If you have been interested in blockchain development for some time, you have surely heard of layers. But what are these layers in the blockchain?
If you want to find out, stay because we are going to tell you what they are and what functions they perform in the blockchain, and we are also going to explain to you what layers exist and what the differences are between them.
But before we get into this layering thing, you have to know a super important concept, and that is the blockchain trilemma .
Briefly, to remember what this term means, the blockchain trilemma is a problem that consists of three axes: security, decentralization and scalability.
When we are faced with the possibility of mass adoption of blockchain, it is theoretically impossible to maintain an acceptable level of these three pillars. Two pillars can be maintained, but not all three.
That is, for example, if we focus on security and decentralization, we lose scalability power. If we focus on scalability and security, we lose the level of decentralization.
This is undoubtedly one of the most important open fronts that must be resolved for this technology to finally be adopted on a massive scale.
Now that we have settled on this topic, we are going to start explaining, one by one, the different layers of the Blockchain.
Layer 1 Blockchains
First of all, we have layer 1 or layer 1 blockchains. These networks are the best known and most used in the Blockchain world. We are talking about networks like Bitcoin, Ethereum or XRP.
What you have to understand about these networks is that each one was created for a specific purpose, which implies that they cannot be modified or adapted to new situations or functionalities. Therefore, they are very complicated networks to scale.
Scalability is essential for the evolution and adoption of Blockchain technology. One of the solutions to this problem that is working best is to add additional layers to these layer 1 blockchains.
Layer 2 Blockchains
And as we just mentioned, these networks emerge to scale layer 1 blockchains, and solve some problems of these networks, such as the speed of transactions.
If we talk about Ethereum, for example, we have a layer 2 blockchain whose name surely sounds familiar to you. I am referring in this case to Polygon .
This network allows users to access decentralized applications deployed on the Ethereum blockchain, but with much lower fees and virtually non-existent latency.
Users, when using Polygon, do not have to wait for block confirmations on the Ethereum mainnet. Additionally, unlike Ethereum, Polygon is capable of handling several million transactions every second, so this makes the network’s operation much faster.
Moving on, if we refer to Bitcoin, we have another well-known layer 2 blockchain, called Lighting Network. This network was also created to speed up transactions in the Bitcoin blockchain because it is capable of managing millions of transactions every second. And this is possible thanks to the use of payment channels that are outside the blockchain. In this way, we have instant payments with very low commissions.
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Layer 3 Blockchains
As we have already seen, layer 2 networks have focused a lot on scalability, to solve part of the blockchain trilemma problem.
But Layer 3 networks serve a very different purpose. Layer 3 networks aim to provide personalized solutions, so here we will have different functionalities.
They would serve, for example, privacy issues, manage some applications, and could also be useful for business blockchain applications.
This helps a lot with the interoperability of different networks and ecosystems, and this is something very important because it is another of the handicaps of blockchain technology.
Conclusion
So as you see, to summarize, we have 3 different layers in the blockchain. In the first layer, there are the’primitive’blockchains, which we all already know, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum (among many others).
These blockchains have serious scalability problems , and that makes it quite difficult for this technology to be adopted on a massive scale, Therefore, to solve this, layer 2 blockchains emerged.
And to facilitate and make blockchain technology even more useful , we have layer 3 chains, which add new functionalities to the blockchain, such as interoperability between networks or with other technologies.
