Key Takeaways
Ethereum Foundation plans to make L2 cross-chain transactions smooth and seamless. Additionally, latency will be improved from 19 minutes to 15 seconds.
Ethereum Foundation (EF) is in the news today after it unveiled a new roadmap for enhancing the system’s user experience (UX) through broader and seamless cross-chain operations.
Layer-2s (L2s) like Arbitrum [ARB], Base, and Polygon [POL] have always been the scaling method of choice for the Ethereum mainnet.
However, they have also led to liquidity fragmentation, added the EF. Hence, there is a need for more unified and integrated cross-chain operation.
“These extensions provide critical entry points and scaling opportunities for Ethereum, yet also bring their own challenges, chief among them the pressures of fragmentation on the Ethereum experience and its economy.”
EF’s plans for interoperability
The EF plans to finish L2 interoperability by 2026 via a three-tiered approach – ‘Initialisation’, ‘Acceleration’, and ‘Finalisation.’
In the first phase (Initialisation), ecosystem engineers will roll out an ‘Open Intents Framework’ that allows users to state their desired outcomes. In other words, a user says what they want, and the system figures out the best way to make it happen, across L2 chains.
For example, if you want to move funds, the system could suggest the best, cheapest, and fastest route across chains.
Additionally, the project teams will advance chain abstraction to form an Ethereum Interoperability Layer (EIL) to ensure transactions across L2 feel operating across a single chain.
“The Ethereum Interoperability Layer (EIL) focuses on making Ethereum feel like one chain again, without compromising on CROPS values (censorship-resistance, open-source, privacy and security).”
In the second phase (Acceleration), the team seeks fast block confirmation in 15-30 seconds instead of the of final finality time that takes 13-19 minutes. That would be a 98% reduction in waiting time.
L-2 settlement, which can take up to seven days, will be slashed too. According to the statement, it could be achieved by Q1 2026.
Finally, the ‘Finalisation’ stream will push for more research and development to enhance cross-chain settlement and L1 finality.
In fact, the EF highlighted that developers are now exploring even changes to the Beacon chain, the current three-slot finality, and alternative consensus protocols to bring down finality to seconds.
Barnabe Monnot, Co-lead of Protocol at EF, added that they will also explore new wallet designs. This will include privacy-focused Kohaku to further the UX improvement initiative.
Source: X
This was one of the targets of the EF’s new focus to “scale 1, scale blobs and improve UX,” announced back in June. It has also reorganized its treasury operations to leverage Ethereum’s DeFi offerings.
Here, it’s worth noting that Ethereum’s on-chain volume hit a yearly high of $324 billion in August amid growing interest. In fact, this is the third consecutive month of growth that could spill over to ETH’s value.
Source: The Block
