How the layer 2 race is scaling Ethereum before ETH 2.0 (ft. Alan Chiu)

In the blockchain world, all eyes are on Ethereum and the roll-out of ETH 2.0 — which is expected to solve Ethereum’s scalability issues. But others, like Alan Chiu are trying to do the same sooner in a layer 2 race. Chiu, the founder and CEO of Enya.ai, says scalability in Ethereum is already making headway while the world waits for the next level Ethereum — a project already infamous for its many delays. “Ethereum has a rather limited capacity for computation and this has been a known problem for several years,” Chiu told Forkast.News in a video interview. “What happened more recently is, Vitalik and many other Ethereum researchers have come up with an alternative solution rather than trying to do everything in ETH 2.0, scaling both computation and data.” An approach to scaling is called rollups, which moves transactions off the main Ethereum chain before recording on the main chain. The off-chain transactions can also be executed in layer 2 chains before moving back to layer 1 to store proofs. The aim is to move transactions off-chain for faster throughput of transactions, and potentially reduce transaction fees. Chiu expressed excitement for the up-and-coming layer 2 developments as examples such as Polygon have been gaining traction while even showing immunity to the recent crypto crash. Enya.ai and OMG Network have also launched the public testnet of OMGX — a layer 2 Ethereum scaling solution which allows off-chain computations. “By implementing computations on layer 2, moving them off the main chain, we are freeing up the precious blocks on the main chain so that in aggregate we can — as an ecosystem — handle a lot more transactions,” Chiu said. According to Chiu, the layer 2 solutions like rollups will provide lower transaction fees and increase capacity for more transactions without having to wait for ETH 2.0. While the industry eagerly waits for the final form of ETH 2.0 for better scaling and less network congestion leading to slow and expensive user experience, various layer 2 projects are looking to solve Ethereum’s network clogs. The Ethereum development team has also scheduled network upgrade EIP-1559 in July, as part of the London hard fork, which looks to further improve the issues related to high transaction fees by introducing and burning a base transaction fee to discourage miners from manipulating gas. “So, over the next several months, there'll be several layer 2 solutions that will be moving into mainnet and it will be an exciting time,” Chiu said. “We'll see how that changes to gas fees that people have to pay to use these DeFi projects.” Watch Alan Chiu’s full interview with Forkast.News to learn more about Ethereum scalability, the scalability trilemma, ESG in blockchain, privacy, and more.