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Scroll's on a journey to reach sub-second finality
Its cofounder said the layer-2 chain will reach finality of "minutes and sub-seconds within the next few months.”
Jacquelyn Melinek
October 17, 2024
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Blockchains need faster finality
Hundreds of millions of transactions are done across blockchains every single day. But not all chains are created equal when it comes to fast finality, or ensuring a transaction is completed and secure.
“It basically means reaching the end state and reaching the end data as fast as you can,” Scroll’s Head of Growth Raza Zaidi said on Talking Tokens. “That, at its core, you need finality for that.”
For some blockchains, they have low finality, which means it can only handle a small number of transactions and it takes a while to settle. While for other chains with high finality, they can handle a lot of transactions quickly in a faster time frame.
In the Ethereum ecosystem, there’s a number of layer-2 chains that are focused on scaling the network’s finality times and Scroll is hoping to become the fastest L2.
“Everyone is focusing on slightly different things; finality has always been our focus,” Scroll’s co-founder Sandy Peng said on Talking Tokens. “[Scroll’s] will be within minutes and sub-seconds within the next few months.”
For some L2 chains, it can take hours or days to settle transactions, Peng noted.
As it stands, Scroll’s current time to finality is about 18 minutes, according to Chainspect data. Other data on Ethereum-centric L2s like OP Mainnet, Arbitrum and Base show finality times of 16 minutes, while Polygons’s is about 4 minutes.
“Finality is also a prerequisite for security,” Zaidi said. “You want your funds to be safe.”
He added, “You don’t want to have an experience where you’re waiting 10 hours for your funds to show up, or a 10-hour window where the chain might say, ‘oops, something happened' and then it rolls back.”
By speeding up these times, it can additionally bring in more opportunities onchain for builders and non-web3 native teams alike.
Finality is popular among payment use cases and for institutional settlements because those also expect and experience on par with banking transfers and high security standards, Peng said.
“I think there’s always room for incremental or niche improvements on the edges or specialized use cases and that will continue for 3-5 years or even longer,” Peng added.
Check out the next section for more details and the full episode.
The latest Talking Tokens podcast 🎙️
For this week’s Thursday episode, I sat down with Scroll’s Co-founder Sandy Peng and Head of Growth Raza Zaidi.
We talked about building an L2 in a competitive landscape, growth metrics and how the chain has evolved since its mainnet in 2023, ZK technology’s role in the broader ecosystem and more.
Talking Tokens episodes are released on Spotify and Apple Podcasts at 6AM EST or YouTube at 10AM EST every Tuesday and Thursday. Listen in!
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Monitoring blockchains
Looking at some of the biggest developments onchain.
Plume Network announces $100M partnership with Projective Finance to bring solar assets onchain
Kraken launches Ethereum restaking via EigenLayer, which will help secure dApps with users’ staked ETH and open the door to earn additional staking rewards
Yield-bearing stablecoin fastUSD launched on Sei, expanding DeFi growth in its ecosystem
Taking on the tokens
The total crypto market cap decreased about 2% in the past 24-hours to $2.29. It is up 7.5% over a 7-day period.
As for the largest cryptocurrencies by market cap…
Token | Price | 24h % | 7-day % |
|---|---|---|---|
Bitcoin (BTC) | $ 66,922 | - 1.95 | + 9.38 |
Ethereum (ETH) | $ 2,602 | - 0.80 | + 8.29 |
BNB (BNB) | $ 591.54 | - 1.25 | + 3.78 |
Solana (SOL) | $ 151.75 | - 3.92 | + 8.56 |
These metrics were taken prior to publication on Thursday morning EST.
Money and people moves
Latest updates on crypto startups that secured funding and industry players who are starting something new or are on the go.
Blockstream closed a $210M convertible note financing round for its Bitcoin L2 strategy
Azra Games raises $42.7M in Series A round led by Pantera Capital, bringing total raised to $68.3M
CoinDesk bought Crypto Data Provider CCData and CryptoCompare for an undisclosed amount to expand its data offerings
Bitnomial raises $25M in a round led by Ripple, alongside launch of its US pertpetual futures trading platform
Praxis, a ‘network state’ project, gains $525M in financing to build crypto-friendly city
Talking points for the road
Here’s some headlines and topics that you can talk about at your next dinner party, crypto event or on a first date to look smart (results may vary.)
Italy to Raise Capital Gains Tax on Bitcoin to 42% From 26% (Bloomberg)
Trump token debut draws mixed reaction after paltry $11m haul. ‘It ends up in his pocket’ (DL News)
Tesla moves its remaining estimated $770 million bitcoin stockpile to multiple new addresses (The Block)
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