Eclipse: The Innovative Path of Ethereum Layer2

Eclipse, as an Ethereum Layer 2 project, is innovative in its use of the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) as its execution environment. This design enables Eclipse to combine Solana's high performance with Ethereum's security, providing users with a unique experience.

Neel, the founder of Eclipse, worked in the traditional finance industry before entering the cryptocurrency space. He initially developed within the Cosmos ecosystem and later developed a strong interest in Roll-Ups. Neel believes that Roll-Ups have lower operational costs and less token inflation compared to Layer 1, which prompted him to start creating the Eclipse project in September 2022.

From the user's perspective, the experience of Eclipse is very similar to that of Solana, with fast block generation times, low latency, and high throughput. From a technical standpoint, Eclipse, as a Roll Up, ensures the correctness of chain execution through a proof mechanism, rather than relying on a committee or a large number of validators to vote and sign off on each state change like Layer 1 does.

In terms of proof types, Eclipse adopts the fraud proofs of Optimistic Rollup, but unlike Optimism and Arbitrum, it uses RISC Zero for zero-knowledge fraud proofs. In terms of data availability, considering Ethereum's high transaction fees, Eclipse has chosen Celestia as its data availability layer.

The Eclipse team once considered building a Rollup as a Service (RaaS) model but ultimately abandoned the idea. They believe that to make the RaaS business reach the profitability of SaaS, a large number of Rollups would need to be operated and high fees charged to each customer, which is not only difficult to achieve but also would lead to a significant decline in user experience.

Compared to Solana, Eclipse is more appealing to members of the Ethereum community. Neel believes that the advantages of Ether in economics and theoretical computer science can help address the spam transaction issues faced by Solana due to low fees. Additionally, as a Layer 2 solution for Ether, Eclipse offers lower migration difficulty for users, which is also one of its core advantages.

In terms of business model, Eclipse chooses to profit through sequencer revenue. Referencing Arbitrum's revenue model, this is considered a reasonable method for cash flow acquisition. For project deployment, if developers have already written Solana smart contracts, they can almost directly deploy them on Eclipse. For projects that have only written EVM contracts, they need to be rewritten in Rust.

Eclipse currently has 15 different decentralized applications deployed on its platform, covering multiple areas such as consumption, gaming, and NFT markets. The project plans to launch a developer-oriented mainnet early next year, after which it will gradually open to the public. As Eclipse continues to develop, it is expected to become an important bridge connecting the Solana and Ethereum ecosystems, providing more diverse options for Web3 users.