Vitalik Buterin maintains optimism for L2 interoperability despite TVL decline

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is positive about Ethereum’s future with Layer 2 solutions achieving interoperability. The co-founder took to X to state that a seamless user experience across Ethereum Layer 1, rollups, validiums, and sidechains is pivotal to the network’s future.

Vitalik Buterin maintains his confidence that Ethereum will diminish its “cross-L2 interoperability problems.” In a post on X, the co-founder said that he is “seeing lots of energy” towards Ethereum’s cross-L2 interoperability roadmap.

Vitalik Buterin remains bullish about L2 interoperability 

Buterin further added that there has been progress, adding, “I think people will be surprised by how quickly ‘cross-L2 interoperability problems’ stop being problems and we get a smooth user experience across the entire Ethereum-verse.”

Cross-L2 interoperability problems will likely be solved by intent-centric interop protocols fulfilling user orders on the backend, with chain abstraction teams on the frontend.

From what I've heard, this breakthrough happens within 6-9 months. https://t.co/EuBbm1S23H

— Andy (@ayyyeandy) August 5, 2024

He summarized Ethereum proposals 3770, 7683, 3668, and cross-L2-replayable account state updates as phase 1 of the cross-L2 roadmap.

ERC-3770 introduces a new standard for blockchain addresses to reduce confusion and errors across multiple chains. ERC-7683 aims to simplify and improve cross-chain trading. This standard enables different systems to communicate effectively and share resources, like order networks and liquidity providers. Therefore, it can enhance the user experience. ERC-3668 is a proposal that allows Ethereum smart contracts to fetch data from external sources.

Buterin believes these steps alone are substantial progress. According to Buterin, advancements will continue in Phase 2. It includes L1sload/staticcall, which is an improvement for more efficient interactions with the main Ethereum network, keystore rollups for improved rollup advancements, and proof aggregation, which will allow combining multiple proofs into a single proof for efficiency.

L2 TVL takes a hit amid market decline

When asked about the role of zero-knowledge (zk) and optimistic rollups in this plan, Buterin noted that the initial stage is independent of specific rollup technologies. Buterin also pointed out that proof aggregation is specific to zk rollups.

Buterin said, “Eventually I think all rollups will go zk (and existing zk rollups will have to redo their tech stack), to finalize to ethereum once per slot. But that’s like 5+ years away.”

His statement essentially means that all rollups will adopt ZK technology to verify and finalize transactions on Ethereum. All of these standards aim for more efficiency. Meanwhile, Buterin praised Arbitrum and Optimism for being the first full Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) rollups to reach the initial stage of this development.

That said, the Total Value Locked (TVL) in various Ethereum L2 has been on a decline in the last seven days. Arbitrum One, an optimistic rollup, stands at a TVL of $14.34 billion at press time after losing at least 16% in the past 7 days.

Base, another optimistic rollup, has $6.20 billion locked after declining by 14.5% over the week. OP Mainnet, also an optimistic rollup, holds $5.47 billion and has declined by 15.6% in the last week based on L2 Beat data.

Vitalik Buterin’s vision for Ethereum’s future focuses on interoperability to further its scalability and efficiency. Advancements in L2 solutions will potentially improve Ethereum’s interaction with different chains, making transactions faster and cheaper across different layers and technologies.