amount of data to the main
chain regardless of user throughput.

Scalability is not the only challenge. We also need to ignite innovation at the
application layer. New approaches to blockchain architectures and new primitives
for application development are necessary. That’s where intent-centric
architectures come into play. 

Intents provide a new paradigm for building decentralized applications that
abstract away the complexity of blockchain infrastructure for users. Intents
only care about the “what” and are less concerned with the “how,” requiring
users to define what they want to achieve without prescribing the intermediate
steps needed.

Building DApps on an intent-centric operating system enables developers to tap
into state and liquidity from anywhere in the Ethereum ecosystem (including
layer 2s) and use the Ethereum main chain (or any layer 2) as the settlement
layer. Generalized intents can facilitate the shared sequencing of Ethereum
rollups, defragmenting states across chains and allowing developers to treat the
entire multichain landscape as a unified development environment.

Recent: Grayscale completes reverse share splits of Bitcoin and Ether ETFs

By combining the scalability potential of Plasma-like approaches with the
advantages of intent-centric systems, we can unlock new functionality and use
cases for rollups, ending stagnation and fragmentation.

Unlocking blockchain’s true potential with intents

The blockchain space needs to evolve beyond its current infrastructure focus to
build user-friendly applications that offer real utility. Rollups are essential
to Ethereum’s evolution, but intents can help them uncover a new wave of
innovation. It’s time to question if we are building technology that solves real
problems or simply creating more complex systems that ultimately serve the same
limited functions. 

With new approaches like intent machines, coupled with the scalability potential
of Plasma, we can start to unlock a new paradigm of innovation for developers
and a better experience for users, bringing the space more in line with the
usability of Web2. This evolution benefits rollups and the space as a whole.

Rollups, while a step in the right direction, have led to a more complicated
Web3 experience. To unlock blockchain’s potential, we need to be bolder in our
innovations and more focused on solving fundamental issues. Only then can we
hope to realize the ultimate vision of blockchain technology, which is to bring
sovereignty and resilience to the systems we rely on daily.

Adrian Brink co-founded Anoma, a distributed operating system for intent-centric
applications. He also co-founded Cryptium Labs, a PoS infrastructure operator,
and worked as a core protocol engineer on the Cosmos stack at Tendermint. Adrian
currently serves on the Anoma Foundation Council.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and
should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and
opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or
represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Explore more articles like this

Subscribe to our Crypto Biz newsletter

Weekly snapshot of key business trends in blockchain and crypto, from startup
buzz to regulatory shifts. Gain valuable insights to navigate the market and
spot financial opportunities. Delivered every Thursday


Subscribe

By subscribing, you agree to our Terms of Services and Privacy Policy


 * #Ethereum
 * #DApps
 * #Scalability
 * #zk-Rollup


1
Read more
 * Curve Finance monthly revenues up more than 20% on DeFi surge
 * ad
   Enhancing DeFi security through curators — Interview with Hats Finance
 * Crypto phishing scams to rise during holiday shopping season — Cyvers

Ad
Editor’s Choice
 * BTC/KRW pair dipped 30% as South Korea’s president declared martial law
 * Chainlink token surges 29% as community dubs LINK the true ‘bank coin’
 * Dogecoin flips Porsche, trader turns $160 into $5.6M, and more: Hodler’s
   Digest, Nov. 24 – 30
 * MicroStrategy can ignore Bitcoin bear market price crash to $20K — Research
 * Microsoft’s Bitcoin dilemma: Ride $5T BTC wave or avoid risk

Cointelegraph YouTube Subscribe

Ad
Ad
Ad
Advertise with us
Ad Take back your safety in Web3

Web3 Antivirus does not endorse any content or product on this button. While we
aim at providing you with all important information that we could obtain,
readers should do their own research before taking any actions related to the
company and carry full responsibility for their decisions.

News
 * Bitcoin
 * Blockchain
 * Ethereum
 * Altcoins
 * Business
 * Policy & Regulations
 * AI
 * NFTs
 * DeFi
 * Adoption

In Depth
 * Magazine
 * Analysis
 * Opinion
 * Hodler’s Digest
 * Expert Take
 * Top 10 Cryptocurrencies
 * Market Analysis
 * Interview

Market
 * Market News
 * Price Indeces
 * Memecoins
 * Heatmap
   Partner
 * Converter
 * Solana RPC

Learn
 * Guides
 * How to Tutorials
 * Explained
 * Glossary
 * History of Crypto
 * Top 100 2023
 * Top 100 2022
 * Top 100 2021
 * Top 100 2020

Industry
 * Research
 * Podcasts
 * Press Releases
 * Events
 * Cointelegraph Accelerator
 * Changelly
   Partner
 * Switchere
   Partner
 * iGaming

About us
 * Franchise
 * Advertise
 * About
 * Widgets
 * Newsletters
 * Contacts

Are you a journalist or an editor? Join us
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 

MOBILE APPS

COINTELEGRAPH NEWSLETTER
Email Address Subscribe
Cointelegraph covers fintech, blockchain and Bitcoin bringing you the latest
crypto news and analyses on the future of money.
FOLLOW US
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 

Terms of services and Privacy policy
© Cointelegraph 2013 - 2024


Cointelegraph.com uses Cookies to ensure the best experience for you.

Accept