L2 report vol. 27

Paradigm

Published in

Paradigm

9 min readOct 16, 2023

A biweekly update on Layer 2 protocols, 2nd October — 16th October

TL;DR

The sum of all funds locked on Ethereum converted to USD is $10.6B at the time of writing.
OP Stack fault proof system live on OP Goerli testnet, alpha. Also, there’s just over a week left to sign up for RetroPGF 3 (the deadline to do so is October 23rd).
Chainlink Automation 2.0 is live on OP mainnet, enabling Optimism developers to execute verifiable computation off-chain with reduced gas costs, facilitating the creation of more advanced on-chain applications.
Amazon Web Services and Immutable are working together to shape the future of gaming.
Polygon zkEVM Mainnet Beta upgrade + bridge operations have been completed successfully.
Scroll went live on the mainnet. Scroll will be supporting builders in Istanbul and India as part of two upcoming ETHGlobal hackathons.
The Arbitrum DAO has voted to fund the Short Term Incentive Program (STIP). The Arbitrum Odyssey will resume on October 16th with week 2 to ensure a higher degree of safety for all participating users, and allow for more time to complete/claim those missions.
Binance has completed the integration of Ethereum ETH on the Base network.
RAC’s Deadline NFT is live on Base, purchase from mainnet or Layer 2.
Metis’s governance proposal to go back to a pure Ethereum Optimistic Rollup passed. This will make the network more secure & decentralized.
Boba Network is nearing the completion of its migration to Erigon as its sequencer client. Bobascan launched — the latest blockexplorer for Boba Ethereum & Boba BNB.
As part of zkSync’s commitment to network decentralization, the team announced the open-sourcing of two critical components of zkSync Era: Block Explorer and Portal (Bridge).
The upcoming dYdX Chain has been fully audited by Informal Systems.
How Starknet is enabling a new era of crypto gaming with fast, cheap transactions.
EIP4844 economics: model rollup costs for posting on blobs and blocks.
Vitalik on enshrining & de-enshrining features in the protocol: account abstraction, zk-EVMs, proposer-builder separation, private transaction pools, liquid staking and precompiles.
ApeCoin DAO proposed releasing a zk-Powered L2 chain.
zk-Bench: benchmarking framework for SNARKs.
L2BEAT Build Your Own Rollup: simplified sovereign rollup for education purposes.
L2 stats. Check out how much it costs to use Layer 2.
And more!

Stats

The sum of all funds locked on Ethereum converted to USD is $10.6 B at the time of writing.

How much does it cost to use Layer 2?

Optimistic rollups

Arbitrum

The Arbitrum DAO has voted to fund the Short Term Incentive Program (STIP) w 50M ARB.
Round 2 of the Arbitrum Security Council: The voting weight for unused votes will decay linearly.
Now available in CoinbasWallet: DEX trade on Arbitrum with zero Coinbase fees, Bridge between Ethereum and Arbitrum, Gas-free sends on Arbitrum One.
One year ago, Arbitrum acquired Prysmatic Labs — the team behind Ethereum’s leading consensus client, Prysm.
The Arbitrum Odyssey: Reignited will resume on October 16th with week 2 to ensure a higher degree of safety for all participating users, and allow for more time to complete/claim those missions.
The Odyssey portal has been updated to reflect the new schedule change.
Arbitrum Festival starts Oct 16th on ReHold. Enjoy increased APRs, gas refunds on all Arbitrum trades, and Galxe campaigns, along with an NFT, your ticket to future ReHold token drops.
The Arbitrum Grants Program administered via DDA is now live on Questbook.

🚀Live on Arbitrum:

Stackit is now live on Arbitrum.
Welcome to the Arbitrum ecosystem Paima Studios.
Gauntlet shared their new Arbitrum dashboard, presenting key stats on the ongoing migration from bridged $USDC.e → native $USDC.
Superposition — the DeFi-native Layer-3 on Arbitrum has been introduced.
Cipher.fan — new SoFi protocol live exclusively on Arbitrum.
Give a huge friendly Arbitrum welcome to Gaudiy for joining the ecosystem in Japan.
OptionBlitz is now live on Arbitrum mainnet.

Projects based on Optimism’s codebase

Optimism

There’s just over a week left to sign up for RetroPGF 3 (the deadline to do so is October 23rd).
OP Stack fault proof system live on OP Goerli testnet, alpha.
Optimism is headed to EFDevconnect Istanbul next month where they’ll be hosting Onchain Summit: a full day devoted to the Superchain.

🚀Live on Optimism:

Farcaster is OPen & available to everyone.
Chainlink Automation 2.0 is live on OP mainnet, enabling Optimism developers to execute verifiable computation off-chain with reduced gas costs, facilitating the creation of more advanced onchain applications.

Base

Binance has completed the integration of Ethereum ETH on the Base network.
Bybit has added support for Ethereum ($ETH) deposit and withdrawal on the Base Network.
Blast API launches Base Builder Campaign.
Contributions to Base are eligible for Round 3 of Optimism RetroPGF. Apply by October 23.

🚀Live on Base:

RAC’s Deadline NFT live on Base, purchase from mainnet or Layer 2.
Over 200 people have joined the PartyDAO to create together on BasePaint.
DeFi Saver is live on Base.
Making a donation via Endaoment is now not only free, it’s onchain via Base.

Metis Andromeda

Metis reverting to storing transaction data on mainnet: Metis’s governance proposal to go back to a pure Ethereum Optimistic Rollup passed. This will make the network more secure & decentralized.
Twitter hack compensation for affected Metis users is now complete.
Each step forward for ZKM is a step closer to Metis becoming the first-ever Hybrid Rollup — fast, easy, and low-cost as an Optimistic Rollup, with ZK Proofs to enable much faster withdrawals back to Ethereum. Head to http://zkm.io/ecp to learn more.
Anyone can access Metis directly with fiat thanks to Banxa.

