- Canto and Astar blockchains have announced plans to abandon their layer one status and become Ethereum scaling networks
- Canto will be abandoning a Cosmos environment while Astar will be ditching Polkadot
- The announcement comes two months after Celo made a similar move
Canto and Astar blockchains have disclosed plans to become Ethereum layer 2 platforms by abandoning their Cosmos and Polkadot environments respectively. The two networks will employ zero-knowledge (ZK) technology as defined by the Polygon chain development kit (CDK). The announcement comes two months after Celo made a similar move, an indication that Ethereum layer twos are easy to operate and maintain or a sign that more DeFi users prefer Ethereum over other chains.
Taking Ethereum to Japan
Canto’s decision to move to Ethereum is hinged on the network’s mission to bring more people to the web3 world. According to Polygon Labs, becoming a layer two network will allow Canto to tap into Ethereum’s robust security, adding that “a shared ZK bridge” will help the protocol access the larger Polygon ecosystem.
Neofinance at scale – Canto is migrating to a ZK-powered Ethereum L2, built with @0xPolygon CDK.
The @CantoPublic community will tap Ethereum’s deep liquidity via a shared ZK bridge without sacrificing user security – a big stride toward neofinance.https://t.co/8uDhLYk1G9
— Polygon (Labs) (@0xPolygonLabs) September 18, 2023
Polygon Labs also revealed that validators on the Canto network won’t incur any charges. Canto’s move comes less than a week after Astar network disclosed plans to become an Ethereum layer two powered by Polygon’s CDK.
According to Astar, the move will allow its users to utilize “existing tools to build solutions across” its ecosystem, adding that the decision will “bring Ethereum layer 2 scaling to Japan” since it’s the leading decentralized protocol in the country.
Astar & Polygon teaming up to bring Ethereum Layer 2 scaling to Japan! 🤝
With Polygon CDK, we are building a trustless bridge to Ethereum with high EVM equivalency right out-of-the-box, so dApp developers can use existing tools to build solutions across our entire ecosystem! 🏗️ https://t.co/DvLCsSffHM
— Astar Network (@AstarNetwork) September 14, 2023
More Layer Ones Migrating to Ethereum?
Some individuals commented on the recent migrations to Ethereum noting that it may be a sign that more decentralized networks are looking to join Ethereum as layer twos using ZK technology.
Polygon, also an Ethereum layer two, has been positioning itself to become the go-to scaling layer and recently released improvement proposals that will kick-start its transition to become the value layer of the internet through the birth of Polygon 2.0.
With Celo, Astar and Canto moving to Ethereum, it’s likely that more layer one blockchains are also planning to make a similar move.
