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Awesome Layer 2 Awesome

Content

INTRO

Since in 2017 there's lots of hype in blockchain industry. Frankly speaking Ethereum and Bitcoin do have scaling problems: they do bring decentralization and transparent but transactions are really slow and expensive.

Many projects seek to solve this problem, claiming that they will have millions of TPS(transactions per second). But in the early 2019 we still can not see any those projects come real.

This is a fundamental problem of blockchain; it can't scale( if permissionless blockchain should have decentralization and security,I will explain it here). So more people are thinking about adding another layer on permissionless blockchain, that's what we call layer 2 solutions.

Layer 2 solutions are not a single project, it contains several type of solutions: some to scale payment, some are used for scaling smart contract, and some to do computation off chain. But one feature they are the same: move most of the work off chain and use permissionless blockchain as anchors to ensure security.

Many people are working on those projects, most of them do not have any ICO, they just believe layered design is the future of blockchain. So do I.

Introduction to Layer 2 solutions

Blockchain(here "blockchain" refers to permissionless blockchain or public blockchain) technology is facing a trilemma, i.e. from decentralization, security and scalability, Only two of the three features could be obtained in a single blockchain. At the heart of the scaling problem is a tradeoff between "large user-base " and "large set of validators".

Public blockchains need all the validators reach consensus, to ensure decentralization and security, which leads to the problem: the throughput of the whole blockchain is equal to a single validator. Fundamentally, blockchains just don’t scale.

Now there are three scalability technologies are on their way:

  1. Each validator processes more transactions and improve the throughput of the blockchain, by introducing optimized blockchain protocols.(i.e DAG, Hashgraph, Avalance, etc).

  2. By using sharding technology, each shard process it's own transaction.

  3. Layer 2 solutions, which will move most of the work off chian. These will be the main topic of this repo.

For the first solutions, by optimizing the blockchain protocols, then only computer with better processing power can act as validator. For those home - use computers, they even can't download transaction if the throughput reach 5000 transactions per second. And storage comes to be a problem afterward.

As for Sharding, it's not mature yet. There are different issues concerning 4 level of sharding: from the computation level, network level, storage level and consensus level. These issues are also cross shard problem like train and hotel problem, those problems are not solved yet.

Off chain scaling solutions are mature technologies for scaling blockchain.It was first introduced by Lighting Network in 2016. From our perspective, public blockchain is so far the most efficient way to reach global consensus, but it is also the slowest database as well. Thus we should let blockchain do what they should do, i.e. ensure security and decentralization. Other features like scalability, privacy and so on could be done through off chain scaling solutions, to fit the demand of different industries and applications.

Here are two main considerations behind off chain scaling solutions:

1. Not every thing needs to reach a global consensus.

2. Public blockchain should just do what they should, to guarantee public verifibility.

Nowadays, there are several branches of off chain scaling solutions:

  1. State Channels

  2. Sidechain (Plasma)

  3. Off chain computation(Truebit,TEE)

We will introduce them one by one in the future.If you have anything to add here, know how to contribute

In this repo, we use “Layer 2” to refer off chain scaling solutions. The public blockchain which guarantees the security and decentralization of the network is called "Layer 1", these names are already reach consensus inside the industry.

We boldly predict that in the future there will be variety of Layer 2 developers, they will come up with their Layer 2 solutions according to real world demand and their understanding of the technology.

This repo is designed for the future of Layer 2.

Project contents

All the layer 2 projects is here, click the project and you will jump to the section of this project,all you need to know about this project will be there.

State Channels

Celer Network

Basic Information

Product/Document

Articles

Videos

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Connext

Intro: Connext is free, open source p2p micropayment infrastructure. Connext hubs are mainnet-ready and being used in production.

Basic Information

Product/Document

Articles

Videos

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Counterfactual

Intro: Counterfactual is a object-oriented generalized state channel framework lead by L4.

Product/Document

Article

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FunFair

Basic Information

Product/Document

Articles

Videos

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Geoprotocol

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Lightning Network

Basic Information

Product/Document

Articles

Those below are technical explaination about Lightning Network

Videos

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Machionmy

Basic Information

Product/Document

Articles

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Magmo

Basic Information

Product/Document

Articles

VideoS

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Perun

Basic Information

Product/Document

Articles

Videos

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Pisa

Basic Information

Product/document

Articles

Videos

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Raiden Network

Intro: The Raiden Network is an off-chain scaling solution for performing ERC20-compliant token transfers on the Ethereum blockchain. It is Ethereum's version of Bitcoin's Lightning Network, enabling near-instant, low-fee, scalable, and privacy-preserving payments.

