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Is the Layer2 Rollups project worth billions?

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OP and ARB, the two largest Ethereum expansion tokens, have a combined market cap of more than $2 billion. What do these tokens do? Do their use cases justify such high valuations?

原文标题：《 Rollups 项目接连发币，数十亿美元的估值合理吗？》

The Defiant

Mary Liu is a BitpushNews

继 Optimism 的 OP 后，Arbitrum 推出 ARB 使这两个最大的以太坊扩容类 Token 总市值超过 20 亿美元。一些投资者提出了一个问题：这些 Token 有什么用？它们的用例是否支撑得起如此高的估值？

Currently, the only function of the ARB and OP is governance, which amounts to the ability to vote on the direction of a project, but the right to vote is not fully guaranteed due to the recent confusion surrounding the Arbitrum Foundation AIP-1 proposal.

治理通常被认为是许多加密 Token 的关键价值主张。DeFi 最有价值的 Token UNI 价值 47 亿美元，尽管它唯一的独特价值是用于对 Uniswap 交易所的治理决策进行投票。ARB 现在已经加入了价值数十亿美元的治理 Token 行列，以太坊的许多其他扩展解决方案也即将推出，投资者开始怀疑这些 Token 的估值是否合理。

将治理作为 rollups Token 的主要用例，风投公司 Multicoin Capital 创始合伙人 Tushar Jain 在接受采访时问道：「你到底在治理什么，这种治理是如何运作的，为什么它价值数十亿美元？」

$20 billion fully diluted valuation

Arbs and OP, digital assets released by the Ethereum extension platform based on Optimistic Rollups solution, are the primary tools for enabling faster and cheaper transactions on the second largest blockchain network, measured by the value stored on each platform.

ARB's current market capitalisation is $1.6bn and OP's is $700m, while their fully diluted valuation (FDV) is more than $20bn.

Rollup Token 用例

Rollups 的 Token 既不保护扩展解决方案的网络，用户也不支付以它们计价的交易费用。

Jain 认为，这是与区块链网络相关的 Token 的两个最大用例，他的 Multicoin Capital 去年为其最新基金筹集了 4.3 亿美元。

Jain 说，有了 Rollups，以太坊的原生 Token ETH 就可以扮演这两个角色。投资者补充说，rollups Token 的第三个潜在用途是将它们抵押以换取成为验证者（validator）的资格，但这尚未启用。验证者是区块链系统中负责验证交易的参与者。

Potential future airdrops

The ARBs were distributed during an airdrop last month, and at least two of the major expansion solutions are likely to have two airdrops -- Starkware and zkSync, whose parent companies have both raised more than $2.5 billion. Polygon and Consensus are also working on rollups.

随着 Layer 2 之间竞争加剧的可能性，rollups 团队将面临更大的压力来证实其 Token 的价值。

No Token

虽然 Jain 不是全面反对 Layer 2 Token ，但对它们目前的估值持怀疑态度，Tezos 区块链联合创始人 Arthur Brietman 认为这些 Token 根本不应该存在。当 News Block 主管 Frank Chapparo 在 Twitter 上提问：「为什么 Layer 2 需要 Token 」？Breitman 说，「它不需要。」

Tezos just released an upgrade on March 29 called Mumbai, which enables developers to deploy Rollups for the blockchain without permission.

Arthur Brietman 对 The Defiant 表示：「Rollups 可以免费使用，没有特殊 Token ，没有限制性许可，不需要验证者批准，它是完全开放的。」

Can agreements make money?

To be sure, this is not to say that there is no on-chain demand for Rollups. L2BEAT, a data provider, shows that Tier 2 transactions significantly outpaced Ethereum last year.

估值数十亿美元，仅有治理功能，Layer2 Rollup 发币真的有必要吗？

rollups not only offer utility, but they may already be profitable. A dashboard developed by Kofi, a former partner at 1confirmation, a venture-capital firm, shows growing profits from expanded solutions since July.

估值数十亿美元，仅有治理功能，Layer2 Rollup 发币真的有必要吗？

至关重要的是， Token 如何获得潜在利润仍不清楚。

Kofi said in an interview that the dashboard does not include costs that are not captured on the blockchain. Based on these down chain costs, rollups may not be profitable overall.

David Mihal, an engineer who developed The data platform CryptoStats, told The Defiant that revenue was coming partly from two sources, both of which are currently captured by software components known as "Sequencer".

The sequester is responsible for summarizing the user's transactions and submitting them to Ethereum's main network. Its two sources of revenue are the user's transaction costs, called "gas costs," and the maximum extractable value (MEV), a complex subdomain of the blockchain space where the validator, or in this case the sorter, reorders or remixes the transactions waiting to be processed.

"There's a lot of money behind MEVs," says Mihal.

Decentralized sequencer

Currently, Arbitrum and Optimism sequencers are controlled by the company that developed the solution, according to the white paper document. In short, they are centralized.

去中心化定序器可能是 Rollups Token 捕获利润最有可能的方法。

Rollups 仪表板的开发者 Kofi 表示，如果 Rollups 能够去中心化其定序器，ARB 和 OP 等 Token 可以获得额外的效用。

去中心化定序器将使用户能够通过「质押」（即暂时锁定 Rollups 的 Token ）参与其操作，这反过来会将来自交易费用和 MEV 的部分收入转嫁给 Token 持有者。

Arbitrum and Optimism both expressed in their documentation that they plan to decentralize their sequencers.

Jain said the key reason the two rollups started without a decentralized sequencer was that it was "technically very difficult." "As soon as you try to decentralize them, you run into the same problems you ran into when you extended Layer 1," he says.

Resist regulatory risks

Layer 2 项目发行所谓的"公平"治理 Token 的另一个原因可能是：加密行业在 2023 年进入了一个极具挑战性的监管环境，具有盈利目的的 Token 有可能引起监管机构的注意。

加密领域知名研究员 Polynya 表示，虽然 rollups 的 Token 可能不是必不可少的，但它们至少是有用的。

Polynya 称：「他们不一定需要 Token，但它使去中心化治理、所有权和升级变得更容易，所以我希望大多数 L2 都有一个」研究人员补充说，基金会可以使用 Token 进行赠款和其他激励，并帮助 L2 去中心化其定序器。

展望未来，Jain 认为，rollups 将基本上从以太坊中分离出来，以太坊是目前负责保护扩展解决方案的区块链。投资者表示，这将来自项目自己的 Token 持有者，因为他们试图通过其数字资产获取更多价值。

"" I think this battle will come in a year or two, that's my guess, and once the competitors become numerous enough, they'll start wanting other things, like a spin-off from the Ethereum ecology," "he said.