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According to Adrian Brink, co-founder of Anoma and Namada, rollups offer little new functionality beyond the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). He argues they are essentially execution-sharding solutions presented as true scaling solutions. Brink instead touts Plasma as the “only true scaling solution out there” because it enables constant data posting to the main chain “regardless of user throughput.”
Rollups Versus Plasma
Though rollups have gained traction since Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin introduced the idea a few years ago, Brink believes proponents seem to misunderstand the importance of data storage. In written responses to Bitcoin.com News, he asserts that rollups are “copies of the EVM,” which, in his view, “does nothing to drive new use cases or innovation.”
The co-founder of Anoma and Namada argues that rollups should offer fundamentally new approaches, rather than incremental innovation. While he acknowledges seeing advancements in cryptography within the zero-knowledge (zk) rollup space, Brink nevertheless criticizes the resulting fragmentation of state and liquidity, which he believes “limits user and developer experience and adoption.”
When asked about the future of rollups in the blockchain ecosystem, Brink said their success will only be possible if new developer environments enabling innovative applications are built. He also predicts Plasma gaining “more recognition as the most viable solution.”
Below are Brink’s answers to all the questions sent.
Bitcoin.com News (BCN): The idea of rollups as a potent scaling solution was reportedly first introduced in 2021 by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Since then, the concept has gained significant traction and is now a leading topic in the industry. From your standpoint, how would you characterize the rise of rollups and their influence on scaling decentralized protocols?
Adrian Brink (AB): The main issue with rollups, aside from them offering little new functionality beyond the EVM, is that they are really more of an execution-sharding solution than a true scaling solution. What really matters is where data is stored. The fundamental problem is scaling data and state, not compute. A better alternative, and the only true scaling solution out there, is Plasma.
Plasma enables a world where data can be kept off-chain, rather than needing to post all the data to the main chain like rollups do. The amount of data a rollup needs to post to the main chain is proportional to the amount of usage it gets, which is not a true scaling solution. With plasma, we can post a constant amount of data to the main chain regardless of user throughput.
BCN: Industry skeptics have criticized Ethereum rollups despite their perceived achievements. Some critics believe all rollups are the same and have seen limited adoption. Others think the hype behind rollups is unsustainable. In your view, is the skepticism surrounding rollups warranted?
AB: Unfortunately yes, it’s warranted. Rollups are essentially copies of the EVM and add little if any new functionality or capabilities for developers that would drive new use cases or innovation. Rollups are innovating at the margins instead of providing any fundamentally new approaches. Usage is largely dominated by points farming schemes that do little to move the space forward. ZK rollups do provide secure execution sharding, and we’ve seen important advancements in cryptography come from the rollup space.
However, it’s unclear to me that we need 200 different copies of the EVM, each with their own decentralized exchange (DEX). The landscape is fundamentally broken, with fragmentation of state and liquidity that limits user and developer experience and adoption. With Anoma we are looking to defragment that landscape, defragment liquidity, and provide a unified developer and user experience.
BCN: How would you respond to those who believe that the adoption rate of rollups is inadequate and that all rollup solutions are essentially identical?
AB: I would largely agree. We need new approaches, including a re-evaluation of scalability solutions and new architectures, such as those based around intents, to unlock new functionality and use cases and to end the fragmentation that currently exists.
BCN: Your L1 solution Namada enables users to transfer their ETH, DAI or any other fungible asset from Ethereum and send them around privately within a few seconds and at near-zero fees. Could you briefly explain how you achieved this without needing the services of scalability protocols like Ethereum rollups?
AB: As a point of clarification, Namada mainnet will not launch with an Ethereum bridge. This is something that will need to be added by the community in the future via Namada’s on-chain governance system, should they choose to do so. Namada will launch with IBC support which will make it compatible with the Cosmos ecosystem and beyond, with any IBC-enabled chain.
From a scalability perspective, Namada is built on modern BTF consensus, namely CometBFT, which is capable of 10k-20k transactions per second on a single chain with around 5-second finality.
BCN: Your project has secured successful funding rounds, indicating strong investor confidence in your vision. How has venture capital (VC) support contributed to your project’s progress, and do you have plans for future funding rounds?
AB: The Anoma ecosystem is strong and growing. We’ve seen a massive level of support and interest in what we’re building, and continue to welcome people into the community – the more the merrier. There’s a growing recognition of the importance of intents for the future of this space, and that Anoma’s approach to enabling generalized intents through a universal intent-centric architecture is the only serious approach to making it practical on a grand scale.
BCN: One cannot discount the role of regulatory policies in the overall blockchain and cryptocurrency adoption. The absence of a defined regulatory framework continues to plague the industry. If you had the chance to advise agencies that are seeking to oversee or regulate blockchain and cryptocurrency entities, what would be your most essential recommendation?
AB: In general I’d say look at the Swiss approach, talk with industry leaders, and consider the difference between those technologies that are truly decentralized and those that are not.
BCN: What is your forecast for the role of rollups in the blockchain ecosystem over the next five years? Do you foresee their continued prominence, or will advancements in blockchain technology diminish their importance?
AB: I think this will largely depend on whether we can be successful in building new developer environments that make new things possible. If we continue rehashing the same ideas and building on the same virtual machines, things are not going to change much. With new approaches like intent machines, we can actually unlock a new paradigm of innovation for developers and a better experience for users, bringing the space more in line with the usability of Web2. From a scalability perspective, I think Plasma will also see more recognition as the most viable solution.