Vitalik Buterin publishes article discussing dimensions of connectedness to Ethereum

On Oct. 31, the Ethereum co-founder released an article highlighting the dimensions of connectedness to the blockchain network as being the security of withdrawing to Ethereum and security of reading Ethereum.

Buterin also notes a trend in Layer 2 projects becoming more heterogeneous and how this raises the question of the complicated tradeoffs applications are having to make.

For some, connectedness is important

Buterin shares that for some projects, high security and tight connectedness are important. While for others, something looser is acceptable in exchange for greater scalability. 

The report goes on to state that two crucial dimensions make up this connectedness, with the first being the security of withdrawing to Ethereum, encompassing the security aspects related to transferring assets back to the Ethereum blockchain. Evaluation is then based on two perspectives: the level of security provided and the extent to which different users or use cases can access the highest security level.

The second dimension is said to be a chain’s ability to securely read data from the Ethereum blockchain, based on the speed at which the chain can access Ethereum’s blocks, with a focus on finalized blocks versus all blocks, and the strength of the chain’s social commitment to address exceptional scenarios like 51 percent attacks and hard forks.

Rapid expansion over the last year

Over the last year, the Ethereum Layer 2 ecosystem has shown significant growth with the launch of the EVM rollup ecosystem, and Kakarot and Taiko, which continue to improve the network’s security.

At the time of writing, Ethereum sits at $1,796, an increase of 6.86 percent in the last month according to CoinMarketCap.