The development of an omni-chain infrastructure could have a significant impact on the Ethereum ecosystem, potentially changing the dynamics of competition between rollups and reshaping the future of decentralized finance, according to Iris Cheung, co-founder of Orbiter Finance.
In an interview with DeclutterCheung highlighted the challenges Ethereum’s current rollup-oriented scaling approach faces in creating a unified user experience, saying the variety of rollup types and protocols increases complexity for users. This makes it more difficult to understand than using a single-layer-1 system.
“Think of rollups as lanes,” she said. “If the Arbitrum lane is congested, you can’t just change lanes; adding more rollups does not significantly improve Ethereum’s scaling.”
“To achieve a more scalable future, we need to build an infrastructure that can process cross-rollup transactions in parallel and ensure cross-chain transaction atomicity with minimal or no interaction with layer 1,” she explained.
To address these issues, Orbiter Finance is developing an omni-chain infrastructure to provide effective rollup coordination. This infrastructure includes components such as an omni-chain wallet addressing system, a cross-rollup relayer, and a liquidity aggregation layer.
Earlier this week, Orbiter Finance announced that it generated over 20,000 ETH (or approximately $55 million) in annual revenue from its cross-chain bridging protocol, and that the Orbiter Bridge facilitated over 24 million transactions with a total volume of over $16 billion.
According to facts from DeFi Llama, Orbiter Finance’s 24-hour volume is $13.34 million. Cheung said the omni-chain approach could change the dynamics of the current race for total value locked (TVL) under rollups.
“TVL competition will decrease as Ethereum Layer-2 solutions focus on competing based on the liquidity and services they can provide within a more interconnected environment,” she stated.
According to Cheung, this shift could lead to a more collaborative ecosystem in which rollups that successfully integrate with omni-chain solutions gain a competitive advantage by offering users better access to liquidity and lower transaction costs.
As a result, users will prefer those that offer the best cross-chain experiences.
“After the completion of the omni-chain infrastructure, users will likely not feel like they are conducting cross-chain transactions,” Cheung explains. “This is because the smart contract they interact with is inherently omni-chain.”
The company is now working on decentralizing its Maker system to provide access to third-party liquidity providers, in line with its ethos of decentralization.
This move comes after an investment from OKX Ventures earlier this year, aimed at ensuring the decentralized growth of layer 2 solutions while building essential infrastructure for the ecosystem.