Dialogue with Linea Product Manager How does Linea, backed by ConsenSys, achieve progressive decentralization?

Linea, backed by ConsenSys, achieving progressive decentralization Dialogue with Product Manager

The Linea team, backed by ConsenSys, will address the apparent contradiction between user experience and decentralization in the current technological environment, and ultimately realize the team’s envisioned progressive decentralization vision.

Interviewer: bayemon.eth, ChainCatcher

Guest: Declan Fox, Product Manager at ConsenSys Linea

On July 18th, Linea, a Layer2 network developed by the ConsenSys team, announced at the EthCC conference that Linea Mainnet Alpha access is now open to the entire community. Since its launch, the total value locked (TVL) in Linea Mainnet Alpha has skyrocketed, reaching a peak of over $30 million and currently stabilizing at around $28 million.

• Interpreting the stablecoin PYUSD issued by LianGuaiyLianGuail which trends are worth paying attention to?
• Impact of Curve Finance Vulnerability on MEV Approximately 6000 ETH Earned
• Milestone Moment, Quick Look at LianGuaiyLianGuail USD Stablecoin

Source: L2BEAT

According to RootData, AltLayer, OKX, LayerZero, Orbiter Finance, Polyhedra Network, Galxe, Omnisea and other projects have integrated into the Linea ecosystem.

In addition, due to its association with the ConsenSys team, Linea’s mainnet is built-in to MetaMask by default, allowing users to skip the complex process of manually adding networks and directly switch to the Linea network in their own MetaMask. Furthermore, Linea and MetaMask will be deeply integrated in the future. With the power of the ConsenSys team in US regulation and crypto compliance, Linea undoubtedly possesses unique advantages that other L2 solutions lack.

Why did ConsenSys, which has developed well-known applications such as MetaMask and infrastructure platforms such as Infura, choose to launch a Layer2 zk Rollup in a seemingly saturated Rollup solution market and join this fierce competition?

While scalability is undoubtedly an important issue as Ethereum transitions to 2.0, there are also voices criticizing current Layer2 Rollup solutions for violating the principle of “decentralization” by using centralized sequencers and verification mechanisms. How will ConsenSys, which has always emphasized decentralization, break the deadlock of “user experience” vs. “decentralization”? Meanwhile, how will the Linea team, which announced that there are currently no plans for token issuance, attract more developers and users to participate in the construction of the Linea ecosystem and community?

Around these questions, ChainCatcher invited Declan Fox, Product Manager at Linea, to discuss how the Linea team backed by ConsenSys will address the apparent contradiction between user experience and decentralization in the current technological environment, and ultimately realize the team’s envisioned progressive decentralization vision.

Declan Fox, Product Manager at Linea

What makes Linea unique?

1. ChainCatcher: Please give a brief introduction of Linea.

Declan: Thank you for inviting me, ChainCatcher. I’m Declan, currently the Product Manager at Linea. Linea completed its mainnet launch in mid-last month and was fully open to the public on July 18th. We have been busy preparing for the mainnet launch for the past year. In fact, on January 9th of this year, we launched a testnet for developers. Over the next 6 to 7 months, this testnet achieved remarkable success.

We are excited and proud of the official launch of our mainnet. In the past few weeks, approximately 150 projects have integrated Linea and become our partners. Currently, Linea has also achieved an astonishing volume of transactions and value bridging between Linea and Ethereum.

2. ChainCatcher: Please briefly introduce the size and division of labor of the Linea team.

Declan: Firstly, as a zk Rollup scaling solution, we use zero-knowledge proofs as the underlying technology for transaction verification. This innovative technology relies on a significant amount of research work, so Linea has a research team dedicated to zk technology development. Before the formal formation of the Linea team, this work was completed by ConsenSys’ R&D team, and some members of the Linea team were also previously responsible for ZK research at ConsenSys.

In addition to the research team, another important component of Linea is software engineers who are responsible for building Linea’s distributed solutions. I am personally responsible for the product aspect, and Linea also has members responsible for marketing and other support aspects. Currently, the Linea team is small but experienced. If the scale of the Linea network continues to grow at a high rate in the future, our team will expand to match the market and the next stage of technological needs.

3. ChainCatcher: ConsenSys has created successful applications and infrastructures such as MetaMask and Infura. What goals does Linea aim to achieve?

Declan: The goal of Linea is to achieve scalability for Ethereum. A few years ago, we believed that Ethereum itself was not scalable, which was why we explored scaling solutions as a community. Now, what we can confirm is that among various types of Ethereum scaling solutions, Rollups are the best solution. Furthermore, zk, with its ability to provide lower gas fees, higher throughput, and cryptographic security, is a valuable technology that helps improve the performance of Rollups.

