App centric-roadmap as a founder (not a degen)

I declare all rollups dead based on my conversations with fellow founders.

Why rollups are dead

Founders are building on a chain because of one of the three reasons

1. Grants. For some reason investors - firms and retail have valued rollup tokens making them flush with cash to give out. e.g. Lens moved from Polygon to ZKSync in return of $20M in grants.
2. Marketing. When developing on a chain that has otherwise few apps, the founders - often with lot of reputation - tend to promote new apps. It's a user acquisition gimmick. Founders ask, "If I build on Base, will Coinbase shill me? If I build on Solana, will Anatoly shill me?"
3. Airdrops. There is token allocated to early projects, some founders are chasing this directly. While others know that there are going to be airdrop farmers on this chain, so is a great way to get early users - albeit shitty farmers. Good enough to raise venture capital.

All these three reasons are not long term sustainable. None of these value the tech itself. So, there is no stickiness. Founders will move when grants, marketing and airdrop dynamics change.

Three ecosystems

Ethereum

Mass consensus is that Founders are leaving Ethereum. That is true. I have not heard of any founder in the last two years building on Ethereum Mainnet. But, I argue that's because Ethereum is the chain that's furthest out on maturity.

• (Grants) EF only gives out research grants now. Products like Aave, Uniswap are unlikely to get a grant today.
• (Marketing) Vitalik doesn't shill unproven products any more. So it's unlikely for founders to get any marketing just because they are building on Ethereum.
• (Airdrops) Ofcourse there aren't any airdrops or potential of airdrops on Ethereum.

Solana

Solana is in it's peak.

• Grants. Solana Foundation actively gives out grants still to onboard founders and companies. So a lot of Founders Build on Solana to get a grant from Solana Foundation or regional Grant Programs like Superteam. This is significantly different from 2021-22 when getting these grants were even easier just - by promising to build on Solana.
• Marketing. Anatoly and Raj actively promote new products still. Vitalik stopped after some time to be credibly neutral. Ofcourse founders can't promote every app forever. But today, Anatoly has that going for him. The number of apps is sparse enough for him to put his muscle behind it. Founders benefit, Solana benefits.
• Airdrops. Like Ethereum, Solana is past this stage - there are no airdrops or potential SOL airdrops either.

Base

Base is probably the newest real contender on the block.

• Grants. Base doesn't have a token (yet). Base hasn't reached this stage yet to be able to give out grants. Will it ever give out grants, given the lack of success of grants on other rollups - is unclear.
• Marketing. Base apps get or have the promise to get users' attention on Coinbase. "One day, when Coinbase starts pushing users on chain, they will promote my app".
• Airdrops. There is a potential airdrop some founders believe will come their way. However, to the best of my knowledge, there has been no such communication from the Base team.

Others

I see no reason at all - long term - to build on Arbitrum, Optimism, ZKSync ... Atleast Base has a CEX angle for user onboarding. But all others, what's the differentiation, what's the long term value?

Scaling

So how do we scale? Ethereum gets clogged; Solana has lower decentralization; Base has a trust assumption; You have to choose your poison.

My answer is Unruggable Servers.

Unruggable Servers

Each app runs it's own web2 server. Let people move money into the app and spend money ONLY on your app. After they are done, let them exit. This is a step function improvement over existing apps - letting users exit and take their money with them. Most web2 apps currently ask users to pay using apple pay, give them in app currency, but rarely do they allow users to convert their in app currency back to their bank account.

Simple architecture -

• Create an in app wallet
• Have a mainnet contract
• People send money to that contract from their Coinbase/Metamask wallet on mainnet to top up their in app wallet
• Mirror their balance on your web2 server
• Let users use their balance by signing transactions using the inapp wallet, for a web2 experience
• Here's the catch. Your server must publish on a rest endpoint list of all signed transactions.
• So users can withdraw money on mainnet without having to talk to the app

Sounds familiar? This is the Plasma construct.

This is net better than using Ethereum, Solana or Base - because the UX is just better. The key insight is to simplify UX with an in app wallet and yet having guarantees of security of your money. Use those chains ONLY for storing money and topping up app wallets.

Next steps

What we need is a consortium to agree on a standard for the Plasma architecture that is by design multi chain. It shouldn't matter that we use Ethereum/Solana/Base today. Tomorrow it might be a different mainnet that people agree on. Or maybe we always have multiple mainnets. We need a standard for

• Sending USDC/ETH/SOL on mainnet (easy to do)
• In app wallets should use standarized signatures, multiple allowed signature types (easy to do)
• Create a web2 endpoint spec for publishing transactions so that decentralized light houses can be set up for each app (hard to do)
• Create a standard for exiting an app to any mainnet without the intervention of the app

I would be intereted in setting up a working group for this.