What does Polygon's release of CDK mean in the midst of the L2 battle?
People often compare Polygon to a Swiss Army knife, gathering various blade solutions on one handle, while the CDK is like the invisible spring inside the knife for the user.Author: Fu Ruo, OdailyNews
Editor: Hao Fangzhou, OdailyNews
In the public chain wars a few years ago, one of the key tasks for various L1 chains to attract developers and promote ecological prosperity was to develop new technical solutions to lower the development threshold, while enabling interconnectivity among ecological applications and forming network effects.
Today, we are witnessing a new round of competition centered around Ethereum and EVM-compatible chains, with L2 as the main competitor.
Among them, Arbitrum, Optimism, Starknet, and zkSync are the "big four" with the best audience appeal. Any progress in technology, cooperation, etc. (especially token airdrops) becomes a focal point of industry attention.
With the overall technical roadmap now set, the "big four" are more about adapting to the needs and habits of different developer groups, making slight improvements and adding "medium-sized" support solutions, with few exciting "major releases."
Last week, Polygon Labs released a software tool called the Chain Development Kit (CDK), which allows developers to create L2 solutions supported by zero-knowledge proofs for Ethereum. L2s deployed using its CDK will be able to connect to a shared ZK bridge, enabling interoperability. This tool will be part of the Polygon 2.0 roadmap set to launch next year.
This caught the attention of Odaily Planet Daily.
Polygon CDK is the spring in the Swiss Army knife
Polygon CDK (Chain Development Kit, named in line with SDK) is an open-source framework designed to assist developers in quickly deploying Ethereum-based L2s. It provides a modular environment that allows developers to create specific application chains based on specific needs or smoothly transition existing L1s to L2s. The following diagram illustrates the technical architecture of Polygon 2.0:
As shown in the diagram, in the era of Polygon 2.0, chains developed based on CDK will be on the same level as Polygon PoS and Polygon zkEVM, sharing Ethereum's security through zk proofs.
The design goal of CDK is to provide flexibility and customizability. Developers can choose VM, operating modes, data availability solutions, sequencer types, Gas tokens, etc., according to their needs. For example, they can choose between Validium or zkEVM to ensure transaction security, the degree of decentralization of the sequencer, and the localization of DA. (Note from Odaily Planet Daily: Currently, Polygon CDK only supports building with Validium.)
The official statement indicates that every chain created with CDK is interconnected, ensuring near-instant finality, unlimited scalability, and a unified liquidity pool. This will need to be validated in practice next year.
The above image reflects the functions of different components in Polygon CDK:
Sequencer: Optional centralized or decentralized.
DA (Data Availability): The DA layer is managed by a Data Availability Committee (DAC). The DAC's task is to ensure the secure and reliable management of off-chain data. To enhance scalability, the DAC plays a key role in offloading significant computational work and data storage off-chain, thereby reducing the burden on the L1 mainnet.
Validium: A solution for processing transactions that uses off-chain data availability and computation, separating transactions from the Ethereum mainnet. Unlike traditional Rollups, Validium does not store transaction data on the L1 network but generates zk proofs and publishes them as validity proofs. This approach ensures data integrity while optimizing scalability and cost.
The release of Polygon CDK signifies that Polygon's multi-chain layout is about to take shape—Ethereum as the core ensuring security, with its PoS, supernets, zkEVM, and CDK L2 covering various application development needs, and different chains and L2s based on Polygon providing unified proofs for verification through aggregated proof layers, enhancing interoperability between different networks.
Polygon is often likened to a Swiss Army knife, gathering various blade solutions in one handle, and the CDK is like the invisible spring inside the knife for the user.
Can Polygon CDK break through in the L2 stack?
Perhaps some may notice that the problem-solving approach of Polygon CDK is similar to that of Optimism's OP Stack: parallelizing scenario-specific application chains to build an L2 multi-chain interaction group centered around Ethereum. (Note from Odaily Planet Daily: Some other L2s extend to L3 with themselves at the center.)
This approach offers high composability, low development difficulty, and ease of forming network effects, which is beneficial for competing for the developer market.
Do you remember that after the release of OP Stack, it collaborated with well-known projects like Coinbase, BNB Chain, and Worldcoin? It can be said that OP gained an advantage in the stack competition.
The advantage of Polygon CDK over OP Stack lies in the DA layer's ability to choose data storage and computation for offline operations rather than placing them on Ethereum, while ensuring decentralization and security through the DAC, thus reducing the burden on Ethereum. Additionally, choosing zk proofs avoids OP's old problem of the 7-day waiting period caused by anti-fraud proofs.
Overall, the model of Polygon CDK draws from the different characteristics of the OP and ZK camps, and its resource integration and marketing capabilities are also impressive.
Of course, it is still too early to conclude who will be the final winner in the L2 battle. Technical solutions are just paving the way; the vision of a big city relies on landmark buildings (popular projects), just like Terra did for the development of the Cosmos ecosystem. Last month, the excitement surrounding the launch of the Base mainnet gave OP Stack a wave of attention in this city-state game. It remains to be seen what kind of giant Polygon's CDK can support.
