L2 Planet Issue #11
In this Issue of L2 Planet, we focused on the developments regarding Arbitrum, Metis, Polygon, Index Coop, and StarkNet Ecosystem.
Arbitrum Nitro and Odyssey
The Arbitrum Nitro update is now a few steps away. The team recently released the Nitro devnet for developers on the Ethereum Göerli testnet.
The devnet release is the first step, and the next step is for the community to try it out. Once the devnet has some mileage behind it, the team will be migrating the Arbitrum Rinkeby testnet to the Nitro stack, maintaining the state of all accounts and contracts to ensure that the upgrade process is seamless before they deploy it on the mainnet. Finally, they will seamlessly migrate Arbitrum One to the Nitro stack.
So what will change with Nitro? Nitro will massively increase network capacity and reduce transaction costs. With WASM support comes a new Prover that can do fraud proofs over WASM code. Additionally, the custom-built EVM emulator for Arbitrum is being replaced by Geth, the best supported and most popular Ethereum client. For further information, check out the article.
We have another piece of news about Arbitrum! Arbitrum is collaborating with Ratwell, Sugoi, and the Galaxy project to organize a community event, Odyssey, where users earn NFT as a reward while exploring the Arbitrum ecosystem. The Odyssey journey will begin in mid-May and will last 7 weeks. A total of 14 projects will take part in the journey, with 2 projects each week giving their users an on-chain task-specific to their protocol to complete. At the end of each mission, you will be able to claim a free Arbi-verse NFT representing your participation in the mission. If you complete at least 12 missions at the end of the journey, you will receive a final Arbi-verse NFT designed by Ratwell and Sugoi, which indicates that you have completed the journey.
So, how are the 14 projects selected? The team started a vote via Twitter by randomly dividing the 56 most active projects in the Arbitrum into 14 groups. Thus, it was planned to select 14 projects with the votes of users. However, when the voting was manipulated by various bots, they moved the vote to Snapshot. As of April 13, anyone with 0.0002 ETH on Arbitrum had voting rights. Voting took 2 days and 14 projects that will participate in the journey were determined.
Yield Protocol
Hashflow
Aboard Exchange
tofuNFT
Uniswap
Apex
1inch
Izumi + Yin Finance
Dodo
Swapr
Treasure DAO
Battlefly
Ideamarket
Sushiswap
For further information about Odyssey, check out the article.
Metis Storage Layer and Fee Reduction
You may remember from our previous Metis issue, Metis was trying to integrate IPFS into the network for storage. It was later criticized that this storage could not be a real IPFS. Metis seems to have turned to a different alternative for storage, MemoLabs.
As a result of the Metis and MemoLabs partnership, all data no longer goes to the Ethereum mainnet. This significantly reduces Rollup protocol costs. The main approach of Metis in this design is to submit what is needed only when it is needed. The fact that all of the data is no longer on the Ethereum mainnet lowers Metis from the Ethereum mainnet security level. Despite this, Metis has become the cheapest solution among the existing L2s.
We will explain Metis' new approach and security risks by updating the Metis issue we prepared earlier. For further information, check out the article.
Polygon Edge Supernets
Polygon Edge announced its first product, Supernets. We can briefly think of supernets as customizable and application-specific blockchains.
Definition of Supernets is similar to Avalanche' Subnets but they are not the same especially when we consider that there is not much documentation about subnets. Polygon Edge has divided the expected Supernet types into four groups.
Blockchains with its own set of validators
Blockchains with shared security and validated by “professional”, MATIC-staked validators
Rollups that relies on Ethereum for both security and data availability
Validiums that relies on Ethereum for security, but not for data availability
For now, only the first two of these four SuperNet types are active and more than 20 projects are in development on Polygon Edge. It is aimed to deploy bridges for the communication of Supernets with each other and with Ethereum in the short term. In the long term, it is aimed to establish an cross-chain communication protocol. Optionally, it is also possible to receive support from certified Edge partners for the operational challenges of blockchains. Thanks to the modular structure it offers, Supernets actually appeal to many areas. For further information about Supernets, check out the article.
Layer2 Index Token
Index Coop is a company that produces index tokens. These index tokens consist of tokens selected in a specific area and the percentage weight of these tokens in the total index may be different. So what does this have to do with L2?
According to the latest research from Index Coop dated December 20, 2021, 7% of respondents asked for an index token based on L2s. This research shows that the L2 index is the second most requested product from Index Coop. The draft, led by Joseph Knecht and advised by L2Beat's Piotr Szlachciak, is first discussed at the forum. The proposal, which was then put to the vote on Snapshot, was accepted by the passing threshold in the past days.
According to the proposal, the recommended tokens and their percentages in the L2 index token are as in the image below.
ETH is included because some projects such as Arbitrum and Optimism do not have tokens. Although Polygon is not an L2 project, $MATIC is also included, considering its proximity to L2s and considering L2 investments, it will also increase liquidity. Currently, there is no L2 index in the ecosystem. In fact, with the implementation of the L2 index, an important deficiency in the ecosystem will be eliminated.
StarkNet Ecosystem*
Delphi Digital led a $5 million seed round in zkLend, a money market protocol built on StarkNet.
Uday Jhunjhunwala is building a private Prediction Market on StarkNet.
StakerNode supports validators on StarkNet testnet.
ZKX, which is a permissionless swaps protocol on StarkNet that enables trading derivatives with built-in rewards mechanisms, a decentralized order book, and complex trading strategies, is announced.
Metaverse protocol Phi has launched an experimental project, MetaMaterial which provides interoperability to blockchain games.
1,589 new smart contracts were deployed on StarkNet in March.
There are more than 270k Argent X wallets on the StarkNet testnet.
*Credit Swagtimus.eth L2'22's Newsletter
Twitter Corner
Spectating Corner
That’s all from L2 Planet for now, hope to see you in 15 days :)