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Comment by solumunus | Hacker News Reader

You choose security and decentralization for the main chain and then use layer 2 for performance. This is the clear path forward, pretty well established by now.

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I don't know about rollups stuff, but Lightning Network-type 2nd-layers are prone to flood and loot attacks. I don't see a way to make them secure. I'm happy to be enlightened.

The lightning network is not a good example of an L2, it's extremely basic state channels and won't scale because of routing / liquidity issues.

Look into Optimism and Arbitrum for current technology, or zkSync, Starknet, Polygon zkEVM for next gen L2's coming soon. There's a big list of all the current L2's and their tradeoffs at https://l2beat.com

Lightning is more of a sidechain than an L2. And it's definitely not a rollup.

So you can securely prove that your centralized and insecure layer 2 has indeed transfered all of your money away to them? Great plan.

No, the layer 2 inherits the trust-assumptions and security of the L1.

This is ridiculos and false.

For instance, with LN you have to be online to secure your funds, otherwise you might lose them.

L2 only inherits the security of L1 when it settles, which by definition is not that often (that's the whole point!).

LN's shortcomings are not issues for zkrollups on Ethereum. Transactions are stored on chain, just in compressed form. A contract checks the validity of all transactions before storing them. The proofs are expensive to generate, but so cheap to verify that a contract can do it on chain.

Some types of L2, like roll-ups, settle to L1 every block.

The "whole point" of L2 is to reduce the amount of resources used to settle its transactions on L1. Some L2s, like Lightning Network, achieve this by settling infrequently. But other L2s, like roll-ups, achieve it by batching transactions in clever ways so that less L1 resources are used on a per-transaction basis.

If your L2 has the same security and decentralization of the L1, then it's another L1. Since it has the performance part of things, it can only have either security (but then it's centralized, so it could fully securely write bullshit, which then gets written to L1), or decentralization (and then you get to write unsecure bullshit, which has no reason to either be trusted or true, and you can write that to your L1).

It could write to L1 immediately, but your writes can still not be trusted or right.

The trilemma is not a law of mathematics with binary outcomes. It's an attempt to describe certain tensions inherent in building blockchains. A great deal of work as been done on Ethereum to balance these tensions. Rollups increase throughput because they move execution off L1, while requiring proof on L1 that L2 executed correctly.

https://www.paradigm.xyz/2021/01/almost-everything-you-need-...

How is that any different than old school banking and finance? Using layer 2 for performance requires essentially opening an account with a trusted party.

I don't understand what we've gained here.

It's only established by Bitcoin maxis. You need performance on layer 1 too, the world isn't black or white.

See loopring.io

Aren't they just a failed product at this point? They were building an application specific L2 and then full general purpose L2s have beat them to market. I know they are trying desperately to pivot but they have to be years behind at this point.

Incorrect on all counts.

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