UNCHAINED: Polygon’s AggLayer Wants to Be a Hub for Ethereum Layer 2s. Can It Succeed?

Polygon’s Agglayer aims to address the monolithic vs. modular blockchain debate with a decentralized protocol that allows chains to interact with one another.  

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Fountain, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Pandora, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron and co-founder Brendan Farmer discussed everything about the AggLayer, a decentralized protocol built by Polygon that enables fast, secure cross-chain interactions and allows different chains to use the same native bridge. This allows users to seamlessly move assets across chains in the AggLayer ecosystem. 

The AggLayer aims to unify blockspace so that it feels like a single chain, improving user experience. Boiron and Farmer also discussed the potential for Layer 2 solutions to scale Ethereum, the benefits of zero-knowledge technology, and the future of Polygon's proof-of-stake chain.

Learn more: What Are Zero-Knowledge Proofs?

Show highlights:

Background of Brendan and Marc and how they joined PolygonA brief description of what Polygon is overallWhat the AggLayer is and how it aims to enable the best of monolithic and modular blockchainsHow Brendan differentiates the AggLayer from its competitors, such as Optimism's Superchain or Cosmos and why he believes that zk-technology is such a game changerHow the interoperability experience gets better in such a system, according to Marc and Brendan, and what will become possible that's not nowWhich chains can use the AggLayer and how it works to improve security across chainsThe tradeoffs between the various types of zkEVM provers How projects should decide their architecture and when it would make sense to tap the AggLayerWhy projects should build on the AggLayer, including layer 1s, according to MarcHow Layer 1s can still join the AggLayer and retain their own consensus and sovereignty Why Polygon believes that zk-technology is the future of blockchain architectureWhy the Polgyon zkEVM suffered an outage on March 30Whether Layer 3s are needed to scale the Ethereum ecosystemWhy Brendan believes that EigenLayer is not a good fit for rollups to useThe transition of the Polygon PoS chain to become an Ethereum L2 using the AggLayerWhen EIP-4844/Dencun will go live on Polygon

Thank you to our sponsors!   Polkadot

Guests:

Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs

Previous appearances on Unchained:

Gary Gensler vs. Crypto: What Will the SEC Attack Next?

The Chopping Block: The SEC Is Attacking Crypto – Will Gary Gensler Succeed?

Brendan Farmer, co-founder of Polygon and co-lead of Polygon Zero

Links

AggLayer

Polygon: Aggregated Blockchains: A New Thesis

More technical Agglayer explainer

CoinDesk: 

Polygon Lands Astar Network as First User of New 'AggLayer’

Cosmos-Based Canto Blockchain Reverses Course on Polygon Layer-2 Plans, Unveils New Roadmap 

Zaki on the comparisons with Cosmos

zk-Technology

Polygon: Upgrading Every EVM Chain to ZK: Introducing the Type 1 Prover

The different types of ZK-EVMs by Vitalik

Unchained: Why Zero-Knowledge Proofs Are Critical to Ethereum’s Future

Polygon zkEVM

Unchained: Polygon zkEVM Chain Goes Down for 10 Hours

Blockworks: Polygon unpacks zkEVM outage and ‘emergency’ upgrade

Layer 3s

Unchained: Layer 3s Only Exist to Take Value Away From Ethereum: Polygon Labs CEO

0xCygaar on L3s and L2s

Potuz on the benefit of L3s

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Unchained Podcast is Produced by Laura Shin Media, LLC.  Distributed by CoinDesk. Senior Producer is Michele Musso and Executive Producer is Jared Schwartz. 

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