Is there anything more cucked than letting someone ELSE sequence YOUR transactions?

There was a thread recently I enjoyed reading because it validated my opinions (that should be how you read everything, of course):

So:

1. Rollups should decentralize

2. Rollups are [redacted in the brain] and or/lying, don’t know how (I wont force anyone to read Toghrul, that might be considered a war crime in some states)

3. Building a centralized Rollup and trying to “Decentralize” is impossible, whether or not you ACTUALLY intended to.

These things are ALL true.

So that’s it right? Well…. The reason this thread validated my opinions is because the solution to this all is not to whine and cry like a little bitch to the Arbitrum or Optimism foundations about building a fork of Tendermint to slap onto your L2, it’s the following very simple idea:

Move the sequencing somewhere else.

These L2’s are valuable because they print money off the gas you pay to use them being more expensive than their cost of DA on Ethereum or some other actually decentralized network. So their storage is already decentralized, what if we decentralized their transaction ordering…

AGAINST THEIR WILL!

That means you remove the leverage of the blockchain, whether they like it or not (which is something that really makes me excited). If that can be done, then you effectively have decentralized the L2 against the desires of the L2. So that begs the question, how do you separate the sequencing from the blockchain? In my opinion that can be done in a few ways, or put more simply in two ways but with many possible design choices.

The primary method of doing this is through either through application based rules, or private mempools. These are slightly different things, but let’s go through both.

Rules Based

Some of my frens call this “ASS” or application specific sequencing… while I like this terminology I think it’s a bit crass (pun intended). I think my definition of Rules Based Sequencing is a bit more broad though. Rules Based Sequencing is where an app determines a set of rules for the sequencing of each transaction with respect to the destination chain.

For example, if an app wanted to let the user directly sequence their own transaction, they could return it to the user for execution via a UI wallet prompt. Another rules based system could be one similar to CoWSwap, where the transactions are sequenced by the application itself, they bundle them all up and settle directly to L1. A third and important example as well is what I referred to in a previous article, Competitive Based Sequencing. This is one wherein an app can broadcast the transaction to any subscriber, then compensate that subscriber for being the first to successfully finalize that transaction on the respective chain.

Private Mempools/Block Builders

I think shared sequencers, thinks like “super builders,” and others in this space. If you’re taking a bunch of applications transactions, then applying some kind of ordering rules, I consider you a block builder. Frankly, there is no fucking difference between a block builder and a shared sequencer, besides the fact that one wants to decentralize itself over time (the other realizes making money is nice).

In Conclusion

The goal here is simple. Force against their wills, and in a violent and brutal manner, L2’s to decentralize. It simply is not possible to assume that as good actors they will eventually decentralize themselves, and frankly… I don’t blame them! If you’re making that much running a centralized sequencer, keep that bad boy going.

I want to make one point EXPLICITLY clear. I am not a decentralization or permissionless-ness maxi. In fact, I despise this ethos, and find it anti-human. Counterparties, other people, and human nature cannot be abstracted away through cryptographic “rules.” This is naïve and frankly insulting. That is why I believe in the right to self sequence. My goal with the suggestions made in this article is actually to keep the humans in this system accountable.

If the foundations mentioned here and all over the Rollup ecosystem honestly came out and said “We dont give a shit about decentralizing these sequencers, we’re here to make money.” I wouldnt write this article. I’d shut up and write about MEV or some other shit like pipe tobacco. But that isn’t what they’re saying. They’re advertising that they want to decentralize their sequencers, so it’s my job as a complaining crypto citizen to put their feet to the flame.