Ethereum researcher Justin Drake discussed a new rollup design called "native rollups" on the ethresearch forum. This design relies on Ethereum L1 validators for proof, contrasting with Optimism Rollup and zk-Rollup, which push the computational burden to L2 and rely on fraud or zk proof systems to generate state roots and proofs. Drake proposed introducing an "execution" precompile that transitions the EVM state to validate user transactions. The breakthrough of native rollups lies in their lack of expensive miner prover networks and complex governance structures, as the proof is handled by L1 validators, inheriting the security of Ethereum L1 and achieving "trustlessness." Additionally, native rollups enjoy "synchronous composability" and are not limited by the 12-second block time, as L1 validators only need to validate zk proofs.

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Odaily Planet Daily reports that Ethereum researcher Justin Drake has published a post on the ethresearch forum discussing a new rollup design called "native rollups." In short, it relies on Ethereum L1 validators for proof, meaning state transition functions and validation. This contrasts with Optimism Rollups (such as Optimism and Arbitrum) or zk-Rollups (such as Starknet and ZKsync), which offload the computational burden to L2 and then rely on fraud or zk proof systems to generate state roots and proofs, returning to the mainnet.

These proof system codes are heavy and prone to errors and other vulnerabilities, which is why Rollup sequencers (entities that order transactions on L2) have traditionally been centralized. Concerns about sequencer centralization have in turn spurred "based" Rollup designs like Taiko, which rely on Ethereum L1 validators to execute sequencing.

Drake's proposal suggests introducing "execution" precompiles (hardcoded functions in the EVM) that validate user transactions through EVM state transitions. Native rollups achieve the following two breakthroughs:
1. There is no longer a need to invest in and maintain expensive miner-prover networks and dedicated GPU hardware, as the proof will be handled and executed by L1 validators;
2. There is no longer a need to maintain complex governance structures, including trusted security committees to approve contract upgrades for EVM equivalence.

This effectively makes native rollups "trustless" by inheriting the security of Ethereum L1.

Finally, like based rollups, native rollups will enjoy "synchronous composability" and will not be limited by the 12-second block time. Thanks to the "execution" precompiles, L1 validators only need to validate zk proofs without executing the computations themselves.

Ethereum researcher Justin Drake explores the implementation of "native rollups" for trustless scalability.