Cardano is ready to unveil its first permissionless Layer 2 (L2) solution, positioning itself ahead of other blockchains like Ethereum. The announcement was made through the Cardano Summit 2024 in Argentina, where Philip DiSarro, CEO and founding father of Anastasia Labs, detailed the forthcoming launch of Midgard, an optimistic rollup designed to reinforce ADA’s scalability and functionality.
DiSarro highlighted the unique advancements of Midgard via X, stating, “Not a single blockchain has managed to attain true permissionless general purpose rollups. At the top of the day, the highest ‘L2s’ within the blockchain space right away are all custodial multisigs.” He emphasized that existing L2 solutions predominantly depend on custodial multisignature schemes, which introduce centralized elements into the otherwise decentralized blockchain environment.
Cardano Is Ahead Of Ethereum, Solana And Sui
Midgard distinguishes itself by inheriting the total security of Cardano’s Layer 1 (L1) through several modern features. In contrast to Ethereum’s L2 like Arbitrum, Optimism and Base, Midgard operates with out a centralized sequencer, challenge response proofs, multisignatures, or custodians. As an alternative, it utilizes a permissionless operator set, trustless fraud proofs, and trustless deposits and withdrawals, ensuring that the inbox and outbox mechanisms remain fully censorship-resistant.
Via X, DiSarro highlighted Cardano’s unique local state Prolonged Unspent Transaction Output (EUTxO) architecture. “That is all made possible by Cardano’s unique local state EUTxO architecture. UTxO contention, small block size, local state, transaction determinism— all of those ‘problems’ could have led you to query why these design selections were made. Midgard goals to indicate you that these are literally not problems in any respect.”
The founder Anastasia Labs also further argued: “In truth, quite the alternative; they’re extremely powerful properties that, together, provide unique value that simply doesn’t exist in another ecosystem. These are, in fact, the core pillars that make Midgard even possible in the primary place,” DiSarro explained.
Midgard’s architecture purportedly leverages the inherent strengths of ADA’s design, making it unfeasible to copy on other blockchain platforms similar to Ethereum, Solana, or Sui. DiSarro asserted, “You can not construct Midgard on Ethereum, Solana or Sui. It’s a protocol that is barely possible on Cardano.”
The upcoming launch of Midgard is anticipated inside the following few months, with DiSarro confidently predicting its impact: “True rollups, L2 protocols that inherit the total security of the L1, are coming in the following few months. Our optimistic rollup, Midgard, is a primary of its kind permissionless rollup.”
The announcement garnered attention from inside the ADA community and beyond. Danogo, operating the primary decentralized exchange (DEX) trading Optim Bond tokens on Cardano, referenced DiSarro’s presentation on the Cardano Summit: “Only on Cardano you possibly can have a recent generation of Rollup that’s permissionless! There is no such thing as a multi sig that controls the Layer-2 like on Ethereum! Even Vitalik recognizes that now. […] That inherits full security from L1. And Cardano can have the primary L2 that’s fully permissionless in a couple of months!!!!”
Moreover, Charles Hoskinson, the founding father of Cardano, responded to the discourse with a meme on X stating, “This guy gets it,” signaling endorsement of DiSarro’s vision and the potential of Midgard.
At press time, ADA traded at $0.343.
Featured image from X, chart from TradingView.com