L2 Planet Issue #13

In this Issue of L2 Planet, we focused on the developments regarding Optimism, Mina, Fuel Network, Immutable X, Aztec Network, and StarkNet Ecosystem.

Jun 03, 2022

Optimism Bedrock

Optimism does not slow down after EVM equivalence, $OP token, and governance model. Optimism's new goal is Ethereum equivalence! Yes, Ethereum equivalency.

We can think of Bedrock as an update to the foundations and requirements of the Ethereum equivalence goal. With Optimism bedrock, it aims to:

Theoretically, the cheapest CALL DATA calls
Consensus/execution client separation allowing seamless integration of EIP-4844
A microscopic client diff that opens the door to alternative client implementations
Fast P2P networking that makes it easy to set up nodes
Highly optimized deposits and withdrawals
Smarter sync, sequencing, and state submission

Bedrock also comes with the newly developed fraud-proof, Cannon, in line with Optimism's decentralization and management plans. The Cannon fraud-proof is important in resolving the security criticisms leveled at Optimism. The criticism that it is a sidechain directed against Optimism together with Cannon will vanish into history.

Another important development on the Optimism side was the $OP airdrop. It was already widely spoken that the airdrop would be in the last days of May, and it finally took place on May 31. The team received a lot of criticism for mistakes made during the airdrop process. So how did it all happen?

The team deploys the contract that distributes the tokens for the airdrop. They actually make the first mistake by don’t make this contract pausable.
They start making the frontend tests in public for the airdrop. That was the second mistake.
The community finds the link to the claim frontend and the unofficial claims begin.
The Optimism RPC endpoint crashes as the demands start to rise.
The team spends its effort stabilizing the RPC endpoint and deactivating the frontend.
The community continues to submit token claims using their own frontend or even their own RPCs.
The team thinks that unofficial frontends may be fraudulent and reactivates the frontend.
The team is stabilizing the RPC endpoint and announcing the official airdrop.
Optimism (✨🔴_🔴✨) @optimismPBC
Let the claims (officially) begin! 🔴‿🔴
9:45 PM ∙ May 31, 2022
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Mina’s Rollup Design

We announced Mina's L2 plans in previous issues of the newsletter. Details of the plan began to emerge. A zkRollup will be built on top of the Mina network.

We can say that the L2, which will be built according to the design, is not actually zkRollup, but a Validium solution. As such, data such as account balances and transaction history will be kept off-chain, while proof generated for transactions in the L2 will be sent to the Rollup contract on the Mina network. For now, it's unclear exactly where the data will be stored off-chain. However, a secure and decentralized storage solution is being explored going forward. Decentralization of the Rollup operator is also being explored for further development.

We'll see if a zkRollup built on Mina can fix Mina's low and slow execution problem.

Fuel Fraud Proof Check

Fuel v1.0 is one of the first UTXO-based Optimistic Rollups to support parallel executions. Its smart contracts are not upgradeable and are the most secure Rollup ever made.

Although it has been a long time since it came to live, the total value locked in the network is only $8, according to data from L2Beat. So why? Because the network only supports simple payments and has no DeFi on it. A general-purpose network will come with Fuel v2, but that's not what we're talking about in this issue.

In the past weeks, Kris Kaczor wanted to test the safety of Fuel. As you know, Optimistic Rollups optimistically assumes all transactions executed on the network to be correct. Data is considered correct as long as someone does not challenge the data published from L2 to L1. So who checks the correctness of the data on a chain that no one uses? This is exactly what Kris wondered about.

It initially aimed to publish a fraudulent state transition and take control of all funds in the network. After the waiting period (7 days) passed, he would be able to withdraw all the funds easily. In a network that no one uses anyway, there is no one to slash him, right? However, he was wrong.

Just minutes after publishing the fraudulent state transition, a validator hiding in the dark forests of Fuel appeared and slashed Kris. Kris lost 0.5 ETH. Although Fuel doesn't show on-chain validator activity, Kris failed. This showed us the importance of fraud-proofs in Optimistic Rollups and that the system works seamlessly if there is at least one honest validator. We saw a similar situation at Rainbow Bridge in the past weeks.

Kris Kaczor 🦆 @krzKaczor

How I attempted to break @fuellabs_ v1, a short story about the importance of running validators for optimistic rollups. Let's start from the beginning: 🧵👇

Immutable X

Immutable aims to expand its limited interoperability by collaborating with StarkNet.

