China’s COVID Lockdown Inspired Ethereum L2 Taiko
Key takeaways
- China's lockdown censorship during the COVID-19 pandemic inspired the emergence of Taiko, an Ethereum layer-2 rollup.
- Taiko's founder Daniel Wang shared his motivation for developing an unstoppable" decentralized platform amid physical restrictions.
- Taiko aims to highlight the feasibility of based rollups and overturn centralized signature-based ones.
China Lockdown Restrictions Inspired The Advent of Ethereum Layer-2 Rollup TaikoThe drastic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic triggered China's restriction and lockdown of some regions, including Shanghai, its economic capital. This move saw the birth of a new and rising Ethereum based rollup, Taika.
In a recent interview at DevCon in Bangkok, Taiko's founder, Daniel Wang, shared his journey and inspiration in developing the network.
According to Wang, China's lockdown motivated him to plan and develop the decentralized platform. He narrated that the government's restriction saw him confined in his apartment in Shanghai for almost three months.
During the censorship period, Wang felt the urge to relate to others without the interference of the authorities. This urge pushed him to conceive the idea of developing a decentralized publishing network.
Moreover, Wang noted that he designed Taiko to be ownerless' and unstoppable.' This means that the network will function without censorship from a central party or government.
Wang co-founded Taiko with Terence Lam, who is also the project's operating chief officer. They developed the network as a layer-2 chain and based rollup on the Ethereum blockchain.
Notably, Taiko uses validators from the Ethereum layer-1 network to execute its transactions instead of its sequencers. Also, the platform is open to anyone to seamlessly engage anonymously.
Wang stated: It's not going to be censored. Anyone can publish anything without revealing their true identity and the government cannot do anything. It's just unstoppable."
Further, Wang, who's also the CEO of Taiko, highlighted what distinguishes the network from other layer-2 solutions such as Optimism's OP Stack and Starkware.
He pointed out that though he infused a simple concept for Taiko's design, he also considered its functionality as a scaling solution. Wang explained that during the period of Taiko's development, some prominent layer-2 solutions required signature verifications.
However, Taiko eliminates traditional signature verifications and central control. Rather, it leverages the Ethereum blockchain to maintain security, scalability, and decentralization.
Wang mentioned that people or even the government could shut down other L2 rollups if the need arises. This made him emphasize the need for more solid technology to empower true freedom of speech. He acknowledged that Taiko functionalities considered these factors and remain outstanding.
Taiko Aims To Highlight The Feasibility of Based Rollups While Remaining OwnerlessMeanwhile, Wang indicated that the major focus for the Taiko network is a based rollup.
According to the founder, the project aims to reflect the feasibility of based rollups. It focuses on establishing the fact that based rollups, with full decentralization, can outperform centralized signature-based ones.
Taiko targets to eliminate the place of centralized components or central sequencers in based rollups. This makes the network to remain ownerless," according to Wang.
Wang said he's open to copycats as long as they only copy his code and share their improvements with him.
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