A visual encyclopedia of scaling solutions.
Batch execution, compressed proofs, inherited security.
Peer-to-peer, off-chain, settlement on close.
Independent consensus, bridged assets.
Cross-layer transfer protocols and security models.
Validity vs. fraud, SNARKs vs. STARKs.
Transaction ordering and decentralization paths.
Rollups execute transactions off-chain and post compressed data back to the base layer. The base layer verifies the data, inheriting its security guarantees. Two paradigms dominate: optimistic rollups that assume validity and allow challenges, and zero-knowledge rollups that provide cryptographic proof of correctness.
The economics are transformative. By amortizing verification costs across hundreds of transactions in a single batch, rollups reduce per-transaction costs by orders of magnitude while preserving the censorship resistance and finality of the underlying chain.
State channels open a direct connection between participants, allowing unlimited off-chain transactions. Only the opening and closing states are recorded on-chain. Ideal for repeated interactions between known parties -- payment channels, gaming, and real-time data feeds.
The tradeoff is specificity: channels work best for predetermined participant sets. The latency is near-zero, the cost approaches zero, but the generality is constrained.
The substrate on which all Layer 2 solutions depend. Data availability layers provide cheap, abundant storage for the transaction data that rollups need to post. Without guaranteed data availability, rollups cannot offer the escape hatches that protect users from sequencer failures.
Sampling techniques allow validators to verify data availability without downloading entire datasets -- probabilistic certainty from fractional reads.
Compiled, illustrated, and animated for the public record.