Vitalik Buterin Revives Plasma - Ethereum Scaling Solution Thought to Be Forgotten

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin believes Plasma could complement existing rollup layer-2 solutions to further scale the world's leading blockchain network.

Vitalik Buterin Revives Plasma - Ethereum Scaling Solution Thought to Be Forgotten. Image: L2Beat

On November 14th, Vitalik Buterin published a new blog post titled "New Applications for Validium-style EVMs: The Return of Plasma," discussing a scaling solution for Ethereum that has long been neglected, known as Plasma.

Buterin also made Plasma the central theme of his presentation at L2Days during the Ethereum community's Devconnect conference in Istanbul, Turkey, from November 13th to 19th, 2023.

Plasma, a solution co-developed by Vitalik Buterin and Lightning Network programmer Joseph Poon, gained prominence when it was announced in 2017.

As explained by the Ethereum Foundation, Plasma is a sidechain connected to the Ethereum mainnet but operates with off-chain transaction processing and separate transaction block validation. Plasma chains also use fraud proofs to ensure transaction accuracy, similar to rollup layer-2 solutions.

Plasma chains inherit Ethereum's security without existing independently like other sidechains developed on the ETH platform.

Vitalik Buterin believes Plasma opens up another avenue for Ethereum scalability beyond Data Availability challenges faced by layer-2 rollups, providing projects with additional choices. However, this solution fell into obscurity during 2018-2022 due to storage cost limitations and technological constraints, restricting its application primarily to payment projects.

Nevertheless, the introduction of validity proofs (also known as zk-SNARKs) presents a new opportunity for Plasma to demonstrate its potential, Vitalik Buterin commented. In addition to addressing operational cost and payment application issues, validity proofs can make Plasma compatible with EVM and existing dApps on Ethereum.

However, Ethereum's co-founder also acknowledged lingering limitations with the Plasma approach, notably the inability to guarantee security for all users.

Concluding his article, Vitalik Buterin stated, "Plasma is a design that has been underrated." He emphasized that while rollup layer-2 solutions remain the "gold standard" for scaling Ethereum, Plasma offers a different approach to sidestep Data Availability challenges and enable validium projects to explore additional potential.

Following Ethereum's post on Plasma, OMG Network (OMG), a project utilizing this technology, surged over 33% to a five-month high on the evening of November 14th before market corrections on November 15th.

1-hour chart of OMG/USDT pair on Binance at 09:30 AM on November 15th, 2023