Vitalik Buterin unveils plan to solve cross-chain L2 interoperability

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has just shared his vision for cross-chain interoperability between Ethereum layer-2 networks, which could vastly smoothen the experience within the Ethereum ecosystem.

In an Aug. 6 X post, Buterin responded to a question on the most promising paths to addressing cross-layer-2 interoperability.

The question followed Buterin’s Aug. 5 post stating, “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.”

He added that he is seeing “lots of energy and will to make this happen,” before highlighting a number of Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) on the roadmap to cross-L2 compatibility.

One stage on the roadmap is EIP-3370, which introduces a new address standard to be adapted by wallets and decentralized applications to display chain-specific addresses by using a human-readable prefix.

Another step on the upgrade path is EIP-7683, which aims to create a standard way for different Ethereum layer-2 networks to communicate and execute trades across chains.

Currently, it is complex and often inefficient for users to trade assets between different networks, so creating a new standard set of rules that all chains can follow would alleviate this issue.

Also on the roadmap is EIP-3668, a proposal that outlines a standardized method for Ethereum smart contracts to access off-chain data.

Buterin calls these “layer-2 light clients” as they aims to standardize how Ethereum contracts can use offchain data. This makes it easier and more efficient for developers to build applications that require large amounts of data without incurring high onchain storage costs.

He also mentioned “cross-L2-replayable account state updates,” which he explained in a blog post in 2023. This refers to how layer-2s receive recent L1 state updates while maintaining security and low latency.

Buterin mentioned a few phase 2 updates to further improve cross-chain L2 compatibility, including keystore rollups and proof aggregation.

With regard to compatibility with existing zero-knowledge and optimistic rollups, he said that these “stage 1” updates are “completely independent of the details of rollup tech” before concluding:

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

Earlier in 2024, investment manager VanEck predicted that Ethereum L2 scaling networks would hit a $1 trillion market capitalization in six years.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/vitalik-buterin-unveils-plan-solve-cross-chain-l2-interoperability