The State of L2 Bridges – 2024 update

7 November 2024

The EEA is contiguous publishing the Ethereum L2 Working Group’s 2024 study connected “the Current State of L2 Bridges”, providing an updated survey of the L2 Bridge ecosystem.

The full report of 9 pages (PDF), edited by Dr Andreas Freund connected behalf of the radical includes a survey of L2 Bridges with a name, little summary, and span plan type. Note that it does not screen token bridges for L2s oregon sidechains wherever the transfers hap from L1 to the L2, nor L1-L1 bridges.

Summary of the Update

• L2 Bridges person go THE important glue of the L2 ecosystem to further L2 interoperability and businesslike usage of assets and applications crossed the ecosystem.
• L2 Bridges inactive person precise antithetic spot assumptions betwixt them, e.g., trusted vs. trustless bridges, and precise antithetic plan choices, e.g., lock-mint-burn vs. liquidity networks. The ecosystem has not coalesced down a ascendant plan paradigm oregon champion practices.
• The L2 Bridges ecosystem is inactive nascent and continues to beryllium successful a authorities of flux and growth, though the complaint of alteration has slowed.
• Users, successful peculiar Enterprises, indispensable inactive bash their owed diligence to measure which L2 bridges connection the champion risk-reward illustration for their needs.

  While inactive aboriginal successful the travel toward a standardized L2 interoperability framework, caller developments amusement that designs person started to favour Liquidity Networks oregon (atomistic) Token Bridges, with immoderate projects offering both. It volition beryllium absorbing to spot if the caller span plan paradigm pioneered by zkBridge that lone relies connected zkps volition go the ascendant paradigm owed to its flexibility and constricted spot assumptions, oregon if its method complexity volition forestall wider adoption. The caller enactment by the EEA Interoperability Group, EEA Distributed Ledger Technology Interoperability Specification Version 1.0, gives a usher connected preferred span designs and approaches without taking into relationship the all-important span liquidity question, arsenic this is an economical parameter related to trading and arbitrage, not a method one. However, it is highly applicable for assessing span hazard profiles arsenic was discussed successful the erstwhile report.