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Every chain needs a path through the forest

2400m — Upper Canopy

Rollups

Transactions bundled and compressed, sent upward to the mainnet canopy where light filters through consensus. Optimistic rollups trust first, verify later — a forest that assumes the sun will rise. ZK rollups prove mathematically, each proof a crystallized dewdrop of certainty.

Optimistic Rollups
ZK Rollups
1800m — Midstory

State Channels

Private passages between two travelers — conversations held off-trail, only the final agreement recorded on the main path. Lightning-fast, ephemeral as morning mist between branches. The forest doesn't need to hear every whisper.

Payment Channels
General State Channels
1200m — Understory

Sidechains

Parallel forests with their own ecosystems — connected by bridges to the ancient mainnet woodland. They grow their own consensus, maintain their own soil. Independent but intertwined, like mycorrhizal networks linking root systems across the forest floor.

EVM-Compatible
Sovereign Chains
600m — Forest Floor

Plasma

The deepest layer — child chains nested within child chains, fractal as fern fronds unfurling. Data availability anchored to the root chain like ancient roots gripping bedrock. The original vision of infinite scalability, composting into new forms.

Plasma Chains
Validium