2024 Recap: Tenderly’s Year of Rollups

In more ways than one, 2024 was the year of rollups. It was also pivotal for the Web3 ecosystem, primarily for Ethereum. 

In Q1, the Ethereum Dencun hard fork rolled out, immediately slashing the transaction fees and increasing the usability of Layer 2s while boosting the scalability of the leading network. This improvement has further strengthened L2s role as a critical infrastructure for addressing the long-standing challenges of blockchain scalability, transaction costs, and network efficiency.

At the end of last year and the beginning of this one, we published our 2023 EVM Network Landscape Report and Optimistic Rollup Network Report. With the help and valuable input from our numerous network and infrastructure partners, we gave an overview and analysis of the Layer 2 rollup networks and their role in shaping the future of blockchain technology while outlining our multichain thesis.

In the meantime, the rollup space has witnessed remarkable growth and diversification with an ever-increasing number of rollups being launched, Layer 1s moving to Layer 2s, established DeFi teams launching their own, and exchanges continuing to spur their onchain solutions. Each network introduced unique architectural innovations, targeting different use cases and developer ecosystems. 

Throughout 2024, we integrated more networks than in all previous years. With over 25 networks integrated this year alone, this speaks volumes to the growth of the Web3 ecosystem and rollups, confirming that they’re the way to go. At the same time, it’s also a testament to our efforts at Tenderly to expand the availability of our full-stack infrastructure and support innovators across the EVM landscape. 

The value of a full-stack infrastructure

As a full-stack infrastructure provider, Tenderly offers rollups, ecosystem chains, and their developer communities a complete solution for the entire development-to-production journey. With customizable development environments, scalable node infrastructure, and granular developer tooling, it allows teams to optimize their workflows, accelerate development cycles, and ensure sustainable growth for their products.

Offering seamless support for EVM-compatible chains, Tenderly can integrate solutions built on the standard OP Stack and Arbitrum Orbit within days. The integration of chains that deviate from the EVM is available but depends on the level of technical complexity. 

Nonetheless, the Tenderly integration process is fully transparent, with a dedicated network team available for any questions and support. Tenderly also covers all the costs of integration, while offering different integration tiers to suit the unique requirements of each rollup team or ecosystem chain. 

Key trends and Tenderly integrations

The most impactful change was the emergence and dominance of industry-recognized and now leading tech stacks and ecosystems, Optimism Superchain and Arbitrum Orbit, leading to a surge in the number of launched networks over the past year. The teams behind the two arguably first and most successful L2s created development infrastructure, tools, and standards that shaped the now-leading ecosystems.

Another important stepping stone that made launching a chain significantly easier was the emergence of multiple Rollup-as-a-service (RaaS) infrastructure providers. Conduit, Gelato, AltLayer, and Caldera have made deploying a chain a breeze and even provided the key elements and modular approach, enabling developers to spin up a chain in minutes. 

With core rollup components, infrastructure, and tools from partners, Conduit alone has deployed over 300 chains, capturing a significant market share in the total number of chains and TVL. Whether general-purpose, DeFi, gaming, social, or NFTs, OP, Nitro, or ZK stack-based, RaaS providers are scaling Ethereum, one rollup at a time.

In the meantime, infrastructure, essential services, and developer tools have dramatically matured since the early days. Numerous node providers, indexing services, oracles, wallets, identity tools, block explorers, and others now provide support to both networks and dapps. With RaaS providers consolidating their offerings and bundling these services together, we’ll probably see a convergence of them in the near future.

Superchain

Superchain showcased an incredible network effect, combined with its approach of sharing security, communication layer, and most importantly, its open-source development stack. In creating the horizontally scalable network of chains, Optimism has provided standards and an economic model that allows all the chains in its ecosystem to benefit from the revenue-sharing agreement. Lastly, by enabling all the Superchain members to contribute their code and aligning their economic incentives, it’s currently leading in scaling the Ethereum ecosystem.

Superchain attracted some of the industry’s leading companies and heavyweight teams, who decided to launch their rollups using the OP Stack, reap the benefits, and contribute to Optimism’s vision of scaling Ethereum. 

Superchain members account for 40% of all Tenderly integrated chains this year! 

