Journalist
Posted:
- Plasma aimed to increase efficiency by removing most of the data from the main chain.
- Vitalik Buterin claimed that validity certificates could help lift Plasma’s restrictions.
Like ether [ETH] congestion reached record levels, the need for effective scaling solutions was greater than ever in the blockchain industry.
Vitalik bats for plasma chains
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin spoke about the largely ignored benefits of Layer-2 scaling solution Plasma in a recently published blog postand urged Web3 developers to explore the technology again.
Proposed by Buterin himself in 2017, Plasma aimed to increase efficiency by extracting most of the data from the main chain. The data is then redistributed across a series of smaller chains called side chains.
This made it the best choice for high-throughput payment transactions.
These were the shortcomings
However, the solution lagged behind the competition due to limitations in enabling smart contract implementation, something that rollups love Optimism [OP] And Arbitration [ARB] allow.
Additionally, Plasma sacrifices some aspects of security in favor of greater scalability. Vitalik Buterin also emphasized that each Plasma sidechain was independent and responsible for its own security. This made them vulnerable to hacks if there wasn’t enough mining power to secure them.
On the other hand, rollups, as we know, post all information about executed transactions into the main chain. Therefore, rollups are known to provide much higher security than plasma chains.
What is the future?
However, proofs of validity can help overcome Plasma’s limitations, Ethereum’s inventor said.
He added,
“Plasma can be an important security upgrade for chains that would otherwise be validiums. The fact that ZK-EVMs are finally coming to fruition this year makes it an excellent opportunity to re-explore this design space.”
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Repeat that Polygon [MATIC] introduced a proposal rather to upgrade the PoS network to a zkEVM validium
While Buterin admitted that rollups were the “gold standard” in scaling solutions, he called for a rethink of plasma technology due to its advantages in throughput and cost-effectiveness.