Currently, Linea has already become a relatively complete Layer2 zk Rollup network, but there is still much room for further exploration in this field to further enhance Ethereum’s scalability. We believe that in the future, with the further development of scaling theories and public chains, more Ethereum scaling solutions will be built, and more users will participate in Web3 activities, unlocking the infinite potential of the community and bringing a broader future for Web3.

4. ChainCatcher: In the entire zk Rollup track, StackWare and Matter Labs have already launched zk Rollup scaling solutions since 2018 and 2019 respectively. Why did ConsenSys choose to launch Linea and join this seemingly intense competition at this time?

Declan: Interestingly, we actually started this project about 5 years ago, but at that time, our research focus was on zero-knowledge proof systems. Around January 2019, we started to focus on researching zkEVM, although the concept of zkEVM did not exist at that time.

At that time, many people were focused on Optimistic Rollup, and those who wanted to enter the zero-knowledge proof field believed that zkEVM was impossible. Therefore, they began to build a brand new zk virtual machine, which was incompatible with EVM and had its own unique programming language and application tools. However, our team believes that Ethereum has provided a very valuable consensus mechanism, and there are already a large number of technical personnel in the community investing in the establishment of standards and the development of deep tools, just like ConsenSys created MetaMask and Infura based on Ethereum.

However, creating a zk Rollup scaling solution that is not compatible with EVM cannot continue or expand the existing network effect of EVM. Therefore, what our team wants to achieve is the widespread application of zk technology in the Rollup solution based on EVM compatibility. After that, the team spent about four years and finally launched Linea, which we believe is the best and industry-leading solution of its kind.

Although in a sense, Linea seemed to be in an “invisible state” in the past few years, in fact, we have made a lot of efforts in zk technology research and system development, including EVM compatibility. The team does not want to push immature solutions to the market. Therefore, when we have advanced the project through 4 years of research and development to the current “golden time”, we officially let Linea face the public and allow people to start understanding and using this new solution.

5. ChainCatcher: zk technology indeed requires a lot of specialized knowledge and more research time. Among different proof generation algorithms, Linea chose zk-SNARK. Can you briefly explain the reason for choosing this technology?

Declan: In fact, the technology used by Linea is more complex than zk-SNARKs and has subtle differences from the original zk-SNARKs. Simply put, our proof system has inner proof and outer proof, and the outer proof will be used for deployment on the Ethereum chain, and it is indeed a SNARK. The deployment process is carried out through a cryptographic library created by Linea’s unique cryptographic team, which packages the inner proof into the outer proof and finally deploys it on the Ethereum mainnet in the form of SNARK.

The generation and compression of inner proofs are the main challenges overcome by the team during the four-year research process. Linea integrates research results into the proof generator Vortex – creating an extremely efficient proof generation tool through lattice-based cryptography and recursion. This method of generating proofs is becoming popular in a wider ecosystem, and it is relatively cheaper compared to other solutions.

6. ChainCatcher: As we mentioned earlier, MetaMask and Infura are very important wallets and infrastructure in the Web3 ecosystem. So, what advantages does Linea, backed by ConsenSys, have in the L2 zk Rollup competition?

Declan: I think we have two main advantages.

Firstly, Linea’s technological achievements. We have discussed this in the previous few questions. I want to emphasize that Vortex is a leading system in the field of zero-knowledge proofs. It is highly efficient and fast, which means its performance and user experience are far superior to other tools. Low cost, high speed, and high throughput will provide users with a better experience, which is Linea’s differentiation.

Therefore, I believe that over time, better technological solutions will stand the test of time. But as you mentioned, there are also issues related to the ecosystem. Linea has gained a macro and comprehensive understanding of the entire ecosystem from ConsenSys, knowing the entire process of user interaction on the chain and the focus on user experience when interacting at the wallet layer and underlying execution layer.

Linea really values user experience and wants to differentiate itself from this perspective. That’s why we were prepared to be EVM-compatible from the beginning. At the same time, we will also leverage infrastructure and service providers that can bring a large amount of traffic. For example, Linea Mainnet is directly integrated into the default dropdown menu of MetaMask, so users don’t need to manually enter a new network. For a new network, being able to directly connect to major platforms like MetaMask and provide users with “one-click access” will undoubtedly bring users an unprecedented and novel experience.

In summary, we are trying to meet the diverse needs of ecosystem builders and users from a compatibility perspective, in order to meet their expectations for Linea in the future.

How does Linea achieve decentralization?

