Scalability
Last updated
Last updated
While Solana’s core infrastructure provides high speed and composability, the growing complexity and diversity of emerging dApps requires solutions tailored to specific needs like enhanced privacy, advanced data processing, and congestion resistance.
One common misconception is that Solana doesn’t need L2s when in fact the ecosystem already has a number of notable L2 projects. Please see this blog for a high-level exploration of these dApps. The scaling solutions that have emerged can be organized into three main categories: rollups, batchers, and Solana Permissioned Environments (SPEs). However, each of these present a unique set of tradeoffs and often diverge from Solana’s vision of a globally unified state machine and its commitment to preserving composability and liquidity.
A rollup executes transactions off-chain but submits state summaries and fault proofs to Solana for verification and settlement. This allows the rollup’s state to be challenged to prevent fraudulent behavior from the sequencer. Rollups are used by projects like Zeta’s Bullet L2 to run its perpetuals DEX and leverage Solana as a data availability and settlement layer. Despite their advantages, rollups inherently fragment state and liquidity as they create parallel execution environments.
Similar to a rollup, a batcher consolidates transactions off-chain. However, unlike a rollup, a batcher does not submit the resulting summary on-chain—instead, it executes the net movements on Solana itself. Although execution occurs after a delay, the final state on L1 is eventually consistent with that of the batcher. This design anchors the source of truth and security to Solana directly.
Projects like Code, the P2P payments network, and Cube, the hybrid CEX/DEX, use a batcher to aggregate transactions off-chain then execute them on-chain so that a user's funds are always on the L1.
An appchain or Solana Permissioned Environment (SPE) is an independent network that runs Solana code but operates with its own security and trust assumptions. As the name suggests, SPEs have a restricted validator set, which provides a controlled environment.
Pyth, the oracle network, along with several tradFi and RWA projects all utilize SPEs to power their applications. While suitable for specific use cases, SPEs and appchains operate outside Solana’s unified state, reducing interoperability and liquidity.
