Understanding Vitalik’s blockchain expansion theory in one article

Last night, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published an article titled "Endgame", describing the three possible development paths of the large block competing chain and the Ethereum roadmap centered on Rollup. Although the article is not long, it reveals a lot of information.

The author tries to sort out some of his personal understandings for your reference.

Vitalik first mentioned the "big block" competing chains (without mentioning specific names). He suggested that these "big block" competing chains also adopt Ethereum's Rollup second-layer expansion solution, whether it is the Optimistic Rollup solution that introduces fraud proofs or the ZK Rollup solution that uses zero-knowledge proofs. He also mentioned the data availability sampling solution, which allows users to check block availability. Vitalik concluded that after adopting such a roadmap, although these big block competing chains are still centralized in terms of block production, block verification is trustless and highly decentralized.

Then, Vitalik returned to the topic of Ethereum's expansion, and he proposed two possible development paths for the Rollup layer 2 network:

1. A specific Rollup layer 2 network, whether it is Arbitrum, Optimism, Zksync or something completely new, really dominates the Rollup layer 2 network track (everyone migrates to this Rollup layer 2 network) for various factors (whether it is user experience, security or other factors). The result is that block production is centralized and block verification is trustless and highly decentralized.

This roadmap is actually very similar to the Rollup expansion solutions adopted by competing chains.

2. No one Rollup layer 2 network can unify this track, but it presents a state of flourishing. The tps of each Rollup layer 2 network reaches hundreds of transactions per second, so we have a future of Ethereum with multiple Rollups. Then, V God mentioned that this is the expansion idea of ​​Cosmos. Seeing this, the author remembered that Georgios Konstantopoulos, a research partner of Paradigm, mentioned in a podcast that Ethereum Rollup layer 2 network can adopt the Cosmos IBC solution. According to this idea, users can avoid the cumbersome bridge when transferring between Rollup layer 2 networks (without paying high fees on the main chain). The result is: decentralized verification, strong censorship resistance, and even distributed block production (because Rollup is very small), but he also mentioned that because of the possibility of cross-domain MEV (new research direction), the decentralization of block production will gradually weaken and eventually become centralized.

We can then see that all three roadmaps ultimately lead to the same outcome: block production is centralized, block verification is trustless and highly decentralized, and still censorship-resistant.

Then Vitalik explained what this means for block producers and Ethereum. For the majority of Ethereum users, Vitalik’s advice is not to comment too early on which Rollup path (1 or 2) will win, but to explore it in an open manner. The translation is: "Only children have to make multiple-choice questions, while adults of course want them all."

Finally, Vitalik also mentioned:

“It will likely take years for all of this to work. Sharding and data availability sampling are complex technologies to implement. It will take years of refinement and auditing before people can feel completely comfortable storing their assets in a ZK-rollup running the full EVM. Cross-domain MEV research is still in its infancy. But it’s looking increasingly clear that a realistic and bright future for scalable blockchains is possible.”

Judging from this sentence, it seems that Rollup is more likely to take path 2. What do you think?