Omni-Chain Approach Vital to Ethereum’s Future: Orbiter Co-Founder

The development of omni-chain infrastructure could significantly impact the Ethereum ecosystem, potentially altering the dynamics of competition among rollups and reshaping the future of decentralized finance, according to Iris Cheung, co-founder of Orbiter Finance.

In an interview with Decrypt, Cheung highlighted the challenges faced by Ethereum's current rollup-centric scaling approach in creating a unified user experience, and said the variety of rollup types and protocols adds complexity for users. This makes it more difficult to understand than using a single layer-1 system.

"Consider rollups as highway lanes,” she said. “If the Arbitrum lane is congested, you cannot simply switch lanes; adding more rollups doesn't significantly enhance Ethereum's scaling.”

“To achieve a more scalable future, we need to build infrastructure that can process cross-rollup transactions in parallel and ensure cross-chain transaction atomicity with minimal or no interaction with layer 1,” she explained.

To address these issues, Orbiter Finance is developing an omni-chain infrastructure to provide effective rollup coordination. This infrastructure includes components such as an omni-chain wallet address system, a cross-rollup relayer, and a liquidity aggregation layer.

Earlier this week, Orbiter Finance announced that it generated over 20,000 ETH—or about $55 million—in annual revenue from its cross-chain bridging protocol, and that the Orbiter Bridge facilitated over 24 million transactions with a total volume exceeding $16 billion. 

According to data from DeFi Llama, Orbiter Finance’s 24-hour volume stands at $13.34 million. Cheung said the omni-chain approach could change the dynamics of the current race for total value locked (TVL) among rollups.

"The TVL competition will diminish as Ethereum layer-2 solutions focus on competing based on the liquidity and services they can offer within a more interconnected environment," she stated.

According to Cheung, this shift could lead to a more collaborative ecosystem where rollups that successfully integrate with omni-chain solutions gain a competitive edge by providing users with better access to liquidity and lower transaction costs. 

As a result, users will favor those offering the best cross-chain experiences.

"After the completion of the omni-chain infrastructure, users are unlikely to feel that they are conducting cross-chain transactions," Cheung explained. "This is because the smart contract they interact with is inherently omni-chain."

The company is now working towards decentralizing its Maker system to grant access to third-party liquidity providers, aligning with the ethos of decentralization. 

This move comes after an investment from OKX Ventures earlier this year, aimed at ensuring the decentralized growth of layer-2 solutions while building essential infrastructure for the ecosystem.