Tenderly integrated the following networks built  using the OP Stack: 

• Fraxtal: Launched by the famous Frax DeFi team, Fraxtal is a modular, general-purpose L2 rollup that enables a wide range of dapps and L3 solutions to be deployed on top of the chain. The Frax team leveraged their DeFi experience, launching a new DeFi hub to attract DeFi teams looking to launch L3s with strong developer incentives and unique architecture.
• Blast: While not part of Superchain, Blast is built as a fork of Optimism’s Bedrock release. It’s the first native yield Layer 2 with built-in mechanisms for generating yield. 
• Mode: With its vision of a thriving, decentralized finance ecosystem, Mode features numerous incentives to developers and teams that decide to deploy their dapps, going from fee sharing, revenue referrals, and tools to bring DeFi to the masses. 
• BOB: Combining the security of Bitcoin with the versatility of Ethereum, BOB offers the benefits of both worlds. Launched as an OP Stack-based chain, BOB provides the tools to easily connect to the Bitcoin network and develop smart contracts to interact with it.
• Lisk: One of the oldest Layer 1 solutions and the first L1 to transition to an L2, the Lisk team decided to leverage OP Stack and Gelato’s RaaS to onboard the next wave of users to Web3 by focusing on high-growth markets.
• World Chain: Home to the Worldcoin project, with its vision of bringing everyone on-chain as the network of verifiably real human identities stemming from over 10 million users across 160 countries, World Chain is already making its mission to become the largest identity network a reality. 
• Polynomial: Designed to scale on-chain derivatives trading, Polynomial is the home to the famous protocol, leveraging all of the benefits of the OP Stack and Superchain to offer a CEX-like trading experience on-chain.
• Unichain: Making the biggest splash this year, Uniswap Labs announced its own L2 solution designed to bring together liquidity across chains and become a new home for DeFi. As the largest DEX in Web3 by far, Uniswap seeks to consolidate the Superchain liquidity, showcasing its devotion to the OP ecosystem.
• Sonieum: So far the strongest example of an established and traditional company, but also the biggest signal of the Superchain’s potential, Soneium is the official Layer 2 launched by the Sony Block Solutions Labs (Sony subsidiary), laying the foundation for the integration of blockchain technology to its traditional services and bringing Web2 users to Web3. Still in the testnet phase.
• Ink: Announced nearly half a year ago, Ink is the latest exchange-launched L2. Unleashed by the Kraken exchange, Ink is built to enable the on-chain experience for its large CEX user base and utilize its strong experience and expertise to contribute to scaling Ethereum.
• Swellchain: One of Tenderly’s most recent integrations, Swellchain is an L2 network that employs Proof of Restake and serves as a yield staking layer.

Orbit

Arbitrum Orbit is another ecosystem featuring a large number of chains deployed using the Arbitrum Nitro tech stack. While it shares many benefits with other stacks, such as Ethereum compatibility, chain interoperability, and lower fees, something that sets it apart is this year’s launched Arbitrum Stylus upgrade.

Tenderly is one of the Ecosystem Supporters and early partners making Stylus accessible.

Stylus provides tools for developing smart contracts in any language that compiles down to WebAssembly (WASM), including Rust, C, C++, and many more, opening the floodgates to developers outside the Web3 ecosystem. Tenderly supports Stylus with block discovery, execution, and simulations, with plans for deeper integration, tracing support, and Virtual TestNets compatibility in store. Although the number of Orbit chains we integrated isn’t comparable, we remain steadfast in providing full support to the Arbitrum ecosystem.

Tenderly full-stack infrastructure is, so far, available on the following Arbitrum Orbit chains: 

• Re.al: The first permissionless L2 for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), re.al is designed to revolutionize how people invest and build wealth by providing an on-chain platform for asset ownership and value creation.
• Apechain: ApeCoin DAO, the community of Ape token and NFT holders, launched its own Ape ecosystem dedicated Layer 3 chain on Arbitrum One, providing space for community-driven content and new dapps and use cases.
• Kinto: Prioritizing safety and security, Kinto is an L2 built using Nitro that boasts AML, KYC, and fraud monitoring features. The chain’s unique approach requires every user and application to be verified, and only verified users can perform transactions. It offers a Web2-like experience familiar to non-crypto natives.

Tenderly ZKs

ZK technologies have made great strides in 2024, transitioning from promising theoretical solutions to production-ready networks. 

The first ZK-powered chain we integrated was Linea, an EVM-equivalent zkEVM Layer 2 solution. Consensys launched Linea as a chain employing quantum-resistant lattice-based cryptography to generate zero-knowledge proofs. Early on, it tackled transaction speed and costs while focusing on privacy. The integration marked a crucial milestone in our commitment to supporting diverse scaling solutions across the ecosystem and opening new integration possibilities.

