BLOCKCHAIN BAKE-OFF! In July, when the smart-contracts blockchain Celo proposed to ditch its impartial “layer-1” standing in favor of changing into a layer 2 community atop Ethereum, the individuals behind the challenge could have had little inkling of simply how well-liked they might turn out to be. Now there’s out of the blue a burst of competitors amongst veteran layer-2 groups to produce the expertise for Celo’s new system. The migration initially was purported to depend on Optimism’s OP Stack software program package, which served because the template not just for Coinbase’s new Base blockchain but additionally the Binance-incubated BNB Chain’s new opBNB community. Then final month, Polygon injected itself into the combo, providing up its Polygon Chain Growth Equipment, generally known as Polygon CDK, as an different. As of final week, there’s one more suitor to host Celo: Matter Labs, the creators of one other rollup, zkSync, in addition to the ZK Stack open-source software program, which can be utilized to create new “hyperchains” on Ethereum. “The modular and open-sourced ZK Stack is the optimum L2 stack for Celo’s transition to Ethereum,” in line with the Matter Labs proposal. “We hope to set off an trustworthy, open dialogue amongst the Celo and zkSync communities relating to the tradeoffs between the ZK Stack, the OP Stack, Polygon CDK and different choices.” Coming within the depths of crypto winter, the episode gives a reminder of the depth of the consolidation pattern, with the varied networks scrambling to search out contemporary enterprise.