7. ChainCatcher: Decentralization is one of the most important features of Ethereum and has always been emphasized by ConsenSys. However, many OP and zk Rollup projects in the ecosystem currently sacrifice some decentralization in exchange for Ethereum scalability, such as using centralized sequencers and centralized verification mechanisms. Some believe that the components between sequencers and verifiers are “narrowly” decentralized. What is your opinion on this viewpoint?

Declan: My view is that the current architecture of Rollups is relatively immature. We will set up some “training wheels” as a means to protect users. In the subsequent development of Rollups, the training wheels will be gradually removed as time goes on and the technology becomes more robust. However, as you mentioned, these training wheels may include centralized sequencers, lack of fraud proofs and permission proofs, and centralized zk Rollups provers, etc. At the same time, the upgrade from Layer 1 to multi-signature smart contracts has not achieved decentralization yet.

For most zk Rollup teams, especially for Linea, achieving decentralization is a gradual process – Linea has already released its own progressive decentralization roadmap, which clearly describes how we will move from the current stage to a fully decentralized and trust-minimized system over time. Therefore, Linea is on a journey towards decentralization. Although we haven’t reached the destination yet, we have a clear plan and know how to get there. ConsenSys attaches great importance to the concept of “decentralization”.

In addition, Linea has chosen to build a zkEVM, which means that developers can deploy their projects directly on the Linea network. For Linea, there is no vendor lock-in mechanism. If a project wants to exit Linea at any time, there are no obstacles and there is no need to rewrite smart contracts for other EVM-compatible networks. From this perspective, we already have a relatively high degree of decentralization in the zk Rollup track.

At the same time, Linea is currently in close contact with the infrastructure team at Infura. The Infura team has an execution layer client, and this client has undergone years of testing on the Ethereum mainnet and has performed excellently. Linea is fortunate to be able to collaborate with Infura and optimize transaction execution between layers. Therefore, we believe that Linea has the qualifications to achieve data decentralization, high throughput execution, and reduced transaction costs simultaneously. So we believe that this “narrow” decentralization dilemma is not a hindrance for Linea.

8. ChainCatcher: We also noticed that the Linea official document provides a decentralized roadmap. Do you have a specific timeline for the mentioned subsequent stages?

Declan: As for the implementation of the roadmap, we have planned it in stages. Before reaching the final decentralization, Linea needs to go through five stages. So far, Linea has completed the Mainnet Alpha release and is currently in Phase 0. The next stage will be Stack Open Source, which allows open code viewing and modification permissions. This helps align the community with Linea’s goals and achieve the vision of scalability and decentralization. In addition, we also need to achieve 100% coverage of all EVM code in precompilation, which is an important milestone for Linea to gain complete trust in the zk aspect. Next, Linea needs to ensure that users can withdraw assets at the first time. This is a very important anti-censorship attribute that Rollups can bring, and it needs to be gradually decentralized after ensuring full implementation.

In the last stage, we will focus on “Multi-Prover”. Multi-Prover allows a transaction or a batch of transactions to be implemented and verified by multiple different zkEVMs. This is a very exciting move because with the support of Multi-Prover, even if there is an error in the implementation or verification process of one zkEVM, the system will still continue to run and maintain a near-elastic state. Just like the resilience achieved through multiple execution and consensus nodes in Ethereum Layer 1. Linea’s current plan is to replicate these characteristics in Layer 2 and ensure that we match the Ethereum standards, as well as the constraints in the reference materials and specifications, to ensure Linea’s EVM compatibility.

Source: Linea Official Website Decentralization Roadmap

This is Linea’s roadmap plan, which we have divided into five stages and prioritized the work to be done. However, it is difficult for us to predict the future and provide specific timelines. The current plan is to implement according to the plan and continue to monitor the progress of these tasks and community feedback.

Linea Ecological Development Plan

9. ChainCatcher: Linea has experienced rapid growth, with TVL tripling in just one week since its launch. What are your expectations for Linea’s future growth and development?

Declan: I believe that future growth is difficult to predict, as we do not have a crystal ball to foresee the future. Many developments rely on a broad ecosystem, and we are just a part of that ecosystem. Each component must work together to create a user experience that effectively solves problems and drives the development of this field.

Today, both developers who want to build applications and creators who want to create new communities are working hard to improve the final user experience. These are all aspects that Linea influences. One important area is the account abstraction brought by ERC-4337, which, although it may result in more intensive gas consumption in most cases, does not discourage people who want to adopt AA on Layer2 with lower transaction costs. This is also one of Linea’s advantages. In addition, we hope to add a new terminal for account management and multi-signature control, which is also a key component of implementing account abstraction and smart contract accounts.

