• Celo Blockchain announces that it is transitioning from Layer-1 to the Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain.

• Some of the advantages include a material change in gas fee as well as enhanced compatibility. 

The organization responsible for building the Celo blockchain, CLabs, has disclosed its decision to return to the Ethereum ecosystem. This means it would move from an independent EVM-compatible layer-1 blockchain to an Ethereum layer-2 solution.

According to the report, a proposal discussion on Celo’s governance forum mentioned that in a bid to become an Ethereum L2 blockchain, the transition would leverage OP Stack as the architecture to remove the need for tooling monitoring as well as libraries composability via upgrades. This move would make it “easy for Celo developers to utilize the full gambit of Ethereum tooling/libraries.

It is important to note that Layer-1 and Layer-2 blockchains are quite different in design, architecture, and purpose. layer-1 blockchains are designed to be self-sufficient. However, Layer-2 blockchains are designed to enhance the performances of Layer-1 blockchains instead of operating independently. Another important difference is the off-chain data availability layer operated by the Ethereum node operators.

This is also protected by restaked Ether in addition to transforming validators into decentralized sequencers for Layer-2. The current decision is because Celo’s technology is said to owe a lot to Ethereum. Researchers have also observed that aligning the technology closely with Ethereum would be a viable path. 

Some Advantages of the Migration to Ethereum L2

The proposal reads:

Migrating from an EVM-compatible L1 to an Ethereum L2 will be a technical upgrade that does not impact the Celo ecosystem’s mission to create conditions of prosperity for all. In fact, we hope it can accelerate the path toward it. Through this proposed change, the Celo ecosystem can continue to foster a financially inclusive community and build openly in the spirit of Web3, bringing real-world use cases to the Ethereum ecosystem. At the same time, this proposal has the potential to substantially enhance the scope and impact of the Celo blockchain.

The implementation of the L2 proposal is expected to come up with several benefits including enhanced compatibility. Celo has been an EVM-compatible chain but needs a lot of work to be done on the backend. Moving to L2 architecture could also improve its security threshold by ensuring that the state on the Ethereum mainnet is anchored. There could also be a material change in gas fees.

There could be some changes that members of the Celo network may see. However, there would be no change in end users, and Celo would also continue to keep its core functionality as a governance tool for the Celo blockchain. According to the team, there would be a drastic improvement on the technical ground in the future.

Note that in the long term, we see this proposal as an intermediate step in continuously improving the technical ground Celo as a blockchain is built on. This work is all complementary to the Celo 2.0 roadmap 13 that cLabs set out in January which is working to make Celo a great place for other chains to roll up to. We also expect that as next-generation zk-SNARK proving systems mature (e.g. Nova 8), additional work will be able to upgrade Celo to a highly scalable validium-based zk-EVM. We sincerely welcome your engagement and are looking forward to your comments!

Recommended for you:

• Buy Ethereum Guide
• Ethereum Wallet Tutorial
• Check 24-hour Ethereum Price
• More Ethereum News
• What is Ethereum?