Tezos X Explores the Topic of Smart Rollups, One of the Most Interesting Emerging Technologies in the Blockchain Landscape

In this article we explore the topic of Smart Rollups on Tezos, one of the most interesting emerging technologies in the blockchain landscape.

Tezos, a layer-1 blockchain renowned for its modular architecture, has introduced Smart Rollups, a game-changer for scalable and efficient blockchain solutions. Here are the key points for what's being touted as a crucial development.

Smart Rollups are an L2 scaling solution for Tezos that operates on the security of the layer-1, enabling a significant increase in the processing capacity for advanced transactions on the chain.

They take their name from the rollups of Ethereum, which aggregate transactions in batch by performing the off-chain computation and increasing the availability of blockspace.

Their task is to move the calculation work from L1 to a dedicated infrastructure, greatly reducing the cost of transaction verification. The Smart Rollups contribute to improving the Tezos ecosystem.

Making it more economical and consequently more attractive to users and developers. Think that precisely thanks to this technology, the Tezos team has reached 1 million “theoretical” transactions per second (TP/S) on their network.

Generally, Ethereum rollups are distinguished into optimistic and zero knowledge: those of Tezos are optimistic rollups. It means that the calculations performed by these infrastructures are considered valid if they are not disputed within a certain period (about 14 days).

The term optimistic derives from the fact that it is assumed that in these the off-chain transactions are valid and do not need to publish the validity proofs for each batch of transactions

The users themselves are responsible for verifying whether the commitments of the Smar Rollup are valid or not, and they must publish a fraud proof to contest them.

If the fraud is confirmed, the challenger receives a reward and the fraudulent party loses the tokens previously staked.In other words, all transactions are valid by default unless proven otherwise. Only one honest node is needed to ensure the validity of the state of an optimistic rollup.

The smart Rollup di Tezos sono considerati come agenti “sanciti” del network, ossia cittadini di prima classe integrati perfettamente con il protocollo. Fanno parte in modo nativo del “Consensus Layer” di Tezos

This also means that the Tezos L1 can provide a common and open infrastructure for all rollups, such as the message inbox and the logic for the refutation games.

This composability factor allows developers to implement and execute Smart Rollups in record time. It is a significant advantage as it also ensures the security of the main layer.

It is a much simpler and safer approach than recreating the entire infrastructure every time with smart contracts. The governance of these L2 networks is once again entrusted to the community vote.

It is also interesting to note that Smart Rollups can be public or private.

Public rollups are permissionless, which means that anyone can be an operator and help verify the security of the rollup state.

Private ones, on the other hand, are permissioned, meaning that the creator can limit the number of operators who can verify the network.

This function is useful when it becomes extremely crucial to protect the state of the Rollup. Any user who decides to create a rollup on Tezos can decide with what characteristics to launch the infrastructure based on their own needs

Finally, we remind you that a few months ago Tezos introduced the Data Availability Layer for its mainnet. It is a mechanism that facilitates the publication of rollup data on layer-1, supported by the wide range of nodes already in operation.