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Ethereum Layer 2: The Road to Scalability and Future Prospects
As the demand for transactions on the Ethereum mainnet continues to surge, issues of network congestion and high gas fees have become major bottlenecks constraining ecological development. In response, the Ethereum community and developers are actively promoting Layer 2 solutions, including Optimistic Rollups (such as Optimism, Arbitrum) and ZK-Rollups (such as zkSync, Starknet).
Optimistic Rollups increase transaction throughput through optimistic validation mechanisms, but face certain challenges, such as longer withdrawal delay times. ZK-Rollups, on the other hand, utilize zero-knowledge proof technology for fast transaction verification, offering higher security and immediacy, and are seen as a more promising long-term solution.
Layer 2 technology significantly reduces transaction costs while maintaining the security of the Ethereum main chain, making it an indispensable step toward large-scale commercial use, supporting DeFi, NFTs, and Web3 applications.
However, the Layer 2 ecosystem is still rapidly evolving, with standardization issues and differences in user experience among different solutions; who can become the dominant force in the future remains to be seen.
Overall, Layer 2 is not only key to Ethereum's scalability but will also play a crucial role in the next wave of cryptocurrency adoption.
Actively paying attention to and participating in the Layer 2 ecosystem may be a ticket to entering the future world of cryptocurrency.