SYS Labs, the team behind Ethereum layer-2 Rollux, has introduced a series of new products to improve interoperability and overall DeFi activity across its hybrid Bitcoin and Ethereum consensus ecosystem.
Rollux currently has a total value (TVL) of $560,381, with almost all of this volume coming from the decentralized exchange PegaSys v3, according to data from DeFiLlama.
This next phase of Rollux will ideally bring more DeFi activity to the network. The team welcomes new DeFi applications including Chainge, a new cross-chain DEX; Agave, a DeFi lending protocol; and liquidity protocol Gamma, to name a few. SYS Labs will also integrate with LayerSwap, a cross-chain bridge, which enables transfers between centralized exchanges and DeFi protocols.
An Oct. 18 press release introduced the new protocols, but according to DeFiLlama, only Gamma has gone live as of Friday.
Despite being an Ethereum layer-2, Rollux is designed to use Bitcoin’s proof-of-work (PoW) for security and scalability.
Read more: L2s rooted in Bitcoin’s PoW can bring global scalability to blockchain’s core values
Bradley Stephenson of the Syscoin Foundation told Blockworks that by using Syscoin, Rollux can inherit PoW derived from Bitcoin miners while having proof-of-stake (PoS) finality.
“There is a large contingent of blockchain users who prefer PoW-based systems over PoS for various reasons, such as resilience to black swan events,” Stephenson said.
Stephenson added that the PoW and PoS debate is both a philosophical and a technical one.
“Simply put, we don’t believe it was necessary for Ethereum to pursue PoS when they could have simply shared Bitcoin’s PoW via merged mining without taxing additional mining resources,” he said.
Read more: Proof-of-work versus proof-of-stake: which is better?
Syscoin itself is also introducing a protocol called proof of data Availability (PoDA), which is designed to provide layer 1 security to the network.
The PoDA protocol is on Syscoin’s merged layer 1 chain, Stephenson explained. Despite similarities between PoDA and Ethereum’s approach to proto-dankhardening, there are some major differences.
“With PoDA, the summary evidence of the raw data is stored on-chain, while the raw data in its entirety is archived off-chain by all nodes that choose to perform that service,” Stephenson said. “This means that Syscoin can remove raw data from the mempool relatively often, and concise proofs allow nodes to remain lightweight, promoting decentralization.”