Ethereum's Based Rollups: A New Approach to Scalability

Based rollups are an emerging solution to the scalability problem on Ethereum. Unlike traditional rollups, which rely on a central sequencer to order transactions, based rollups use Ethereum's own block proposers to sequence L2 batches.

This approach has several benefits, including removing the unilateral power of a single sequencer and inheriting Ethereum's proposer set for liveness. However, it also introduces new challenges, such as UX tradeoffs in terms of latency and reorg risk.

One key example of based rollups is Taiko, a ZK rollup that recently experienced a security incident on its cross-chain bridge. The incident highlighted the importance of robust proofs and bulletproof bridges, even with based sequencing.