Lately, there has been a lot of discussion around Layer 3 solutions, and top companies in the industry are also joining the discussion. Last Sunday, Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron said that Layer 3 solutions are not essential for scalability and cannot add much value to the Ethereum ecosystem. Now, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin also shares a similar view in this regard.
Ethereum Layer 3 does not significantly increase throughput
Vitalik Buterin said that while Layer 3 solutions do not inherently increase throughput significantly, they can help alleviate certain fixed costs associated with batch publishing and deposits and withdrawals.
Buterin shared a previous blog post dating back to September 2022, explaining the three different versions of Layer 3 and their importance within the Ethereum ecosystem. He pointed out:
- Layer 2 (L2) solutions are primarily intended for general scaling and are focused on enhancing the overall scalability of an application. Layer 3 (L3) solutions, on the other hand, provide customized features such as privacy features. The approach here is not to achieve “scalability squared,” but rather to include one layer of the stack dedicated to scaling the application, with another layer addressing the specific functional needs of different use cases.
- L2 facilitates general-purpose scaling while L3 provides customized scaling solutions. Customized scaling is useful for specialized applications that utilize computational methods other than Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) or by separating data from proofs and possibly replacing proofs with one SNARK per block. This can come in many forms, including rollups to optimize data compression.
- Additionally, L2 solutions primarily focus on trustless scaling via rollups, whereas L3 solutions support weak trust scaling as represented by Validium. Validiums employs his SNARK for computational validation, but delegates data availability to a trusted third party or committee. Despite its lower security grade compared to Rollup, Validium offers a cost-effective scalability solution, making it particularly suitable for certain applications such as enterprise blockchain.
Buterin added that there are “other potentially 'lighter' ways to achieve the same cost savings you get from L3.”
