Blockchain infrastructure firm Conduit has introduced an innovative platform, enabling users to construct and deploy layer-3 rollups on Ethereum or other networks affordably, with deployment times as short as 15 minutes and costs as low as $50 per month.
The announcement, made on February 21 in an X post, marks a significant milestone for Conduit as it unveils its vision of “ultra high-throughput” layer 3s that promise to drive transaction costs even lower.
“Base and OP Mainnet are examples of general-purpose L2 networks. They’re cheap, fast, and power hundreds of different applications,” explained Conduit in a February 21 blog post.
“But some applications need even cheaper compute and dedicated blockspace. L3s allow apps to stop competing with others for blockspace and scale into their demand,” it added.
This latest development follows closely on the heels of Conduit’s similar solution for layer 2 rollups announced just a week prior on February 15. The entry-level $50 monthly plan allows for rollup deployment on Ethereum’s Sepolia testnet, while the more comprehensive $3,000 per month plan enables users to deploy on the mainnet, according to Conduit’s deployment app.
The Conduit app offers users the flexibility to select either Optimism’s OP Stack or Arbitrum Orbit as a rollup framework, with Ethereum, Base, Zora, or Mode as the settlement layer where rollup transactions are verified. Furthermore, users have the option to post rollup transaction data to either Ethereum or Celestia.
David Hoffman, a host on the Ethereum show Bankless, hailed the L3 additions as a “big day for the +1M rollups believers,” while Paradigm’s head of market development, Nick Martitsch, remarked that there has never been a more straightforward method to launch a rollup to date.
Paradigm research partner Georgios Konstantopoulos emphasized the significance of Conduit’s development, stating, “Don’t think people appreciate what is going on under the hood here.”
However, not all reactions to Conduit’s announcement were unequivocally positive. Some observers on X expressed concerns about the potential ramifications of the newfound ease of launching rollups. Pseudonymous DeFiLlama developer 0xngmi raised questions about the long-term sustainability, while another commentator, “h wonder,” highlighted potential issues surrounding discontinuation of payments or cancellation requests.
Although there is no deployment cost for the testnet plan, users signing up for the mainnet plan must cover a gas fee for deployment, which amounts to $8,150 or 2.79 Ether (ETH) at the current market value. Deployment of the rollup typically takes around 15 minutes.
Conduit is set to receive 7.5% of revenue generated from the layer 3 rollup, positioning itself as a key player in the evolving landscape of blockchain infrastructure.
The company asserts that these layer 3 solutions will drastically reduce Ethereum and layer 2 transaction fees by over 100 and 10 times, respectively, as it aims to make block space more abundant.