Native Rollups: the Future of Ethereum L2 Architecture
Gelato Team
•
May 30, 2025
Previous articles in this series:
TL;DR
What are Native Rollups? Native Rollups are a new Ethereum scaling model proposed by Justin Drake. They use Ethereum's built-in execution engine via the EXECUTE precompile, eliminating the complex custom verification systems that current rollups rely on.
What is the EXECUTE precompile and why is it important? This core innovation lets rollups automatically inherit future EVM upgrades and ensures alignment between L1 and L2 execution. It compresses complex rollup logic into a single call that validators can re-execute or verify using zk-proofs.
How are they different from Optimistic and ZK Rollups? Unlike current rollups that require thousands of lines of custom code and centralized fallback mechanisms, Native Rollups use Ethereum’s core engine directly. They validate state transitions via re-execution (simple but compute-heavy) or SNARKs (efficient but complex), starting with re-execution until zk tech matures.
What role does Attester-Proposer Separation (APS) play? APS separates beacon proposers (consensus) from execution proposers (block execution), giving execution proposers a full 12 seconds to generate SNARK proofs. Backup "altruistic provers" fill gaps when needed to ensure liveness. But it’s important to note that the latest Same-Slot Proof design eliminates altruistic prover dependencies through self-proving blocks and no-op execution fallbacks.
How does stateless verification reduce validator overhead? Validators rely on transaction-included state proofs rather than storing the full blockchain state. This shifts validation from a storage-heavy to a computation-focused process while preserving trustlessness.
Why are Native Rollups Ethereum's scaling endgame? They blur the lines between L1 and L2, enabling seamless cross-rollup interaction and extending Ethereum’s security guarantees to L2s. While deployment likely won’t happen before 2026 due to gas limits and data overhead, they represent Ethereum’s long-term, unified scaling vision.
Introduction
Today's EVM-equivalent rollups are fundamentally insecure and complex. They require thousands of lines of custom code for fraud proof games or SNARK verifiers that likely contain vulnerabilities, particularly within proving circuits, where incorrect opcode implementations can result in invalid state transitions being cryptographically accepted as correct. To compensate, most rollups rely on centralized sequencing and security councils as safeguards...
What are Native Rollups and how they’re the solution
Native Rollups represent a game-changing approach... To understand how Native Rollups achieve this dramatic simplification, we need to examine the technical foundation that makes it all possible: the `EXECUTE` precompile.
Optimistic Native Rollups vs ZK Native Rollups
Optimistic Native Rollups can use cheap data availability like Celestia...
Technical Architecture
The `EXECUTE` precompile function is designed to expose the Ethereum L1 execution engine to applications...
State transition and stateless verification
State transition is the process of moving from one blockchain state to another...
Why is stateless verification important for Native Rollups?
Stateless verification enables efficient validation of state transitions...
How Ethereum Consensus Works Today
Before diving into Attester-Proposer Separation (APS)...
Understanding Attester-Proposer Separation
With APS, instead of beacon proposers getting execution rewards when it's their turn...
How APS is crucial for Native Rollups
APS enables one-slot delayed execution...
What is Delayed Execution
Delayed Execution is a proposed enhancement...
What is One-Slot Delayed Proof Generation
Now that we understand how delayed execution and APS provide the timing structure...
The Same-Slot Proof Solution
Recent developments in Native Rollup architecture address these concerns...
The Timing Challenge
Current zk rollups face intense pressure...
Benefits of Native Rollups and Implementation Path
Native Rollups are the endgame for Ethereum’s L2 scaling roadmap...
The Future Ecosystem: Ethereum as the Security Exporter
For critical financial applications and high-value assets, Ethereum's settlement layer continues to offer unmatched security guarantees...
----------
For developers looking to integrate their applications with Gelato Web3 Services, check out Web3 Functions, Relay, and VRF! Visit our Discord server for developer support and engagement, and stay updated with the latest developments by following us on X.
Definitions
What is an Altruistic Prover? Backup actors in the proof-generation process who step in to generate and submit proofs when primary provers are delayed or fail.
What is a Based Sequencer? A rollup transaction ordering system that derives its sequencing rights directly from Ethereum Layer 1 block proposers...
What is a Native Rollup? A type of Ethereum Layer 2 that leverages Ethereum’s built-in execution engine via the `EXECUTE` precompile...
What is re-execution? A method of state verification where validators replay a rollup’s transaction trace to confirm that the resulting state matches the claimed post-state.
What is a Shared Sequencer? A decentralized network that orders transactions for multiple rollups at once, enabling cross-rollup coordination and reducing centralization risks.
What is a Shared Settlement Layer? A blockchain that acts as the final source of truth for multiple rollups...
What is SNARK Verification? A cryptographic method for proving correctness of computations.
What is Stateless Verification? A validation method where validators do not store full blockchain state...
What is an attester? Validators in Ethereum's proof-of-stake system who vote on the head of the chain and contribute to the finality of blocks.