Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko stated on the 26th that through the integration of Wormhole Eigenlayer, Solana has the potential to become a second-layer (L2) solution for Ethereum, strongly implying the possibility of interoperability between the two blockchains.
Yakovenko’s statement was in response to a tweet by Steven Goldfeder, co-founder of Arbitrum, which pointed out that L2 solutions for Ethereum (such as Arbitrum, Aztec, and Polygon) are Ethereum. Yakovenko responded by stating that with the support of Wormhole Eigenlayer, Solana can become Ethereum’s L2. He stated:
According to Yakovenko, this integration between Solana and Ethereum will further develop after the scalability upgrade of danksharding, making it possible for Solana blocks to be submitted to Ethereum’s data verification bridge contract. Goldfeder commented that if Solana can settle on Ethereum, it would be a significant advancement.
Furthermore, Yakovenko’s comments have sparked extensive discussions on the technical details and implications of this integration. Chainlink community ambassador ChainLinkGod.eth raised a question about what would happen if Ethereum experiences a blockchain reorganization (reorg), and whether L2 networks built on top of it would also reorganize. He also raised a potential issue of double spending, where if Solana does not synchronize reorg with Ethereum, users could potentially receive additional ETH from the bridge contract. In this case, ChainLinkGod.eth believes this is why Solana is not considered an Ethereum L2, even if all block data is submitted to Ethereum and verified by the bridge contract.
Yakovenko clarified that Solana will only mint wrapped versions of tokens after Ethereum achieves full finality, thus resolving the potential issue of double spending. Regarding the view that Solana should not be considered L2 if it does not follow Ethereum’s reorg, he believes it should be determined by social consensus rather than explicitly defined in the bridge contract. He emphasized that using such a subjective standard to define L2 is unreasonable.
Can Ethereum be Solana’s L2?
As early as July 2nd, Anatoly Yakovenko even suggested that Ethereum could become Solana’s L2. He believes that this integration is not as far-fetched as people imagine. Yakovenko explained that L2 scaling solutions essentially provide one-way security for bridge protocols. In this definition, he believes that Ethereum being Solana’s Layer 2 means that holders of SOL assets will have finality guarantees, allowing them to safely exit back to Solana even in cases of double spending or invalid state transitions.
To achieve this setup, all Ethereum transactions would need to be submitted to Solana and a Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) root would serve as evidence for achieving consensus on the network state. Additionally, a bridge timeout mechanism would be required to identify and resolve potential failures within the bridge protocol.
Yakovenko also emphasized the limitations and potential risks associated with this integration. For example, while holding SOL assets on the Ethereum blockchain is safe, lending them out or maintaining positions on them is not. One major risk is the possibility of Ethereum failures or social consensus forks within the Ethereum network. In such cases, Solana assets held on Ethereum may become separated from the consensus fork, rendering them essentially worthless.
In summary, Yakovenko’s stance reflects a broader view of what constitutes a second-layer solution, challenging traditional boundaries and proposing a more fluid and interconnected blockchain ecosystem.