According to Adrian Brink, co-founder of Anoma and Namada, rollups offer little new functionality outside of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). He argues that they are essentially execution sharding solutions presented as true scaling solutions. Brink instead touts Plasma as the “only true scaling solution out there” because it enables constant posting of data to the main chain “regardless of user throughput.”
Rollups vs plasma
While rollups have become increasingly popular since Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin introduced the idea a few years ago, Brink believes proponents seem to misunderstand the importance of data storage. In written responses to Bitcoin.com News, he claims that rollups are “copies of the EVM,” which in his opinion “does nothing to drive new use cases or innovation.”
The co-founder of Anoma and Namada argues that rollups should provide fundamentally new approaches, rather than incremental innovation. While acknowledging that progress has been made in cryptography within the zero-knowledge (zk) aggregation space, Brink nevertheless criticizes the resulting fragmentation of state and liquidity, which he says “limits the experience and adoption of users and developers.”
When asked about the future of rollups in the blockchain ecosystem, Brink said that their success will only be possible if new development environments are built that enable innovative applications. He also predicts that Plasma will “gain greater recognition as the most viable solution.”
Below you will find Brink’s answers to all submitted questions.
Bitcoin.com News (BCN): The idea of rollups as a powerful scaling solution was reportedly first introduced in 2021 by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Since then, the concept has gained significant popularity and is now a leading topic in the industry. From your perspective, how would you characterize the rise of rollups and their impact on scaling decentralized protocols?
Adriaan Brink (AB): The main problem with rollups, aside from the fact that they offer little new functionality outside of the EVM, is that they are really more of an execution sharding solution than a true scaling solution. What really matters is where the data is stored. The fundamental problem is scaling data and state, not computing power. A better alternative, and the only real scaling solution out there, is Plasma.
Plasma enables a world where data can be kept off-chain, rather than having to post all the data to the main chain like rollups do. The amount of data a merge must post to the main chain is proportional to the amount of usage it gets, which isn’t a true scaling solution. Plasma allows us to post a constant amount of data to the main chain regardless of user throughput.
BCN: Industry skeptics have criticized Ethereum rollups despite their perceived performance. Some critics believe that all rollups are the same and have limited application. Others think the hype behind rollups is unsustainable. Do you think the skepticism surrounding rollups is justified?
AB: Unfortunately, yes, it is justified. Rollups are essentially copies of the EVM and add little or no new functionality or capabilities for developers that would drive new use cases or innovation. Rollups innovate at the margins instead of offering a fundamentally new approach. Usage is largely dominated by point farming programs that do little to advance the space. ZK rollups provide secure execution sharding, and we’ve seen major improvements in cryptography come from the rollup space.
However, it is unclear to me that we need 200 different instances of the EVM, each with their own decentralized exchange (DEX). The landscape is fundamentally broken, with state fragmentation and liquidity limiting user and developer experience and adoption. With Anoma, we want to defrag that landscape, defrag liquidity, and provide a unified developer and user experience.
BCN: How would you respond to those who believe that rollup adoption rates are inadequate and that all rollup solutions are essentially identical?
AB: I largely agree. We need new approaches, including a re-evaluation of scalability solutions and new architectures, for example intent-based, to unlock new functionality and use cases and end the fragmentation that currently exists.
BCN: Your L1 solution Namada allows users to transfer their ETH, DAI, or any other fungible asset of Ethereum and send it around privately in seconds, at virtually zero fees. Can you briefly explain how you achieved this without needing the services of scalability protocols such as Ethereum rollups?
AB: To clarify, the Namada mainnet will not launch with an Ethereum bridge. This is something that will need to be added in the future by the community through Namada’s on-chain governance system, should they choose to do so. Namada launches with IBC support, making it compatible with the Cosmos ecosystem and beyond, with any IBC-compliant chain.
From a scalability perspective, Namada is built on the modern BTF consensus, namely CometBFT, which can execute 10,000 to 20,000 transactions per second on a single chain with a finality of approximately 5 seconds.
BCN: Your project has raised successful funding rounds, indicating strong investor confidence in your vision. How has venture capital backing contributed to the progress of your project, and do you have plans for future funding rounds?
AB: The Anoma ecosystem is strong and growing. We’ve seen a tremendous amount of support and interest in what we’re building, and continue to welcome people into the community – the more the merrier. There is a growing recognition of the importance of intentions for the future of this space, and that Anoma’s approach to enabling general intentions through a universal intention-oriented architecture is the only serious approach to making it practical at scale.
BCN: One cannot underestimate the role of regulatory policy in the overall adoption of blockchain and cryptocurrency. The lack of a defined regulatory framework continues to plague the sector. If you were given the opportunity to advise agencies looking to oversee or regulate blockchain and cryptocurrency entities, what would be your most essential recommendation?
AB: In general, I would say: look at the Swiss approach, talk to industry leaders and think about the difference between technologies that are truly decentralized and those that are not.
BCN: What is your prediction for the role of rollups in the blockchain ecosystem over the next five years? Do you expect their prominence to continue, or will developments in blockchain technology diminish their importance?
AB: I think this will largely depend on whether we can be successful in building new development environments that make new things possible. If we keep repeating the same ideas and building on the same virtual machines, things won’t change much. With new approaches like intent machines, we can actually unlock a new paradigm of innovation for developers and a better experience for users, bringing the space more in line with Web2 usability. From a scalability perspective, I think Plasma will also see more recognition as the most viable solution.