Basic Information

Product/Document

Product:

Articles

Videos

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SpankChain

Basic information

Product/Document

Articles

We Got Spanked: What We Know So Far

Video

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Sprites

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Trinity

Trinity is a universal off-chain scaling solution, which aims to achieve real-time payments with low transaction fees, scalability and privacy protection for mainchain assets. Trinity now have the trinity-neo (based on Neo) and trinity-eth(based on Ethereum)

Basic information

Product/document

Articles

Videos

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Side chains

## BIFROST

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Liquidity Network

intro: Liquidity Network is a research-driven team developing NOCUST, a non-custodfial side-chain (or commit-chain) with strong security assumptions. NOCUST enables scalable transaction throughput and allows to build layer 2 decentralized exchange.

Basic Information

Product/Document

Articles

Videos

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Livepeer

intro: The Livepeer project is building a platform for video transcoding and live video streaming for the decentralized web. It's Beta version is ready.

Basic information

Product/document

Articles

Video

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Loom Network

Intro: Loom Network is building a fundamental infrastructure platform to help Ethereum scale.It allows developers to run large-scale social apps and games, and is the first Ethereum scaling solution to be live in production.

Basic Information

Tools and Docs

Built on Loom

Developer Tutorials

Articles

Videos

Podcasts

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MATIC Network

Matic brings massive scale to Ethereum using an adapted version of Plasma and PoS based side chains.

Basic Information

Products

  • Wallet

  • Dagger Get realtime updates from Ethereum Blockchain using Dagger

  • Zapier Integration Zapier is a web automation app and it gives you the power to integrate Dagger for Ethereum with hundreds of other apps to automate your work.

Articles

Others

OmiseGo

Basic Information

Product/document

Articles

Videos

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Plasma

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Plasma Group

Dedicated to the creation of an open plasma implementation for the greater Ethereum community.

Info

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POA Network

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SKALE

Intro: SKALE empowers Ethereum DApps to run high-speed, low-cost smart contracts in Layer 2.

Product/Document

Article

Video

LeapDAO

Intro:From Parsec Labs to LeapDAO, now this team are working on building Plasma on Ethereum.

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Tokamak Network

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Off - chain computation

ARPA

Intro:A Privacy-Preserving Computation Network

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AlphaWallet

intro: It's the Wallet Engine For The Web3 World Focusing on Usability, Scalability and Privacy

Basic Information

Product/Document

Articles

Videos

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Provable

Intro:Used to be Oraclized, now Provable.Slogon:The Provable blockchain oracle for modern DApps

Video

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TEEX

Intro:TEEX is a secure distributed computing platform which provides a Layer-2 solution based on blockchain. It builds a complete incentive model of computing resource sharing, which provides a decentralized, usable and flexible computing market for users, workers and service providers.

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Transmute

Intro: configures decentralized apps to work seamlessly with both public and private clouds. Use your existing development resources to deploy superior apps in minutes.

Basic Information:

Product/Document:

Article:

Videos

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TrueBit

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Research Institute

Finality Labs

Intro: Finality Labs is a community of researchers, devs, modders, hackers, and gamers uniting to experiment with and create new applications of cryptographic systems.

Basic Infor

Product/document

Articles

Videos

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L4

L4 Venture is building Web3(a decentralized web that removes middlemen and incentivizes users to contribute)

Projects:

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All About Layer 2

General contents of Layer 2

State Channel

Intro

Payment Channels

Course 1:

Course 2:

How to create a Dapp:

Panel Talk

  • State Channel Researchers Call #1:A telephone conference organized by Celer Network,in which several teams which are working on state channel communicating with each other. In this eposide, The first few calls will be about intro to every participating project and free-style Q&A.

  • State Channel Researchers Call #2:Counterfactual quick intro and discussion about data exchange fabric and connectivity oracle

  • State Channel Researchers Call #3:Battleship and PISA intro by Patrick McCorry;Connext intro by Arjun Bhuptani;

Discussion about:

Presentation about State channel on Devcon

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Plasma

Intro

Plasma Cash

Panel Talk

  • Plasma implementers call #1:A telephone conference organized by Ethereum Foundation,in which several teams which are working on Plasma. In this eposide, they discussed the purpose of the group, logistics, introductions, technical details, and more!

