Ethereum vs App-Specific Rollups: Ops

Settlement and Data Availability: Secured by ~$500B in staked ETH and a global validator set. This matters for protocols where asset value or finality is non-negotiable, like Lido's stETH or MakerDAO's DAI.

Native Composability: All smart contracts and assets exist in a shared state. This enables flash loans, on-chain arbitrage, and complex DeFi legos without cross-chain bridges.

Developer Experience: Access to the deepest pool of tooling (Hardhat, Foundry, Ethers.js), auditors, and talent. Over 4,000 monthly active devs commit to Ethereum repositories.

Liquidity & Users: Home to $50B+ in DeFi TVL and the largest on-chain user base. Launching here provides immediate access to capital and network effects.

Tailored Throughput & Cost: Dedicated block space enables 10,000+ TPS and <$0.01 fees by design (e.g., dYdX, Immutable X). This matters for high-frequency trading, gaming, or social apps where user experience depends on speed and cost.

Custom VM & Governance: Can implement a purpose-built VM (e.g., SVM, Move) and have full control over upgrade paths and fee markets without competing with unrelated traffic.

Monetization & MEV Capture: The sequencer can capture transaction ordering rights and fee revenue, creating a sustainable business model (see Arbitrum Nova, Base).

Rapid Iteration: Can deploy protocol upgrades, precompiles, and new primitives without ecosystem-wide governance delays. This is critical for innovative applications needing to move faster than L1 consensus.

Unmatched Security: Secured by ~$50B+ in ETH staked and a global, decentralized validator set. This is non-negotiable for protocols holding >$1B in TVL (e.g., Lido, MakerDAO).

Universal Composability: All smart contracts and assets (ERC-20, ERC-721) exist in a single, synchronous state. Enables complex DeFi money legos and reduces integration overhead.

Controlled Fee Market: No competition from unrelated applications (NFT mints, meme coins). Enables sub-cent transaction fees and predictable gas costs, critical for high-frequency trading (e.g., dYdX) or gaming.

Tailored Throughput: Can optimize the VM (WASM, SVM, custom) for specific logic. Enables 10,000+ TPS for a single application versus Ethereum's shared ~15 TPS.

Technical Sovereignty: Full control over the stack (sequencer, prover, data availability). Can implement urgent security patches or feature upgrades without Layer 1 governance delays.

Economic Sovereignty: Capture MEV and transaction fees directly. Enables sustainable business models beyond token incentives, as demonstrated by protocols like Lyra and Aevo.

Your primary constraint is security and trust minimization for billions in assets. You require maximal composability with the broadest DeFi ecosystem. Your team prioritizes proven infrastructure over cutting-edge optimization.

Your business model requires predictable, ultra-low transaction fees. Your application logic benefits from a custom virtual machine (e.g., for gaming or order-book trading). You need operational sovereignty to move faster than base-layer governance.

Security Guarantee: Inherits security from the $500B+ Ethereum base layer with 1.4M+ validators. This is non-negotiable for protocols like Aave and Uniswap V3 managing billions in TVL. Native Composability: Seamless interaction with the entire L1 ecosystem (ERC-20, ERC-721, DeFi bluechips) without cross-chain bridges.

Cost Predictability: Gas fees are market-driven, averaging $5-50+ per complex transaction. For a high-throughput app, this can mean $100K+ monthly in pure gas costs. Throughput Limit: Capped at ~15-45 TPS. Scaling requires expensive L2 solutions or sidechains, adding operational complexity.

Controlled Cost Structure: Fixed sequencing and data availability (DA) costs (e.g., via Celestia, EigenDA). Enables sub-cent transaction fees, critical for gaming or social apps like Sorare or Friend.tech. Tailored Performance: Custom VM (e.g., SVM for Eclipse, Stylus for Arbitrum) allows for 10,000+ TPS optimized for a single app's logic.

Infrastructure Overhead: You become the chain operator. Requires managing sequencers, provers (if ZK), indexers (The Graph), and bridge security. Ecosystem Isolation: Lose native composability. Integrating with L1 or other rollups requires trusted bridges (like Across, LayerZero), introducing new risk vectors and latency.