Ethereum’s Cambrian Explosion

I’m inherently biased by my involvement with the Geo Web, but the thing that I’m most excited about with the launch of EVM-compatible ETH L2 rollups is the diversity of experiments enabled rather than the scale. I want to see a Cambrian explosion of new ideas, dapps, and web3 tooling that set the stage for Ethereum’s mass adoption future.

These experiments will eventually have to scale, but I’m less interested in the growth of metrics like total value locked (TVL), transaction volume, and NFT floor prices on the various L2s than builders having the opportunity to explore use cases that have been priced out on L1.

Sure, side and alt chains have offered “low cost” alternatives to ETH L1 for a while, but the thing that has always made Ethereum special in my eyes is its community of principled, selfless, and committed builders. Low cost transactions and VC-sponsored incentives/liquidity mining don’t convince that type of builder to ditch the Ethereum mothership. 

The market fit that DeFi and NFT art/PFPs have found on mainnet are great. There will clearly be induced demand and experimentation in those arenas on L2. But, those use cases don’t speak to everyone (yet or maybe ever). 

We’d be doing a disservice to the opportunity if L2 blocks look like today’s L1—just more. So here’s to utility-based NFTs, experimentation with different property rights, new forms of storytelling, novel coordination efforts, and crazy ideas that don’t emphasize speculation having the blockspace to breathe and flourish on L2.

Technical

• With our L2 mainnet home potentially ready just around the corner, Cody has been leading the charge to make sure that the Geo Web’s core architecture is as extensible as possible into the future. We’re challenging all of our assumptions and taking the stance that “every decision we make will be wrong...eventually.” The net result is that we’re making our core contracts much more modular. Check out the “Draft Proposal” specs in the Garden to see what’s coming.
• From now until the end of the year, we’ll be allocating $2,000/week for SourceCred distributions. It’s the perfect time to start contributing and earning! Hit Cody or Graven up in Discord to get activated on SourceCred.

Community

• The first zkSync 2.0 testnet dapp (Uniswap fork) is out! Give it a try here. Because transactions on any testnet are typically quick and free/cheap, that part of the UX doesn’t feel that much different (it will on mainnet!). The new transaction signing experience is worth checking out and gas fees aren’t required to be paid in ETH. Exciting stuff!
• Clr.fund Round 8 is live and bigger + better than ever. The Clr.fund team ran their trusted setup round for MACI a couple weeks ago and are really pushing the envelope forward on permissionless quadratic funding. Massive props to the team and community! If you’re going to contribute, we’d of course appreciate your support of the Geo Web’s grant.

On Deck

• Implementing core contract updates
• Exploring streaming payments for both treasury inflow and outflow!