The Present State of L2s, Edition #5
Polygon POS to L2, Arbitrum Orbit Chain, Some Twitter Alpha, Airdrops and many more
Good Morning Saints,
I hope you’re having a wonderful weekend.
If you’re reading this, you’re always one of the chosen Saints and special.
Here’s what we’re covering today:
Polygon POS to L2
Arbitrum Orbit Chain
Optimism RetroPGF Round 3
Fuel Grant Program
Mantle Network Update and Grant Program
EigenLayer on Mainnet
L2BEAT unveil stages for L2 protocols
The Present State of L2s
~Polygon POS to L2~
There’s this argument that has always been around since the inception of Polygon POS whether it was a Sidechain or an L2. Polygon POS finally ended this argument a few days ago.
Polygon POS had been a sidechain all along and not an L2; due to the nature of its behavior, people always mistake a Sidechain for an L2
Before we delve into Polygon transformation to an L2, specifically zkEVM Validium, it’s keen to see the core difference between a Sidechain and an L2. Sidechain does not post state transactions back to Mainnet, but an L2 does.
Also, Sidechain can have its own consensus mechanism (POW or POS) and does not rely on Mainnet security.
This has been the case for Polygon POS as a Sidechain, but it’s not anymore now.
Polygon POS will now inherit from Ethereum Security as an L2 zkEVM while still maintaining cheaper fees and high scalability.
Psst: This is still a Prospoal yet to be approved, but if this happens, I expect to see Polygon POS (being a zkEVM) leading the zkEVM race in terms of TVL and Performance
Do you know why?
Over $2B assets on the chain, Dapps, Users, and txn will also benefit from this as it’s just simply an Upgrade to the underlying tech.
Another harsh truth, The second spot might be a story for another day.
You can read more on this upgrade below
~Arbitrum Orbit Chain~
What OP stack is to Optimism, that’s what Arbitrum Orbit is to the Arbitrum.
Very easy, right?
They all allow builders/developers to build their chains on top of them, AKA L3s.
It keeps getting simpler. Instead of having many L2s in the future that will keep inheriting Ethereum’s security, Data availability, and settlement, why don’t they build on top of Rollups and inherit that from them Instead??
Thus, leading to greater scalability while reducing the load on the L1 base chain.
Recently Offchain Labs announced the release of its tooling that will make building on Arbitrum Orbit easier.
For all builders/developers, The time is now.
~Optimisim RetroPGF Round 3 ~
Optimism has been investing back heavily into its ecosystem with its collective supporting projects, builders, and entities contributing to the growth of its ecosystem.
The previous round 2, 10M OP, was awarded to builders and educators whose aim aligns to growing of the Optimism ecosystem
The previous round 2 was focused on projects under this category:
Infrastructure and dependencies
Tooling and utilities
Education
Similar to this, 3 days ago, Optimism announced allocating 30M OP for its RetroPGF round 3 for entities under this category:
OP stack
Collective Governance
Developer Ecosystem
End-user Experience and Adoption
Also, registrations will be open in the coming months, and after that comes voting.
If you’re a builder or in any way supporting the growth of the Optimism Ecosystem, then this is for you.
You can read more on that below
~Fuel Grant Program~
The season of funding and grants is upon us; Fuel Ecosystem recently announced its new grant program for projects willing to build on its ecosystem.
Fuel is allocating up to $50k to 10 projects for its grant program and also looking for projects that fall within these categories:
Infrastructure and Tooling
DeFI (Perps, prediction/auctions markets, derivatives, yield aggregators, etc)
web3 social
Gaming and Gamefi
Storage proofs
Also, Fuel is looking forward to these integrations into the ecosystem
Bridges, wallets, and indexers
Portfolio tracker, token aggregators
Native LSTs and Stablecoins
Cross-chain
Analytics Dashboards
The grant application went live yesterday and will be open till the 5th of July.
You can apply and read more on that below
~Mantle Network Update and Grant Program~
We all thought Mantle wouldn’t have a token and would only be governed by $BIT until a single proposal changed it.
The MIP-22, This proposal was based on designing a token for the Mantle ecosystem, following BIP-21, which will allow BitDAO to merge with the Mantle Ecosystem gradually.
$MNT is now Mantle’s Ecosystem token which is already confirmed. Mantle is still in its testnet phase and recently completed its v.0.4.0 upgrade.
This upgrade focused on the creation of the $MNT token on the Goerli Network and the remaining $BIT to $MNT on the Mantle Network
Mantle will be coming to Mainnet soon. Do you still remember that the Mantle testnet is Incentivized?
You know what’s next……
In addition to that, Mantle equally joins the grants party as well. The future is L2s
Mantle recently announced its grant program to support initiatives and builders who are willing to contribute to the growth of its ecosystem.
The grant is grouped into:
Program 1 focuses on Live projects with a community (Testnet + Mainnet)
Program 2 Early projects at the ideation stage (Testnet + Mainnet)
Program 3 User activity mining incentives - Mantle Mainnet
You can read more about the grant and apply below
~EigenLayer on Mainnet~
Finally, EigenLayer is now live on Mainnet; The Mainnet Launch will be in three stages.
The current stage, which is stage 1, focuses on enabling Ethereum Stakers by securely managing their liquid staking tokens and self-directing their funds (Simply enabling restaking).
Stage 2 will focus on introducing node operators who will be responsible for performing validation tasks for AVSs (Actively Validated Services).
Stage 3 will focus on seamlessly facilitating the launch of multiple AVSs
In case you still don’t know what EigenLayer is, Here’s a brief summary of that.
EigenLayer is simply the Marketplace for Decentralized Trust. There are people producing & there are people consuming. (Selling/buying) EigenLayer Is the Middle Man making this happen. How??
Imagine Stakers/Node Validators can only secure the Ethereum Chain by Validating Blocks. But with Eigen Layer as the Middle Man, you're opting in for more services other than just securing the Network and not just for Ethereum alone. Example of these services includes
Ethereum makes Bitcoin more programmable and Decentralized. That's what Eigen Layer is doing to Ethereum.
You can read more about EigenLayer Launch here and how to restaking below
~L2BEATS unveil stages for L2s Protocol~
L2BEATS has Included the stage feature, which reveals the maturity ranking for Layer 2 projects.
This is grouped into 3 Rollups stage:
Stage 0 (This stage is run by operators)
Stage 1 (This stage is run by smart contracts)
Stage 2 (This stage is still run by smart contract but in the final phase)
You can read more on this below
The DeFI Saint Recap
~Gains Network~
Gains Network biggest month is coming after they received 1.9M Airdrop from Arbitrum and also after its recent version upgrade.
ICYMI, Here's a recap on everything you need to know about Gains current state and what's coming ahead.
Bullish on Gains
~Preon Finance~
Sphere Ecosystem is building the Future of DeFI; we've only seen this growth and expansion around FRAX Ecosystem.
Sphere Finance is building the S&P 500 of Crypto.
Sphere launches one of Its most significant projects Preon Finance and here's all you need to know about this promising project and the ecosystem.
ICYMI, Here's a recap.
Twitter Alpha and Airdrops
~$PIKA Airdrop~
$PIKA airdrop is confirmed for Active Pika traders, LPs, and Contributors.
The airdrop is now claimable. Check if you’re eligible Frens
~Factor DAO Testnet~
Factor DAO Incentivized V2 testnet is live now; all yee airdrop hunters, how do I unsee this?
~10 Brain damaging habits ~
Thanks for reading, and if you like it, do leave feedback and forward it to your Friends. There is love in Sharing, and see you next time.
DeFI Saint
Founder, The Saints Creed.