Vitalik Buterin Presents Initiatives to Improve Interoperability Between Ethereum Layer 2 Networks
Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, recently presented his vision for interoperability between Ethereum Layer 2 networks, aiming to significantly improve the user experience within the Ethereum ecosystem. This initiative could solve one of the major challenges faced by blockchain users and developers.
Responses and Proposals by Vitalik
In a post on X on August 6th, Vitalik responded to a question about the most promising paths to solve cross-layer 2 interoperability issues. This question followed a statement by Buterin on August 5th, where he claimed that interoperability issues between different Ethereum Layer 2s will soon cease to be major obstacles, promising a smoother user experience across the entire Ethereum ecosystem.
Key Steps of the Roadmap
EIP-3370: New Address Standard
One of the proposals on this roadmap is EIP-3370, which introduces a new address standard to be adopted by wallets and decentralized applications. This standard will allow displaying chain-specific addresses using a human-readable prefix, simplifying the user experience.
EIP-7683: Communication between Layer 2 Networks
Another important step is EIP-7683, which aims to create a standardized method for different Ethereum Layer 2 networks to communicate and execute cross-chain transactions. Currently, it is complex and often inefficient for users to exchange assets between different networks. Establishing standardized rules that all chains can follow will mitigate this problem.
EIP-3668: Access to Off-Chain Data
EIP-3668 proposes a standardized method for Ethereum smart contracts to access off-chain data. Vitalik refers to these solutions as “layer-2 light clients,“ as they aim to standardize how Ethereum contracts can utilize off-chain data, making the development of applications requiring large amounts of data easier and more efficient without incurring high on-chain storage costs.
Future Updates and Compatibility
According to Vitalik, he believes that eventually, all rollups will adopt zk technology (and existing zk rollups will need to rebuild their technical stack) to finalize on Ethereum once per slot. However, this is planned to happen in about 5 years.
Vitalik also mentioned the “cross-L2-replayable account state updates,” which he explained in a blog post in 2023. This refers to how L2s receive recent updates of the layer 1 state while maintaining security and low latency.
He also mentioned some phase 2 updates to further improve cross-chain compatibility of L2s, including keystore rollups and proof aggregation. Regarding compatibility with existing rollups, whether they are based on zero-knowledge (zk) or optimistic, Vitalik indicated that these “phase 1” updates are independent of the rollups’ technical details.
