Show Me the L2! | Layer 2 Review

Quick Reads and Hot Links Covering the People and Projects Who Are Scaling Ethereum

Nov 24, 2023

Dear Frens,

"Show me the money!” may be the most memorable line from Jerry Maguire, and “show me the L2!” may be the investor’s refrain during this coming cycle. This year has seen the L2 narrative explode, and with the bull market right around the corner, blockchains of all kinds are working to reposition themselves as Ethereum scaling solutions. Celo made the announcement earlier this year, as did a number of other L1s, including Canto, which is positioning itself as the go-to L2 for real-world assets.

While Arbitrum and Optimism have held the top spots by TVL for the last two years, Base, which launched in early August, quickly overtook zkSync and others to grab the third spot. The L2 wars are on, and like with all war, the fog creates confusion.

For example, what counts as an L2? Blast, a new blockchain backed by Paradigm and set to launch in early 2024, bills itself as an L2, but others have taken issue with that classification. Read more about it in the Hot News section.

As usual, there are updates on governance and activity for the major L2s, and ecosystem updates to keep you informed about the latest releases and events. We hope those who celebrate Thanksgiving had a great meal with friends and family. We at Bankless Publishing are certainly thankful for our readers and partners, and we look forward to growing together in the year ahead.

You had us at gm.

Contributors: Warrior, jengajojo, thinkDecade, PaulitoBankless, Boluwatife, WinVerse, Tonytad, trewkat, HiroKennelly

This is an official newsletter of Bankless Publishing, a BanklessDAO-affiliated project. Please subscribe and share to help us grow our audience as we fulfill our mission to build user-friendly crypto onramps.

🗞️ Ecosystem Updates

🤝 OKX Collaborates With Polygon Labs To Launch Its ZK-EVM L2 Network, X1

↪️ Kadena Pivoting to a Layer 2 Focus, Layer H

🆕 CYBRIA Announces New Layer 2 Super Scalable Blockchain That Leverages AI

🦠 Lattice Introduces Redstone, the First Plasma-implementation for the OP Stack

➿ ENS Marks First Step to Native L2 Support by Launching the EVM Gateway

🚀 Kinto launches as an Arbitrum L2

⚡ Blast Goes Live

🔥 Hot News

Introducing Blast, an exciting new addition to the L2 ecosystem

Born from the insight that liquidity flows toward efficiency, Blast natively generates yield for ETH and stablecoins - an L2 first.

Backed by leading investors, Blast is designed from the ground up to incentivize liquidity. It does this by seamlessly passing back staking rewards, interest rates, and rebase yields to users' balances.

Blast aligns L2 architecture with the reality that yield drives adoption. Check Blast out and get more information in the thread below 👇

That’s the official version; now here’s an alternative thread from Polygon developer Jarrod Watts on what he thinks Blast is all about:

🏛 Governance

⭐ Featured Proposals

Proposal: BanklessDAO’s Global Education and Onboarding Campaign for Arbitrum

Fueling financial sovereignty is the core idea behind the bankless movement. This proposal presents a 12 month engagement with BanklessDAO for a global onboarding and education campaign for the Arbitrum ecosystem and requests 1,818,630 ARB.

BanklessDAO is a pivotal platform where people learn “how to DAO’’ through experiential learning. The DAO makes it easy for people to get involved in crypto and learn how to use different dApps and tools. Many become builders, ecosystem contributors, and find full-time jobs.

For over two years, BanklessDAO has been creating crypto educational content and has helped hundreds of people go full-time crypto. The vision of the DAO is to live in a world where anyone with an internet connection has access to the financial tools needed to achieve financial independence, and we want to work with value-aligned partners such as Arbitrum DAO to further our respective visions.

This proposal aims to share the Arbitrum DAO values of Ethereum-aligned, socially inclusive, technically inclusive, and user-focused with the broader crypto community. By taking those new to crypto on a streamlined journey from their first touchpoint with Arbitrum, to training them on how to DAO, and finally helping them find their place in the Arbitrum ecosystem, we aim to create a place for people from all walks of life to learn and benefit from the growing L2 tech stack.