Here are 3 Layer 2 projects that 1 should watch in 2024.
but of course, this is not financial advice 💝
🔥 Heyo — back at it, giving my unsolicited opinion on all things web3, chain and innovation. This week, while bullish about Layer 2, I am adding a bit of bonus content from my personal watch list. lfg.
TL;DR:
1. The Lightning Network
2. Polygon
3. ImmutableNeed to know more about Layer 2? No worries, check out my recent post for a cute lil beginners guide 🔍🧠
👉 The Lightning Network
TL;DR:
Transactions Per Second: ~1 million
Total Value Locked: ~$234 million
From The Lightning Network themselves:
“Instant Payments. Lightning-fast #blockchain payments without worrying about block confirmation times. Security is enforced by blockchain smart-contracts without creating a on-blockchain transaction for individual payments. Payment speed measured in milliseconds to seconds.
Scalability. Capable of millions to billions of transactions per second across the network. Capacity blows away legacy payment rails by many orders of magnitude. Attaching payment per action/click is now possible without custodians.
Low Cost. By transacting and settling off-blockchain, the Lightning Network allows for exceptionally low fees, which allows for emerging use cases such as instant micropayments.
Cross Blockchains. Cross-chain atomic swaps can occur off-chain instantly with heterogeneous blockchain consensus rules. So long as the chains can support the same cryptographic hash function, it is possible to make transactions across blockchains without trust in 3rd party custodians.”
We love an agnostic queen 👑
👉 Polygon
TL;DR:
Transactions Per Second: 65 Thousand
Total Value Locked: 4 Billion
Polygon is a multichain ecosystem, driven by MATIC, their native token. It was originally, and best known in the web3 community for their super fast transactions an super low gas fees. Not only are they staying ahead of the adoption and product curve, they are pioneers in the Layer 2 space.
From Polygon themselves:
“There are no one-size-fits-all scaling solutions. A gaming platform, for example, is best served by an #L2 that offers the highest possible throughput, while a decentralized exchange would prioritize security over per-tx costs.”
… and this is brilliant. A huge factor in scalability is knowing your audience usecases.
To combat and contain this wide spread, Polygon offers three different .eth #protocols, plus a fourth in the works:
- Polygon PoS,
- Polygon zkEVM
- Polygon CDK
- Polygon Miden (coming soon)
And personally after working with the Sweet team, I am obviously a Polygon fan.
👉 Immutable
TL;DR:
Transactions Per Second: 9+ Thousand
Total Value Locked: 2.15 Billion
Immutible is known for being a steady force in the tokenization in gaming. They’ve built a massive portfolio, think; Gods Unchained, Cool Cats Cooltopia, the Ember Swords Immutable X Migration, Habbo, etc.
From Immutible:
“Immutable is the leading Layer 2 for #NFTs and blockchain gaming, secured by Ethereum. Blockchain game developers — build & scale faster here.”
By design, Immutible seems to offer two ZK rollup solutions:
🧠 BTW: A zk-rollup (zero-knowledge rollup) is a layer 2 scaling solution for blockchains, primarily designed to increase transaction throughput and reduce costs while maintaining security.
