Solana co-founder says Ethereum could serve as a layer-2 solution for the network

Despite limitations and potential risks, the idea of using Ethereum as a layer-2 solution for the Solana blockchain is «quite likely», said Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana Labs.

In his view, with technical cooperation, Solana asset holders in a potential layer-2 network will have finality guarantees and will be able to return to the protocol even in the event of double-spending.

To implement the idea, it will be necessary to synchronize information about Ethereum transactions in Solana and send the Simplified Payment Verification root to confirm consensus among validators. And to address possible protocol errors, a «bridge timeout» setting is required.

However, Yakovenko noted that in such a scenario only storing assets on another blockchain would be safe. Lending and liquidity provision services pose greater risk, because an Ethereum outage would negatively affect the mainnet.

“Solana users can reclaim their assets, but their loans on Ethereum are worthless. Thus, if you borrowed USDC on Solana in Ethereum, the borrower can move it to the mainnet and recover real assets, but the lender would receive a junk token. In principle, like all USDC on the [fork of Ethereum Proof-of-Work], he explained.

Moreover, cross-network asset interaction may have consequences for DeFi protocols. While central limit-order books will continue to function steadily, automated market makers and lending protocols will face “constraints and problems” due to liquidity shortages, the project head added.

Earlier in June, the deBridge team announced the deployment of an EVM-compatible cross-chain protocol on Solana.

Earlier, the number of new addresses in the blockchain reached a peak since June 2022 — 304,640.