🚀Live on Metis:

Hercules and Algebra are bringing fresh innovation to Metis and the entire DeFi space.

Boba Network

Boba Network’s Ecosystem Update: October Edition.
Boba Network is nearing the completion of its migration to Erigon as its sequencer client.
Another successful Scale Web 3.0 in the books. Shout out to all the speakers and moderators who participated in the latest event.
Bobascan launched: The latest blockexplorer for Boba Ethereum & Boba BNB. It’s designed for a superior user experience and boasts features on par with the best blockexplorers out there.

🚀Live on Boba Network:

Teahouse is deploying on Boba Network.
OGamesBuilders, backed by Google, is deploying on Boba Network for a game-changing integration.

Zero-knowledge rollups

Aztec

Aztec will have decentralized sequencers. Recently, the team announced that after significant debate they have selected a final design from Aztec’s Sequencer Selection Request for Proposals (RFP). “Fernet”: a fully permissionless random leader election protocol.
Aztec CEO Williamson is presenting at the Programmable Cryptography Conference EFDevconnect next month.

Polygon

Recently, Polygon zkEVM’s first upgrade went live on mainnet, bringing PUSH0 to Ethereum L2s. To use the Dragon Fruit upgrade, devs will need to update to the latest node, prover, and bridge service.
Polygon Co-founder proposed Apecoin to launch its own Ethereum L2 using Polygon CDK. The feedback for the proposal seems to be positive so far.
Polylang introduced: TypeScript for Miden VM.
Faster Finality with the Aalborg Upgrade for Polygon Proof-of-Stake Network: A new proposal for Polygon PoS would significantly speed up this process.
Polygon Labs Response to AMF’s Discussion Paper on DeFi
From Digital Bonds to Pokemon Cards, Tokenization Hype is Real and It’s Happening on Polygon: Tokenized assets unlock operational efficiencies by reducing costs, tapping new distribution channels, and enabling 24/7 access to liquidity. And the Polygon protocols are becoming a destination for institutional tokenization.
Reorgs Demystified: Insights From Monitoring With a Sensor Network
Polygon announced that the contracts for POL, its upcoming new token, went live on testnet. MATIC holders will be given 4 years to upgrade their tokens to POL.

🚀Live on Polygon:

Check out the latest Polygon integrations here.

Scroll

Scroll will be supporting builders in Istanbul and India as part of two upcoming ETHGlobal hackathons.
The latest ZK Symposium Session.

StarkWare

The Starknet House Istanbul 2023, organized by Starknet House & Starknet Asia, is coming soon for applications.
The STARKs journey turned math that was purely theoretical into a practical technology that allows everyone to prove and enforce integrity and scale Ethereum. Eli Ben-Sasson walks us through this journey, step by step.
Learn all about Starknet with The Starknet Book.
Starknet Go v0.4.6 is live.
What are Storage Proofs and how can they improve Oracles?

🚀Powered by StarkWare:

A continually updated list of projects building on StarkNet.

zkSync

As part of zkSync’s commitment to network decentralization, they announced the open-sourcing of two critical components of zkSync Era: Block Explorer and Portal (Bridge).
The zkSync Era competitive audit on Code4Rena is now open and 1.1 Million USDC is on the line.
era-test-node | Release v0.1.0-alpha.6.

🚀Live on zkSync

Uniswap v3 contracts are now live on zkSync Era.
Reservoir now supports zkSync Era.
Fulcrom Finance is now live on zksync Era.

Projects built using StarkEx

dYdX

Dive Into The dYdX Chain Audit: The upcoming dYdX Chain has been fully audited by Informal Systems. Take a look at the audit details in this blog.
dYdX’s Business Development Manager, Tomas, will be discussing the role of DeFi in the CeFi landscape at Fasanara Capital’s Digital Asset Conference this November in London.
Conversations Ep. 3 — Matt Mochary.

Stay up to date with the latest governance conversations and participate in forum discussions.

Validium

Projects build using StarkEx

Rhino.fi (previously DeversiFi)

Rhino.fi is partnering with Caldera to launch the rhino super-fast & frictionless bridge on Caldera-powered Op Stack & Arbitrum Orbit chains .
They are working with SeaPad to facilitate frictionless bridging for both SeaPad users and launchpad projects.
They collaborate with Ancora Finance to be their exclusive bridging partner, and help users onboard to Ancora from 12 different chains.
Collaboration with Skydrome.

Immutable X

Immutable and AWS: Investing in the Next Evolution of Gaming: As the web3 gaming industry continues to experience increasing momentum and growth, Immutable has chosen a powerful ally in Amazon Web Services (AWS) to make game development safer and simpler.
Immutable zkEVM: The Road to Mainnet and Beyond: Immutable zkEVM, powered by Polygon, is on track to become the home of gaming on Ethereum. Learn more about the technical upgrades coming soon, along with important milestones and the roadmap to Immutable zkEVM Mainnet and Beyond.
The Future of Web3 Gaming in Asia: Token2049 Recap (2023): Web3 gaming continues to be a hot topic, especially at this year’s Token2049 conference. Here’s everything you missed from the gaming panel event including leaders from Immutable, Delphi Digital, Axie Infinity, and Animoca Brands.

MISC

EIP4844 economics: model rollup costs for posting on blobs and blocks.
Vitalik on enshrining & de-enshrining features in the protocol: account abstraction, zk-EVMs, proposer-builder separation, private transaction pools, liquid staking and precompiles.
zk-Bench: benchmarking framework for SNARKs.
L2BEAT Build Your Own Rollup: simplified sovereign rollup for education purposes.