Ethereum’s Need for Speed: The Rise of RISE L2

This mini-research article is purely educational, not promotional. However, I’ve invested in RISE and felt it’s fitting to introduce you all to Rise L2 and why Ethereum needs it.

With Ethereum’s average TPS (transactions per second) at 15  and its Layer 2 solutions—Optimism and Arbitrum—averaging 100 TPS, it’s clear that’s still underwhelming compared to Solana’s 1.5k TPS.

To onboard millions of retail users into crypto, we need a blockchain that can handle high TPS. Solana’s real-time onboarding success, especially during meme frenzy periods, proves the point. Solana is onboarding retail users to crypto at a rapid pace, largely because its chain can handle max TPS. Of course, Solana has its own challenges, like centralization bottlenecks with fewer validators and higher emissions to support its expensive infrastructure. Yet, this approach has paid off for them.

It’s clear: people want fast, low-cost solutions.

The gap between Solana and Ethereum’s Layer 2 solutions shows the need for EVM-compatible L2s that can genuinely deliver high performance. For Ethereum to stay competitive, scaling to 100,000 TPS and beyond is essential.

Rise L2: Boosting Ethereum’s TPS

This is where Rise comes in—an Ethereum Layer 2 designed specifically for speed. Rise aims to push Ethereum’s TPS to levels that will meet the demands of onboarding millions, all while maintaining the benefits of the EVM ecosystem. Rather than incremental improvements, Rise is focused on delivering Solana-level speeds, but with Ethereum’s decentralization and security.

Vitalik’s vision for Ethereum, especially with the Surge, aligns perfectly with the need for scalability. 

The Surge is all about scaling Ethereum to make it faster and more efficient, without sacrificing its core principles. It’s a key part of Ethereum’s roadmap to hit 100,000 TPS, and Rise’s goal is to achieve this target.

Performance Challenges for L2s

Layer 2 solutions have made significant strides in scaling Ethereum, but their biggest performance issue has been data availability (DA). Thankfully, new solutions like Celestia, eigenDA, and Ethereum’s EIP-4844 have addressed many of these DA challenges.

With DA issues mostly solved, new bottlenecks have emerged: networking issues, execution limits, block size constraints, and storage input/output (I/O). These challenges make L2 performance an exciting and rapidly evolving area for development.

EVM Execution & Storage Limits

One major factor holding L2s back is that most still use single-threaded execution, limiting their speed to the processing power of a single CPU. Moving to parallel execution is difficult, as blockchain transactions must be processed sequentially. Additionally, Ethereum’s state storage relies on a Merkle-Patricia Trie (MPT) for key-value data, creating extra read/write overheads.

As the network state grows, this process becomes slower, further impacting execution speed.

The Path Forward: Optimizing and Scaling L2s

Other challenges, like block size limits, restrict throughput, and increasing them can cause Ethereum’s own limitations—especially with fraud-proof systems—to emerge. Moreover, L2s still depend on L1 structures, but their block production differs enough that new optimizations are possible.

Enhancing L2 interoperability and decentralization will be crucial for scaling these networks.

RISE Stack: A Step Forward in L2 Design

The RISE Stack builds upon the OP Stack, but takes it further by using Reth as its execution client, with a focus on performance.

L2 block production typically follows three steps:

1. Consensus on L1 transactions and block details.

2. Execution of L1 transactions and L2 mempool transactions.

3. Merkle-izing the state and execution results to finalize the block header.

Typically, these steps happen sequentially. However, in Rise’s case, one key innovation is the Continuous Block Pipeline (CBP), which moves away from this sequential model. Instead of waiting for consensus, RISE executes transactions continuously, increasing execution time from 8% to nearly 100%. This parallelization significantly improves throughput and efficiency.

Parallel EVM Execution: Breaking Limits

RISE tackles one of the biggest bottlenecks in Layer 2 performance—EVM execution. While most L2s rely on single-threaded execution, RISE employs a parallel EVM optimized in Rust, enabling speeds up to 22 times faster than standard EVM implementations. This opens the door for more efficient transaction processing and new decentralized app designs.

Smarter Storage with Versioned Merkle Trees

RISE also improves Ethereum’s state storage system by implementing a Versioned Merkle Tree, which is far more efficient than the traditional Merkle-Patricia Trie. This reduces storage overhead and read/write complexity, while still allowing scalability for full nodes.

The Design: Deterministic Execution with Optimistic Models

Blockchain execution must be deterministic. RISE’s pEVM builds on Block-STM’s optimistic execution model, detecting conflicts and re-executing transactions as needed. Gas payments are handled with lazy updates to reduce unnecessary dependencies, allowing for parallel execution without breaking consensus.

RISE also improves the mempool by pre-ordering transactions, reducing shared states, and enhancing parallel processing, similar to Solana’s local fee market but more efficient.

Versioned Merkle Tree & RiseDB

The Versioned Merkle Tree, inspired by Aptos but enhanced with LETUS, minimizes storage overhead and read/write complexity. Additionally, RISE employs the QUIC protocol for faster, lower-latency node connections, and uses just-in-time (JIT) compilation for flexible and efficient EVM execution.

The Future with RISE

RISE is more than just another L2—t’s a transformative leap in ETH blockchain scalability. By reimagining Layer 2 functionality through a parallel EVM and enhanced execution strategies, RISE aims to achieve an impressive 100,000 TPS, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.

This journey is just beginning, and the team is eager to engage the community as they work to scale Ethereum faster than ever. RISE is poised to not only match, but potentially surpass, the most advanced Layer 1 solutions, setting a new standard in Ethereum scalability.