Accelerate L2 Interoperability: Update #0

https://notes.ethereum.org/@rudolf/interop-acc

I have copy-pasted the text below for those that would prefer to read it on reddit. The text is not mine I'm simply reposting for visibility, credit to their authors: Arbitrum, Base, ENS, MetaMask, Optimism, Phantom, Polygon, Taiko, World, and ZKsync.

TL;DR:

We need to solve L2 interop to build the world computer 🌎 💻 Most of what is needed to solve interop is already here today. We should be using a timescale of months rather than years. It is one of the highest priority items (right up there with increasing DA), and could be considered a type of liveness failure until solved. L2s & wallets are now collaborating closely on the first item: enable fast, trustless cross-chain sends. Stay tuned for more updates from this group 🤝 

Why interop matters

Ethereum’s goal is to be the world computer – a place for anyone/anywhere to build and use new kinds of powerful, unstoppable applications.

To achieve the world computer vision, these applications need to be:

Accessible to all users at all times: scalable (cheap to transact), permissionless, and censorship-resistant / secure Easy & low-friction UX switching between apps and chains should feel as simple as using a single chain 

Ethereum has found a path to achieving #1 above (accessible at all times) through enabling low-cost L2s and moving some portion of user activity there. Though there is debate about how much / what types of activity should live on L2s, and how much / what type of improvements are needed for L1 execution (note: both can be done in parallel).

If the goal is to eventually serve billions of users, the World Computer (or any L1 blockchain) almost certainly will have a meaningful combination of activity on L1s and L2s (or L2-like things). It is critical that users are able to move easily and securely across all of the chains. If not, users will churn and migrate to a place that provides a more frictionless UX.

We should maintain focus on solving the most pressing problems for Ethereum’s users, or we risk letting short-term competitive dynamics get in the way of the longer-term (much larger) goal. Achieving the world computer vision means growing the pie 1000x.

How do we get there

The good news is that frictioness interoperability is already possible today. Most wallets support cross-chain swaps, there are several high-quality fast bridging solutions, and generally the Ethereum ecosystem is continuing towards a future where users don’t really have to think so much about what chain they’re on.

But there are a few key building blocks we still need to standardize in order to enable trustless, secure, and scalable communication across all chains in the Ethereum ecosystem (including non-evm chains).

An important part of this is making sure we solve things from a user-first perspective, and start with the most common user flows.

At the Ethereum Interop Forum in Bangkok, L2s came together on a shared goal:

users should be able to send assets from any chain to any other chain in 3 slots or less

The building blocks necessary to achieve this includes each of the following:

On-chain registration of chain IDs (ERC-7785) L2s should register on ENS, rather than on a list maintained on GitHub. Chain-specific addresses (ERC-7828, which draws from ERC-3770) The chain should be part of the address, so that cross-L2 sending can be done just by putting the correct address into the “send” field. Cross-chain messaging & shared bridges There are many flavors of this being discussed, each with varying tradeoffs. We will need to align first on the ideal base layer here, and then more functionality can be built on top. See: ERC-6170 ERC-7683 RIP-7755 ERC-7786 ERC-7802 ERC-7841 ERC-7854 

** What’s Next**

L2s, wallets, and related infra across Ethereum are coming together to solve the initial goal set at the Ethereum Interop Forum of fast, trustless cross-chain sends:

Finalize ERCs for (1) on-chain registration of chain IDs and (2) chain-specific addresses L2s and wallets begin implementation of these and ERC-7702 in parallel (programmable EOA wallets, coming in next hard fork) Unify the unification efforts, starting with cross-chain messaging Align on broader “interop roadmap” 

If you are already working on interop, we’d love to hear from you. And for anyone else who’s just generally interested in getting involved please jump into the ERC discussion threads, join the next RollCall, or ping me directly.

Stay tuned for more interop updates 🤝