According to the newly announced plan, wallet, order book, bridge, and exchange contracts are integrated with StarkNet, paving the way for Immutable to be a more general solution. For example, you are building a game that requires DeFi transactions that need custom contracts, and you want to take advantage of the high scaling offered by Immutable thanks to StarkEx. When Immutable makes the necessary improvements, you can publish your NFTs in Immutable while performing staking or pooling transactions on StarkNet. This increases interoperability.

The plan consists of 5 phases:

The core primitives necessary to build a StarkNet NFT project: Template NFT contracts, custom token standards, NFT royalty, metadata support, and L1-L2 asset bridges. We are at this phase right now.
NFT Trading: Exchange contracts (limit orders, auctions, etc.), global order book. It is expected to go live in July.
StarkEx Parity: Support for StarkNet on all other Immutable X products (e.g. indexer, wallet, marketplace). It is expected to go live in the third quarter.
Seamless Interoperability: Seamless and trustless asset bridges between StarkEx and StarkNet.
Dedicated Rollups: Application-specific Rollups for specific needs provided in partnership with Starkware. The date is TBD.

Another development on the side of Immutable was the proposal published by Immutable on the Apecoin forum. According to the proposal, Immutable and Apecoin collaborate, aiming for the Ape ecosystem to use Immutable. Immutable X, detailed that it can provide all necessary infrastructure support for Ape. An important point to note is the 2% platform fee on primary and secondary sales. This fee includes 0.4% $IMX stakers and 1.6% Immutable protocol fees.

It remains to be seen how Ape and Yuga Labs will respond to the proposal.

Aztec Connect

Aztec Network announced Aztec Connect by showing June 9th! Private and cheap DeFi is no longer a dream. So what is this Aztec Connect?

Aztec Connect is a bridge that connects Ethereum DeFi protocols to Aztec's Rollup and allows users to interact and make private transactions with Ethereum DeFi protocols. So with Aztec, you can interact with L1 dApps over L2. While doing all this, your privacy is protected and you make cheap transactions. For example, we want to exchange 2 ETH in Aztec L2 for 3600 DAI via Uniswap.

We don't need to move our funds to L1 and use Tornado Cash for this! Aztec Connect does everything for us. How does Aztec Connect do this?

Aztec Connect works with these three components:

Layer 1 DeFi protocols: Lido, Element, Aave, Compound, Uniswap, etc. Ethereum protocols.
Aztec Connect Bridge Contracts: An interface that allows the Aztec Rollup contract to talk to L1 DeFi protocols.
Aztec Connect SDK: This allows users to submit and create transactions to Aztec.

Two weeks before launch, the team hard-forked zk.money. So you will be able to use your existing zk.money accounts and usernames in Aztec Connect. However, you should be careful that your funds are not moved with the hard-fork. If you have funds in zk.money, you must withdraw before using Aztec Connect and deposit it again when Aztec Connect is live.

A week before launch, Aztec Connect smart contracts will be deployed to the mainnet. Aztec Connect will be tested by the team and some community members in beta until the launch date. If all goes well, the beta version will be removed and Connect will be available to everyone. Fund deposits are limited to 5 ETH and 10k DAI for security reasons. Aztec cares about security as well as privacy, announced a $2M Bug Bounty program, and had smart contracts audited by a third-party auditing firm Solidified.

StarkNet Ecosystem

Argent X started to support Firefox.
The new version of Braavos, one of the new and popular wallets for StarkNet, has been released. Google Chrome and Firefox are listed on the official app market.
The giant robot NFT racing and engineering game Redline has been announced.
Inspired by the 7 deadly sins, Deadly Games chose the StarkNet network for their games.
Sign-In with Starkware was announced, where users can use their StarkNet accounts while logging into Web2 applications.
StarkGate has started to support DAI.
Seraphie, the MMORPG game, decided to come out on StarkNet instead of Avalanche.
Announced ArcSwap targeting OTC-like NFT trading.
PlayOasis was rebranded to become Aspect.
IceVision has released the tool that demonstrates the functioning of StarkNet L1 contracts.
Starkware has reached a valuation of $8B by a series D investment round of $100m.
StarkWare @StarkWareLtd
We are thrilled to announce our $100M Series D at an $8B valuation. We would like to thank Greenoaks and Coatue - our lead investors, Tiger Global, and many of our existing investors, for their vote of confidence in the technology, products, and ecosystem that we’re building.
1:30 PM ∙ May 25, 2022
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