Rollups — Ultimate Solution to Cheaper & Faster Ethereum Transactions? (Part 1)

Rollups… such a funny name isn’t it?

What the heck are they?

Why are rollups called rollups?

How do they solve Ethereum’s scalability?

What are some of the existing Ethereum-Scaling solutions out there?

What are Optimistic rollups and ZK rollups?

Sit still, you’ll find answers to all these questions today.

First thing first, why do we need Ethereum-Scaling?

When it comes to Ethereum scaling, it’s certainly one of the most discussed topics in crypto. Scalability of the Ethereum network is being questioned for quite a while now, especially during the periods of high network-demanding activities like the CryptoKitties hype in 2017, DeFi summer in 2020 and 2021, as well as the crypto bull run and NFT boom throughout 2021, all these huge demands on Ethereum network resulted in network congestion along with extremely high gas fees, creating a big problem for users as it often costs them an arm and a leg in order to pay for their transactions. In order to solve this problem, creating an ultimate scaling solution has been one of the top priorities for the Ethereum community.

If you have transacted on Ethereum, you know what it means.

So, what are some of the existing Ethereum-Scaling solutions out there?

1. Layer 1 scaling — Scaling the blockchain itself
2. Layer 2 scaling — Building on top of Layer 1
3. Sidechains — Building on the side of Layer 1

When it comes to Layer 1, the upgrade of the current Ethereum blockchain — Ethereum 2.0 is the chosen scaling solution. Ethereum 2.0 is expected to roll out sometime in 2022 (hopefully!), the upgrade refers to a set of interconnected changes including the migration to Proof-Of-Stake (PoS), merging the current Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchain into the new PoS blockchain, as well as sharding. Sharding can dramatically increase the throughput of the Ethereum network, especially…