Overview of Facet Protocol
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Introduction
Ethereum's original ambition was to become the world’s computer—a Turing-complete computing platform where anyone can deploy and run code that is globally accessible, trustless, credibly neutral, and free from centralized control.
As Ethereum has scaled, however, some of these ideals have been deemphasized.
Ethereum's rollup-centric roadmap has driven users to blockchains that introduce new vectors of centralization and privilege. Most of today’s Layer 2s (L2s) rely on centralized sequencers and all have enshrined (built-in) upgradeable contracts managed by privileged keys. These mechanisms undermine Ethereum's core principles to a degree that would never be tolerated on the Layer 1 itself.
Facet Protocol is an EVM-compatible rollup that offers a novel way to scale Layer 1 (L1) Ethereum without introducing new dependencies or trust assumptions. Facet’s approach differs from conventional Layer 2 (L2) approaches by prioritizing the elimination all forms of privilege from the protocol, resulting in a scaling solution that is as decentralized as L1 Ethereum itself.
Core Ethereum Principles
Facet's ambition is to preserve these principles while still enabling the low transaction costs user's expect from an Ethereum rollup.
Liveness
The network remains operational and continues to process transactions, even under adverse conditions.
Censorship Resistance
No single entity or group can control or censor transactions, maintaining open and unrestricted access for all participants.
Credible Neutrality
The network does not discriminate for or against any specific people or any specific outcomes. All participants play by the same rules.
This begs the questions:
Where are the rollups that preserve Ethereum’s core principles?
How would such a rollup be designed?
Solution: Facet Protocol
Facet Protocol is a public good EVM-compatible rollup forked from Optimism's OP Stack - the rollup framework behind some of the largest L2 rollups, including Base, OP Mainnet, and Blast.
The OP Stack provides the infrastructure for operating EVM equivalent rollup blockchains designed to scale Ethereum while remaining maximally compatible with existing Ethereum infrastructure.
Facet's fork of OP Stack prioritizes...
the elimination of centralized dependencies (e.g., sequencers)
the removal of all forms of privilege (e.g., upgradeable contracts, security councils, etc.)
fair issuance of the native gas token
...in order to preserve the core Ethereum properties that are not fully represented in existing L2s today. Facet’s unique ability to preserve these core properties is what differentiates it from conventional L2s, which is why we refer to Facet as a Layer 1+ (L1+).
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