Why Shared Sequencing is Non-Negotiable for Enterprise Rollups

Solo sequencers capture 100% of MEV and priority fees, creating a hidden tax on users and a revenue leak for the rollup. This misaligned economic model stifles adoption.

• Revenue Recovery: Shared sequencers like Espresso and Astria return MEV/priority fees to the rollup's treasury.
• Predictable Costs: Eliminates the variable 'gas auction' cost, enabling stable enterprise pricing.

Running a high-availability, crash-fault tolerant sequencer cluster requires ~$1M/year in cloud costs and dedicated DevOps. This centralization creates a legal and technical single point of failure.

• Infra as a Service: Shared sequencers provide >99.9% uptime SLA without the capital expenditure.
• Progressive Decentralization: Platforms like Radius and Fairblock enable trust-minimized sequencing without the upfront build cost.

Isolated rollups are siloed liquidity pools. Cross-rollup atomic transactions—essential for complex DeFi and gaming—are impossible without a shared sequencing layer coordinating execution.

• Native Interop: A shared sequencer like Layer N or Fuel enables atomic cross-rollup swaps without slow, insecure bridges.
• Unified Liquidity: Turns fragmented capital across chains into a single, composable network effect.

Espresso's HotShot consensus provides a ready-made, high-throughput sequencer with integrated EigenLayer restaking for economic security. It's the fastest path to a production-ready, decentralized sequencer.

• Time-to-Market: Launch a securely sequenced rollup in weeks, not years.
• Leveraged Security: Bootstrap cryptoeconomic security via $15B+ EigenLayer TVL instead of bootstrapping your own validator set.

Isolated sequencers create isolated liquidity pools and MEV opportunities, forcing users to bridge assets and fragmenting the rollup ecosystem. This kills atomic composability.

• Atomic Composability Lost: A swap-to-bridge transaction on Rollup A cannot be atomically composed with a trade on Rollup B.
• Capital Inefficiency: Billions in TVL sit idle in siloed bridges and L1 escrows.
• MEV Extraction: Local sequencers capture value, creating misaligned incentives versus the rollup's users.

A neutral, decentralized sequencer network (e.g., Espresso, Astria, Radius) processes transactions for multiple rollups, enabling atomic execution across chains.

• Universal Atomic Bundles: Users can submit intents that span Rollup A, B, and C in a single, guaranteed atomic bundle.
• MEV Redistribution: Cross-domain MEV can be captured and redistributed via mechanisms like CowSwap's batch auctions or directly to rollup treasuries.
• Credible Neutrality: Removes the rollup operator as a single point of censorship and transaction ordering bias.

Two dominant models are emerging, each with a distinct trust profile and performance ceiling for enterprises.

• Decentralized Sequencer Sets (Espresso): A PoS-based network of independent nodes using HotStuff consensus. Offers ~1-2s finality and explicit censorship resistance.
• L1 Sequencing (EigenLayer, Shared Sequencer on Ethereum): Uses Ethereum's validator set for ordering, inheriting its ~12s finality and massive economic security. The trade-off is speed for supreme liveness guarantees.

A shared sequencer transforms sequencing from a pure infrastructure cost into a potential profit center and strategic asset.

• Revenue Share: Rollups can earn a portion of sequencing fees and cross-domain MEV captured by the shared network.
• Interoperability Premium: Rollups that join a major shared sequencer network (like those integrated with Hyperlane or LayerZero) gain instant access to a unified user base and liquidity.
• Enterprise SLA: Predictable, decentralized performance replaces the operational risk of running your own sequencer cluster.

Centralization of sequencing power in one or two dominant networks risks recreating the governance capture and upgrade coordination problems of Layer 1s.

• Protocol Capture: A dominant shared sequencer could exert undue influence over rollup development roadmaps and fee markets.
• Single Point of Failure: While decentralized, a bug in the shared sequencer's consensus could halt all connected rollups simultaneously.
• Vendor Lock-in: High switching costs could emerge if rollup states become optimized for a specific sequencer's data availability or proof system.

The endgame isn't just shared block building—it's shared solving. Networks like Succinct, RiscZero, and Lumoz are decoupling proof generation, creating a market for provers that will demand efficient, cross-rollup sequencing.

• Intent-Based Flow: Users express desired outcomes (via UniswapX or CowSwap); solvers compete across rollups on a shared sequencer to fulfill them atomically.
• Prover Markets: A shared sequencer's output becomes the canonical input for a decentralized prover network, optimizing for proof aggregation and cost reduction.
• Unified Liquidity Layer: The sequencer becomes the order book for a multi-chain ecosystem.

Without shared sequencing, transactions across multiple rollups (e.g., a trade on Aave on one chain and a hedge on GMX on another) are not atomic. This exposes users to severe execution risk and price slippage.

• Key Benefit: Enables atomic composability across the L2 ecosystem, akin to UniswapX but for entire application states.
• Key Benefit: Eliminates the multi-rollup MEV sandwich, securing $10B+ TVL in DeFi protocols.

A single-operator sequencer can censor transactions or go offline, halting the entire rollup. This is unacceptable for financial markets or high-frequency applications.

• Key Benefit: Decentralized sequencer sets, like those proposed by Espresso Systems or Astria, provide ~500ms liveness guarantees.
• Key Benefit: Censorship resistance enforced at the protocol level, meeting regulatory-grade operational resilience standards.

A centralized sequencer captures all MEV, creating misaligned incentives and raising user costs. Shared sequencing democratizes MEV extraction and reduces fees.

• Key Benefit: MEV revenue is redistributed back to the rollup (via burn) or its users, potentially reducing transaction costs by -30%.
• Key Benefit: Integrated MEV auctions (PBS) attract professional searchers, improving liquidity and price execution for end-users.

Isolated rollups create fragmented liquidity and poor user experience. Bridging remains slow and insecure, relying on external networks like LayerZero or Axelar.

• Key Benefit: Native, trust-minimized cross-rollup communication via a shared sequencing layer, reducing bridge latency from minutes to ~2 seconds.
• Key Benefit: Unlocks unified liquidity pools and seamless app chains, moving beyond the hub-and-spoke model of Ethereum.