Rollup as a Service: A New Situation for Blockchain Expansion

Author: Callum@Web3CN.Pro

With the growing ecology of Ethereum, the disadvantages of single blockchains are becoming more and more obvious. Problems such as chain congestion, high transaction costs, and non-customization are gradually exposed. In order to solve these performance limitations, diversified expansion solution.

At present, the expansion scheme of Ethereum is divided into on-chain expansion (on-chain) and off-chain expansion (off-chain). On-chain expansion is to improve the performance of the blockchain itself, and to transform Ethereum itself to obtain better scalability; off-chain expansion is separated from the first-tier main network, without changing the existing Ethereum protocol Achieve higher scalability. Currently, there is only one solution for on-chain expansion: sharding. Although there are many off-chain expansions, Rollup is currently the main solution.

**The essence of Rollup is a modular expansion solution that separates the execution layer from the single block chain. It transfers the calculation to the off-chain, and then transfers the execution results off the chain to the chain for verification. Inheriting the security of Ethereum Improve network performance in critical situations. **During this process, a new track - Rollup as a Service (RaaS) was gradually derived. RaaS regards the deployment of Rollups as a service, provides customizable Rollups, and provides more convenient and flexible services for developers to build Rollups.

This article will introduce what RaaS is, sort out RaaS-related projects, and analyze the opportunities and challenges of RaaS.

What is RaaS

Before understanding RaaS, let's briefly introduce the principle of Rollup technology. It is a technology that packs a large amount of transaction information into a single transaction for processing, which can improve transaction throughput, reduce transaction costs, and improve the degree of decentralization of the network on the Ethereum network. The expansion requirements of Ethereum gave birth to the development of Rollup, and also differentiated general-purpose Rollup and application-specific Rollup. General-purpose Rollups such as Arbitrum and Optimism, these projects allow the deployment of dapp ecology on their chains, but rely on the settlement layer, data availability layer and consensus layer of Layer1. Application-specific Rollups, such as Lootapring and dydx, are single applications deployed on the blockchain as rollups. They do not require a separate validator set and consume less. Therefore, whether it is a single blockchain development or a specific application development, there is a high demand for Rollup tools, which gradually leads to the RaaS market.

In short, Rollup as a Service (RaaS) is a rollup product for launching new application customization. The product is similar to a software-as-a-service (SaaS) product, and users do not need to maintain or host any part of the service product, so there is no need for complex software and hardware management. With RaaS, developers get an SDK or a dashboard to launch a rollup of specific applications. Developers don't have to worry about finding nodes to operate rollups, or building or maintaining any code, it provides tools and services to deploy Rollup products. This product provides strong anti-censorship capabilities, enables secure transaction processing, and ensures the sustainable operation of the blockchain network.

RaaS Related Projects

At present, the RaaS projects on the market can be mainly divided into three categories: SDK, no-code solution and shared sequencer.

SDK

The SDK solution provides developers with a set of general-purpose software development kits, making deploying Rollup as easy as deploying smart contracts. Representative products include OP Stack, Rollkit, Sovereign SDK, etc.

**OP Stack: ** is the software stack of the Optimism team in order to realize the modular blockchain architecture. OP Stack divides Layer 2 into three layers: consensus layer, execution layer, and settlement layer, and then standardizes the three layers to make it easy for developers The assembly of the module simplifies the construction process of the modular blockchain.

Rollkit: is a modular hair chain SDK developed by the Celestia community. The Rollkit framework has a modular node that can run rollups and expose ABCI-compliant client interfaces, which can be used in any ABCI-compliant blockchain application Used as an alternative to Tendermint. By default, nodes use Celestia as the data availability (DA) layer, but other data availability layers can be integrated.

Sovereign SDK: is an open, interconnected Rollup ecosystem, the first rollup framework that eliminates zero-knowledge complexity, enabling all developers to seamlessly deploy interoperable software that can run on any blockchain Operational and scalable Rollup. The goal of the SovereignSDK is to simplify the creation of zk-rollups, similar to what the Cosmos SDK did for Layer1.

These SDK projects provide user-friendly and easy-to-use solutions, simplify the deployment of Rollup, and make the RaaS market increasingly mature.

