Matter Labs chief proposes creating an ‘Ethereum Supreme Court’

Matter Labs CEO Alex Glukhovsky proposed the idea of the “Ethereum Supreme Court”, which would serve as the final stage in disputes over smart contracts.

“The most important function of such a system will be protecting protocols from external political interference. This will become a powerful mechanism of restraint and will bolster Ethereum’s role as a powerful network state,” he said.

In his view, the risks of implementing smart contracts remain the biggest problem for layer-2 solutions.

According to the concept by Matter Labs’ co-founder, disputes and questions about emergency upgrades would be resolved by a hierarchical system of network courts. However, the final level would be Ethereum’s soft fork as an appellate instance.

In such a system, each protocol would have its own governance mechanisms for appealing to the network court. To lodge a “petition”, a deposit would be required, he stressed.

However, the developer acknowledged that for the system to function a strong public consensus is necessary. The initiative would also be costly, so the court would only hear “truly extraordinary” cases.

Glukhovsky noted that there are already several such solutions, but in his view they are ineffective.

“The Security Council could only temporarily freeze a contract, requiring token-governance approval for an emergency upgrade. But now a malicious majority of stakers could push an upgrade and steal all assets,” he explained.

Glukhovsky added that, together with the zkSync team, they would gladly fund research into this initiative.

Earlier in July, Matter Labs developers introduced a new proof system Boojum based on the STARK protocol.

Earlier the project created ZK Stack — a modular toolkit for building Hyperchains networks on top of and alongside zkSync Era.