How many L2s does Bitcoin have? Why are there so many L2s?

Source: Protos; Translated by: Tao Zhu, Golden Finance

Most Bitcoin communities don't know that there are 400 "tier 2" running on the blockchain. This rough estimate comes from Lava's founder Shehzan.

On the August 25 YouTube Gwart Show show, Shehzan joins Gwart and commentator Shinobi to question the benefits of using the Bitcoin ledger for hundreds of Rollups and alternative blockchains.

Some estimates set this number to a much lower 80 or 85, while others exceed 1,000. Estimates vary greatly because anyone can “Rollup” the data and broadcast a tiny hash to any miner, which technically creates a “Bitcoin Layer 2”.

In fact, many are simple clones of Ethereum Rollup that handle almost all activities on centralized servers outside of the Bitcoin network and broadcast the periodic hash of that state into the Bitcoin block.

Also, they are easy to create. In fact, a developer created a Rollup for $20. Anyone can pay miners to include data in a block; if that data is a hash value of the alternative blockchain, the system can advertise itself as "Bitcoin Layer 2".

Anyone can clone their own Bitcoin 2 layers

So, what does it mean to say there are hundreds of Bitcoin tier 2? The answer to this question begins to illustrate the problem in this particular field of encryption: few people agree with a definition.

Initially, the 2nd layer strictly refers to the trustless integration and execution of off-blockchain activities through basic blockchains. However, the term has changed over the years and now refers to the cryptographic platform that broadcasts data to the underlying blockchain.

Sometimes, interactions are bidirectional, and there are many ways to execute rights on alternative blockchains using Bitcoin transactions.

Examples include 2 layers without proprietary tokens, such as Lightning, Liquid, Ark, or BitVM. The more popular Bitcoin 2 layer introduces proprietary tokens such as Rootstock, Stacks, Libre or Merlin. According to Stacks founder, the total value of Bitcoin’s 2 layer was $5 billion as of February and will grow 20 times.

Some developers are very excited.

If you don 't translate the marketing language one by one, it will be very difficult to try to independently verify the exact amount of Bitcoin 2 layers. Projects that essentially have alternative blockchains with their own tokens obviously want to avoid attracting attention to the economic reality of their efforts.

Instead, project leaders write avoidant project descriptions to focus on the Bitcoin language and mask their use of alternative blockchains and tokens.