Blockchain infrastructure firm Conduit has launched a new platform allowing users to build and deploy a layer-3 rollup on Ethereum or other networks for as cheap as $50 a month and in as little as 15 minutes.
Conduit announced the launch in a Feb. 21 X post, making its case that “ultra high-throughput“ layer 3s will make transactions even cheaper.
“Base and OP Mainnet are examples of general-purpose L2 networks. They’re cheap, fast, and power hundreds of different applications,” explained Conduit in a Feb. 21 blog.
“But some applications need even cheaper compute and dedicated blockspace. L3s allow apps to stop competing with others for blockspace and scale into their demand,” it added.
The new features came just a week after Conduit announced a similar solution for layer-2 rollups on Feb. 15.
The cheapest $50 monthly plan allows a rollup to be built on Ethereum’s Sepolia testnet, and the heftier $3,000-a-month plan will enable users to deploy on mainnet, according to Conduit’s deployment app.
The Conduit app allows users to choose either Optimism’s OP Stack or Arbitrum Orbit as a rollup framework, with Ethereum, Base, Zora or Mode as the settlement layer where the rollup transactions are verified. Users can also have rollup transaction data posted to either Ethereum or Celestia.
The L3 additions were described as a “big day for the +1M rollups believers” by David Hoffman, a host on crypto-focused podcast Bankless, while Paradigm’s head of market development, Nick Martitsch, said there’s never been an easier way to launch a rollup.
✶ Deploying a mainnet rollup is now easier than deploying a smart contract
— Bertie (@bertiecorrie) February 15, 2024
In just a few minutes and without writing any code, deploy an @Optimism L2 w/ @CelestiaOrg underneath or an @arbitrum Orbit L3 through the @conduitxyz apphttps://t.co/IG9CGuD13z
“Don’t think people appreciate what is going on under the hood here,” Paradigm research partner Georgios Konstantopoulos said of Conduit’s development.
Conduit advertises that these rollups can be deployed “in just a few clicks” with “no code required.”
Some observers on X, however, shared concerns about the new ease of launching rollups. Psuedononmous DefiLlama developer 0xngmi said, “every shitcoin is gonna make its own rollup now innit?”
Meanwhile, another commentator, “h wonder” sees potential issues if users stop paying the monthly bill or request to cancel.
every shitcoin is gonna make its own rollup now innit?
— 0xngmi (@0xngmi) February 21, 2024
they making rollup deployment easier than launching a shitcoin pic.twitter.com/roWI6YWYjd
While there isn’t a deployment cost for the testnet plan, those signing up for the mainnet plan must pay a gas fee for deployment, which is 2.79 Ether (ETH) worth $8,150 at the time of writing. It takes approximately 15 minutes for the rollup to be deployed.
Conduit will also pocket 7.5% of revenue from the layer-3 rollup.
The company claims these layer-3 solutions will make Ethereum and layer-2 transaction fees more than 100 and 10 times cheaper, respectively, as it makes block space more abundant.
Cointelegraph reached out to Conduit for comment but didn’t receive an immediate response.
Related: The year of ZK-proofs: 4 layer 2s that helped Ethereum scale in 2023
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin previously argued that layer 3s could provide “customized functionality” to users’ on-chain needs in a September 2022 post.
However, he wasn’t a fan of simply stacking the same scaling scheme on top of itself.
But, “a three-layer architecture where the second layer and third layer have different purposes, however, can work,” Buterin said.
Magazine: Big Questions: What did Satoshi Nakamoto think about ZK-proofs?