Welcome! to The Layered Ledger.

A weekly newsletter covering exciting and interesting news from the world of scaling technologies.

INDEX:

• “First fully non-custodial zkRollup” DeGate launches

• Vitalik’s rollup schema will soon be on L2beat

• ZkSync to boost gaming with its latest hire

• Decentralized Sequencer Technology for rollups

• MetisDAO Foundation kicks off the ground

“First fully non-custodial zkRollup” DeGate launches

DeGate launched an application-specific rollup running DEX with Loopring's architecture and smart contracts on May 3rd.

According to the popular layer 2 research and analysis portal L2beat:

In DeGate all upgrade functionality has been removed! That makes the system fully non-custodial, but it also makes it impossible to upgrade if there is a bug in either the smart contract or the zk circuit.

Read more about DeGate here.

Vitalik’s rollup schema will soon be on L2beat

Layer 2 data portal L2beat tweeted its intentions to add a “rollup stage” for every rollup project on its website.

Vitalik Buterin introduced rollup stages in this blog titled “Proposed milestones for rollups taking off training wheels.”

In the blog, he proposes three stages (0/1/2), going from complete training wheel (stage 0) to no training wheels (stage 2), highlighting a set of requirements for each stage.

Link to the blog here.

ZkSync to boost gaming with its latest hire

The company behind popular rollup zkSync, Matter Labs, hired Michael Lee, a former Activision Blizzard Vice President of Community, as its senior vice president of growth to focus on bringing gaming to its zkSync platform.

Lee will concentrate on expanding zkSync's presence in the gaming industry and using it to attract a wider audience than only crypto natives.

Activision Blizzard is widely regarded as one of the top gaming companies, with titles like Starcraft, Warcraft, and Diablo under its belt.

Decentralized Sequencer Technology for rollups

Web3 Infrastructure fund, Figment Capital, came out with an article proposing using Distributed Validator Technology (DVT) for sequencers in rollups.

All the rollups currently use centralized sequencers, which are vital to the layer 2 system. Distributed Sequencer Technology (DST) could be seen as a way to decentralize sequencers, hence the rollups.

Read more about it here.

MetisDAO Foundation kicks off the ground

Layer 2 project, Metis recently announced the formation of its foundation called MetisDAO Foundation.

According to them:

It is a significant milestone in our journey towards building a more decentralized, efficient, and inclusive blockchain ecosystem.

The goal of the foundation will be to:

support the collaborative workspace for the Metis Community Builders, Commons and EcoNodes, advising on resource allocation, team building, governance, marketing activities, events and community development and continuing to host our flagship MetisFest for the community.

The first task at hand for the foundation will be to release its “governance blue paper.”

Till next time, have a great weekend!