  • Plasma implementers call #2:In this eposide,they went over a number of common Plasma questions.

  • Plasma implementers call #3:In this eposide,they welcomed the Taiwan team--a group of talented engineers who came together to implement the Plasma MVP. also discussed Cosmos' challenges when exploring Plasma, a number of David's designs, and more fun stuff.

  • Plasma implementers call #4:In this eposide,they discussed some constructions which can be used to scale Cryptokitties! And of course update Plasma progress and have some fun technical discussions--including a new Plasma implementation from voltairelabs.

  • Plasma implementers call #5:In this eposide,they discussed Plasma Cash and potential designs and research topics which are worth exploring. :)

  • Plasma implementers call #6:In this eposide,they discussed designs for Plasma Cash with PoS and sharded validation, coin splits, exits which allow for invalid state transitions, a cryptoeconomics course, and more!

  • Plasma implementers call #7:In this eposide,they discussed designs which involve sparse merkle trees, bloom filters, and some more splitting! and welcomed the Blockchain @ Berkeley crew who are working on a great Plasma Cash implementation! Yay!

  • Plasma implementers call #8:In this eposide,they discussed a whole bunch of topics, from account abstraction to Plasma XT which uses cryptoeconomic aggregate signatures (CAS) for checkpointing! Tons of fun!

  • Plasma implementers call #9:In this eposide,they got to chat about simple splits in Plasma Cash, called Plasma Debit--a critical part of the Plasma Cash spec! Thanks Dan! Plus Vitalik explains instant withdrawals and Plasma with general state transitions :)

  • Plasma implementers call #10:In this eposide,they got to welcome Loom and Kyber to the call! Plus discussed an update to the Plasma MVP implementation which Kelvin is working on--a research version is pretty much complete! also cover Plasma Cash & debit atomic swaps, as well as Double-batched Merkle log accumulators!

  • Plasma implementers call #11:In this eposide,they celebrated Loom's release of their Plasma Cash implementation, discuss state channels which are opened on and off of Plasma chains, Plasma Debit with Dan, and wrap it up with some experimental zkSNARKs talk! Amazing times!

  • Plasma implementers call #12:In this eposide,they discussed a wide variety of topics! We start out discussing Plasma educational materials, then move on to BLS signatures, smart contracts in Plasma, light clients, and finally we get SNARKy!

  • Plasma implementers call #13:In this eposide,they started with discussions around nitty gritty Plasma Debit liquidity markets. Then talked about Plasma working groups to get the Plasma research done in person, plus hosting a LIVE Plasma call in devcon!chatted about Plasma XT & then Gnosis gives an awesome presentation on their batch auction Plasma construction. Fun!

  • Plasma implementers call #14:In this eposide,they started out discussing using collateral to reduce user validation load in Plasma Cash. This gets us into triple spends & eventually we talk about the importance and difficulty of analyzing the value of in-flight transactions. Then mentioned some core cryptoeconomic principles around past provability & future accountability.

  • Plasma implementers call #15:In this eposide,they dived deep into atomic swaps in both Plasma Debit and Plasma Cash. And discussed different implementation details and greifing opportunities. Next some fun discussions around watch towers!

  • Plasma implementers call #16:In this eposide,they started out by discussing Plasma Cashflow which enables fungible assets on Plasma Cash! then talked about Plasma Leap, the first attempt at a general EVM Plasma!

  • Plasma implementers call #17:Today Vitalik reviewed his solution to the tx history proof size growth in Plasma Cash! It uses RSA accumulators & is super stylish. We are nearly there... Then they discussed Plasma Leap (even more fun!)

  • The Plasma Implementers Call: it's a biweekly call which discusses the cutting edge of Plasma research. This is a great group of 9 people: Joseph Poon, Karl Floersch, Kelvin Fichter, Dan Robinson, David Knott, Xuanji Li, George Konstantopoulos, Alex Vlasov, & Vitalik!

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Integration

Abridged

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Alacris

The largest value to create in the Blockchain market is in playing the role that Microsoft did in the Personal Computer Revolution.

Alacris :Building the Layer 2 operation system.

Basic Information

Articles:

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ONDER

Zero-knowledge

Zero-knowledge is not layer 2 solutions but it still bring scalibility to blockchain.

Matter Labs

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StarkWare

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