Ethereum has taken a significant stride towards scaling layer-2 rollups, but there is a need for unified infrastructure from neutral third-party players to enhance the user experience. This is the view of Anurag Arjun, co-founder of Avail, who discussed the current state of the rollup ecosystem during an interview at the ETHGlobal conference in London. Arjun, who co-founded Ethereum layer-2 Polygon, is now focused on building agnostic rollup infrastructure to unify the Ethereum layer-2 ecosystem.
Arjun explained that Avail aims to become a rollup agnostic platform that serves major rollup protocols such as Starkware, zkSync, Arbitrum, and Optimism. The technology implemented by Avail, called data sampling, is similar to Ethereum’s sharding roadmap. However, Arjun believes that rollups cannot wait for the complete implementation of data sampling capabilities, as it may take several years. He emphasized the importance of solving the scalability of rollups through scalable data availability while ensuring a good user experience.
Currently, the Ethereum user experience involves switching between different rollups for various transactions, leading to a fragmented experience. Arjun envisions a unified rollup ecosystem and believes that a credible, neutral third-party is needed to coordinate this process between different rollups. He compared this to the Solana blockchain, which operates as one big chain with multiple apps, providing a seamless experience for users.
Avail Nexus aims to facilitate the integration standard between rollups, similar to Polygon’s Aggregation layer. Avail’s technology can create a coordinated rollup by taking aggregated proofs from various rollup protocols. Arjun described this as an ecosystem-wide effort that aims to bring cohesion to the rollup ecosystem.
Arjun highlighted the need for infrastructure that unites rollups, posing the question of who will build it. He suggested that it could be the Ethereum Foundation or a third party not involved in the rollup business. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin also emphasized the importance of a mindset shift towards building L2 decentralized applications and solutions in line with Ethereum’s focus on rollup-enabled functionality.
Overall, the article discusses the progress made by Ethereum in scaling layer-2 rollups and the need for unified infrastructure to enhance the user experience. It highlights the efforts of Avail in building agnostic rollup infrastructure and emphasizes the importance of coordination between different rollups to create a unified ecosystem.