Therefore, Linea is working closely with other professional teams in the industry to help Linea become an ideal Layer2 solution that provides a better user experience. These are parts that we can completely control, so we believe that by addressing these issues, we will see more active activities from Linea in the future.

10. ChainCatcher: Although many projects have integrated Linea, there are still relatively few native projects. Will the ecosystem vigorously develop native projects in the future? And do you have a preference for specific tracks?

Declan: We are committed to promoting the development of the Layer2 zk Rollup field, which means that we need to provide new solutions to users’ problems, which can potentially become native use cases for Linea. During the integration process, we are also in discussions with many partners. Since Linea has recently released the Mainnet Alpha version and is in the growth stage, we are looking forward to seeing many native Linea projects and protocols, whether in DeFi, GameFi, or SocialFi. I am very excited about it.

Currently, our focus is still on projects that have already been built on Ethereum or other blockchains, helping them integrate with the Linea network, finding more product-market fit points, and these mature projects can also help Linea build ecosystem modules and provide necessary integration experience to other use cases.

11. ChainCatcher: Without a token issuance plan, how will Linea continue to attract more developers and users?

Declan: The platform has two aspects, developers and users. We hope to provide good support for both, thereby building network effects and launching a flywheel to bring more vitality to the Linea network.

What we can do for developers is to meet their existing needs and help them build successful projects on the Linea network. This includes technical support from various angles. When a small project starts, we may provide support for them at hackathons, including funding support and team collaboration, and then turn their project ideas into more practical and deeper solutions, ultimately launching them on the Linea mainnet.

At the same time, we will also ensure that project teams can connect with other partners in the ecosystem and help improve their use cases. We have a new initiative called Ecosystem Investment Alliance (EIA), which represents a way for Linea to help project teams connect with ConsenSys VC partners and other investors and provide funding support. Especially in bear markets, it is particularly important to ensure the connection between potential projects and funding support. In addition, we also provide opportunities for collaborative marketing to ensure that projects can gain visibility through the distribution channels of Linea, ConsenSys, and other partners. We value the success of our partners and also cherish the concept of decentralization. Although I have been guiding this system within ConsenSys, we also hope that its future leadership will belong to the community.

At the user level, we have also stated at the recent EthCC that Linea has always placed a great emphasis on user experience. I believe this is the true difference between Linea and other systems at the user level. So far, Linea has achieved native integration with MetaMask, which is the trust foundation for new users joining Web3 and Linea. Linea will soon be able to fully implement the functionalities of MetaMask. At the same time, we are also exploring how to attract users to use Layer2 solutions, including Linea, through account abstraction. We are also paying attention to execution layer issues, such as reducing transaction costs and shortening confirmation times. All of these contribute to bringing users into the Linea ecosystem and creating more network effects.

12. ChainCatcher: Currently, the Layer2 track is very crowded. From the perspective of the entire industry, are so many Layer2 solutions necessary? Is there a phenomenon of “reinventing the wheel”?

Declan: I believe that as an ecosystem, it is a good thing that Layer2 zk Rollup is in a stage of continuous differentiation. Differentiation means that we are exploring different solutions, and almost every emerging industry experiences this. It can be foreseen that there will be more and more Layer2 and Layer3 solutions.

In my opinion, over time, we may see the solutions that can best solve these problems eventually converge. But I still think that we are far from being able to determine which method is correct because there are still some differences in different sub-markets at present. Especially for Linea as a Layer2 zkEVM, we are truly focused on Ethereum scalability, focusing on the existing Ethereum network effect, and bringing more possibilities to stable developers and applications. I think this is the right path for the entire ecosystem or the Ethereum mainnet.

13. ChainCatcher: For zk Rollups, will the next innovation focus more on the algorithm or the application?

Declan: Although zk was born in the mid-1980s, its applications in the scalability of blockchain encryption systems are very unique and have a lot of optimization potential. Therefore, I believe that there will be many innovative applications happening every year, and I am glad that there are so many people focusing on software innovation in the zk field. Before hardware acceleration, we need to keep our focus on software, such as driving continuous innovation in Linea. We need to create a Ferrari first before we can constantly increase the speed. Linea’s focus happens to be on building a Ferrari sports car, and we are very close to success. At the same time, we also know that hardware acceleration is just one way to achieve a significant increase in an established system.

In conclusion, I am not worried that Rollup solutions like Linea will become a bottleneck in the overall development process of zk technology, because new applications based on this technology will continue to emerge within the ecosystem.

We will continue to update Blocking; if you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us!