Layer 2
MarketsDefinition
Scaling solutions built on top of an L1 to inherit its security while increasing throughput and lowering costs. Most prominent on Ethereum: Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, zkSync, Starknet.
Two technical families: optimistic rollups (assume valid by default; allow challenges) and zero-knowledge (ZK) rollups (cryptographically prove validity). EIP-4844 (Mar 2024) cut L2 costs by 10-100x by introducing dedicated "blob" storage.
Two technical families: optimistic rollups (assume valid by default; allow challenges) and zero-knowledge (ZK) rollups (cryptographically prove validity). EIP-4844 (Mar 2024) cut L2 costs by 10-100x by introducing dedicated "blob" storage.