No Code Scheme

The no-code solution is to deploy Rollup without writing code, and provides developers with tools and resources that are easy and efficient to deploy scalable Rollup. Representative products include AltLayer, Eclipse, Caldera, etc.

AltLayer: is an expansion layer based on Optimistic Rollups, which can be connected to Layer 1 such as Ethereum, and Layer 2 such as Arbitrum and Optimism. AltLayer supports multi-chain and multi-VM, and supports EVM and WASM by default. Therefore, AltLayer will not be tied to a single Layer1 or Layer2, but can be used as a modular and pluggable extension solution for all EVM and WASM compatible chains.

Eclipse: is a sovereign Rollup based on the Cosmos ecology, providing developers with a customizable Rollup framework. As the infrastructure of a modular blockchain, it can provide a common settlement layer solution for any public chain. Aims to be a universal Layer 2 platform, compatible with multiple Layer 1 blockchains. Currently, Eclipse supports Ethereum Virtual Machine and Solana Virtual Machine.

Caldera: is a customizable Rollup framework built on Optimistic Rollups, which focuses on building high-performance, customizable and application-specific Layer1 blockchains. These custom-built blockchains provide high throughput, low latency, and customizable features for optimizing decentralized application performance and user experience. Caldera Chains can choose all EVM-compatible chains.

No-code solution The RaaS project provides a simple, efficient, and easy-to-use solution to deploy Rollup. Each solution has specific functions (such as supporting multiple chains and virtual machines) to meet specific needs. The development of no-code solutions also helps Promoted the Rollup technology.

Shared Sequencer

The sorter is a very important component in the Layer 2 architecture. It allows Layer 2 to run efficiently by aggregating many Layer 2 user transactions off-chain and submitting them as a set of single transactions to the main chain Layer 1. A shared sorter is essentially a Rollup-compatible set of sorters that can serve different Rollups. Currently, all Layer 2 Rollups on Ethereum use centralized sorters, but some RaaS projects are developing decentralized sorters, representative products include Dymension and Espresso.

Dymension: is a sovereign Rollup built on Cosmos, a modular blockchain project designed to simplify The process of deploying RollApp is described. RollApps are application-specific Rollups, and the security and agreed-upon application state of RollApps is maintained by the Dymension settlement layer, which requires RollApp orderers to stake DYM tokens to participate as part of the ecosystem.

**Espresso:**Espresso Sequencer supports Layer2 decentralization. It handles the decentralized ordering and data availability of Rollup transactions, acting as a middleware between Rollup and its underlying Layer1 platform. Espresso Sequencer is designed as a platform on which any zk-VM or optimistic VM can be deployed. Finally, Espresso can also act as an interoperability layer by replicating zk-VM and optimistic VM to multiple Layer1s simultaneously.

Decentralized sequencer nodes can process multiple Rollup programs at the same time and use tokens as incentives. Sorting transactions and creating blocks on different chains also makes cross-chain Rollup more secure.

Advantages and Challenges of RaaS

In the future, multi-chain and multi-Rollup will be a major trend in the encryption industry. As more and more projects become available, they will also look for public chains with higher performance, lower costs, and even some customized services. The development of RaaS lays the foundation for this foundation.

**First, from the perspective of customization. **RaaS modularizes Rollup, allowing developers to build and use Rollup-based applications more flexibly to meet project-specific business needs, thereby bringing more innovations to the entire ecosystem.

**Secondly, from a performance point of view, as a Layer 2 solution, Rollup technology itself can improve the throughput of the Ethereum network and reduce costs. **RaaS can ensure that developers can safely deploy applications while reducing costs to the greatest extent.

**Finally, from the perspective of business model, the development prospect of RaaS is very broad. **With the continuous growth of applications on the chain, the congestion problem of the Ethereum main network will become more serious, so the demand for RaaS will also increase.

Of course, Rollup itself develops slowly under the limitation of technical conditions, and the RaaS track is in the early stage. For example, issues such as security, centralization and bridging vulnerabilities, and liquidity fragmentation. However, with the advancement of technology, Rollup is also constantly improving. The main thing is whether the project can be landed and realized in the future. With the help of RaaS, Rollup has also continued to develop, achieving a major explosion in the track and ecology.