Recently studying Ethereum's scaling solutions, I found that the Rollups technology direction is really underestimated.

Everyone knows the core issues Ethereum faces—high Gas fees and slow transaction speeds. The fundamental reason is that Ethereum can only process 15 transactions per second, which is far from enough in an ecosystem with hundreds of DeFi protocols and millions of users competing to use it. The result is network congestion, skyrocketing fees, and ordinary users simply can't afford to use it.

But there's a dilemma here. If we directly increase the main chain's processing capacity, the hardware costs required would be extremely high, ultimately leading to greater centralization of Ethereum, which goes against its original intention. So the community consensus is to pursue Layer 2 scaling solutions, and Rollups are among the most promising technologies.

Simply put, the logic of Rollups is to move computation outside the main chain and then bundle the results back to the main chain for verification. This way, both speed and cost are improved. In theory, Rollups can increase TPS from 15 to over 1000, and reduce Gas fees from around 4,500 directly down to about 300.

However, there are two competing technical routes for Rollups.

Optimistic Rollups use a "fraud proof" mechanism. It's straightforward—assume the data is correct first, then give others a window of time to report fraud. If someone finds an issue, both parties must deposit collateral to verify on the main chain. Optimism and Arbitrum are representatives of this route and are already running on mainnet. But this solution has a fatal flaw—confirmation times are too long, sometimes taking up to two weeks to fully confirm a transaction.

ZK-Rollups use zero-knowledge proof technology, which is a completely different approach. They perform calculations off-chain and generate a mathematical proof that is sent back to the main chain, which can verify it instantly without waiting periods. In theory, following this route is the ultimate solution for Rollups. Projects like Loopring, Hermez, and ZK-sync are exploring this.

However, ZK-Rollups also have issues—namely, incompatibility with EVM, meaning existing Ethereum applications would need to rewrite their code to migrate. The ZK-sync team is working on solving this problem. If successful, Rollups technology could truly change the game.

What's most interesting is that Ethereum's entire roadmap is actually centered around Rollups. The next upgrade after the merge is data sharding, which is essentially designed to accelerate Rollups. So, Rollups are not just a scaling solution—they have already become the core of Ethereum's future development.

Once Rollups mature, the threshold for Ethereum DeFi will be greatly lowered, and thousands of new users and developers will flood in. This is not just a technical upgrade; it could be the next explosive growth point for the Ethereum ecosystem.