Our zkEVM momentum continued with Immutable zkEVM, a gaming L2 zk-rollup built on Ethereum. Built by the pioneering Immutable team and boasting the largest Web3 gaming ecosystem, Immutable tackles the challenge of ownership of in-game digital assets. This integration was particularly significant given Immutable's established presence in the Web3 gaming space.

Next, we integrated Taiko, a Type-1 zkEVM with a unique Based Contestable Rollup architecture. The network's commitment to maintaining full Ethereum equivalence while leveraging zero-knowledge proofs for scalability showcased the growing maturity of ZK technology. Our integration with Taiko enabled developers to leverage Tenderly on a purely decentralized, fully open-source, permissionless zkEVM.

During Devcon, we announced Tenderly full-stack infrastructure support for Lens Protocol's dedicated ZK-based rollup built on zkSync. Enabling developers to build social apps with a Web2-like experience, Lens is uniquely positioned and is the first zkSync-based network we integrated. This integration is part of a growing trend of application-specific rollups, particularly for social and content platforms requiring high throughput and low latency.

Hybrid & unique L2s

The L2 landscape has evolved far beyond traditional optimization and ZK solutions, giving rise to some hybrid and unique approaches. We integrated notable rollups and networks unique in their use case as purpose-specific appchains or in their architecture: 

• Concrete: The OP Stack-based appchain powering the creation of trading derivatives
• Morph: Consumer-oriented L2 that merges optimistic and zkEVM technologies
• Metis: L2 dedicated to community-based governance by combining optimistic and ZK technologies and featuring a unique decentralized sequencer
• Mantle: Growing DeFi ecosystem that brings together elements of both optimistic and ZK technologies in its hybrid design with unique architecture and security focus

These networks demonstrate the ecosystem's innovation in addressing specific scaling challenges while maintaining EVM compatibility. Our integration with these chains enables developers to leverage Tenderly's infrastructure while exploring these unique architectural approaches.

Layer 1s with Tenderly support

While 2024 was predominantly the year of rollups, with hundreds of rollups being launched with the help of ecosystem clusters, improved tech stacks, RaaS offerings, and comprehensive infrastructure and developer tools, we also expanded our Layer 1 network portfolio with several promising integrations:

• ZetaChain: The first universal L1 blockchain built for interoperability. It offers a unique omnichain approach, connecting multiple blockchains through a single framework.
• Sei: First parallelized L1 combining Ethereum standards and Solana high performance, addressing Ethereum’s scalability limitations
• Berachain: Proof-of-Liquidity (PoL) L1 introducing novel tokenomics and governance mechanisms
• Flare: High-integrity data ecosystem featuring built-in oracles and tools for data acquisition, designed for real-world applications
• Sonic: Fantom rebranded PoS L1, focusing on high-performance DeFi applications with their custom EVM implementation and attractive developer incentives

These integrations reflect our commitment to supporting innovation across all layers of the blockchain stack, ensuring developers have access to our tools regardless of their chosen platform.

Looking ahead: is 2025 rollups' Cambrian explosion?

As we look toward 2025, several trends suggest we're on the cusp of a Cambrian explosion in the rollup ecosystem:

1. Maturation of development stacks: The success of Optimism's Superchain and Arbitrum Orbit established proven frameworks for launching and scaling rollups, significantly reducing the barriers to entry.
2. Convergence of technologies: The lines between different scaling solutions are blurring, with hybrid approaches combining the best aspects of various technologies.
3. Application-specific rollups: More projects are likely to launch purpose-built chains optimized for specific use cases, from gaming and social media to DeFi.
4. Infrastructure standardization: RaaS, infrastructure, and tooling providers, including Tenderly, are creating a more standardized and accessible environment for rollup deployment and management.
5. Traditional industry adoption: Following Sony's lead with Sonieum, we expect more traditional companies to launch their rollup solutions, bridging Web2 and Web3.

As the ecosystem continues to evolve, Tenderly remains committed to providing comprehensive support for the full spectrum of EVM-compatible networks. Our integration strategy focuses on enabling developers to build, test, and deploy their applications across any chain, while maintaining the high standard of development tools and infrastructure.

The year 2024 has set the stage for unprecedented growth in the rollup ecosystem. With improved technology, established frameworks, and growing institutional adoption, 2025 promises to be an exciting year for blockchain scaling solutions. Tenderly will continue to be at the forefront of this evolution, providing the tools and infrastructure needed to support the next generation of Web3 applications.