Facet Becomes the First General-Purpose Stage 2 Ethereum Rollup

Facet is proud to announce that we have become the first ever general-purpose Stage 2 Ethereum rollup on L2Beat!

Stage 2 Achievement: Full Green

Facet's "Risk Pizza" is fully green:

✅ Sequencer Failure: Self-sequence

Users can self-sequence transactions by sending them on L1. There is no privileged operator.

✅ State Validation: Fraud proofs (1R, ZK)

Actors watching the chain can challenge state proposals, and challenged proposals must provide ZK proofs.

✅ Data Availability: Onchain

All data needed for proof construction is published on Ethereum L1.

✅ Proposer Failure: Self-propose

Anyone can propose state roots if accompanied by a validity proof. Whitelisted proposers can propose state roots optimistically for recent blocks. Anyone can propose optimistically for L2 blocks older than 14 days.

✅ Exit Window: ∞

Users can exit funds at any time because contracts are not upgradeable. To understand how this works, we need to examine how Facet handles bridging differently.

The Canonical Bridge Problem

Traditional rollups have "canonical bridges" - official protocol bridges that users MUST trust. Why? Because typical rollups use bridged ETH as their gas token they need to provide a bridge so users can buy gas.

But typical canonical bridges are insecure. Users expect to deposit and withdraw assets at any time in the future, regardless of what forks happen on the rollup. Therefore, these bridges are typically upgradeable to track the latest fork.

This upgradeability creates a security issue because it gives rollup admins the power to manipulate the gas market to prevent users from purchasing blockspace, for example by issuing massive amounts of bridged ETH to themselves.

L2Beat's Stage 2 criteria mitigates this by enforcing a 30 day exit window for upgrades. But a hostile upgrade with an exit window can still be catastrophic, so Facet goes further and eliminates the canonical bridge entirely.

Facet's Approach: No Canonical Bridge

Facet has no canonical bridge because we don't use a bridged token as our gas token. Instead, we use the Facet Compute Token (FCT), a Facet-native token.

How FCT Works

FCT is mined, not bridged:

Users create Facet transactions and post them to Ethereum
They burn L1 ETH to pay the gas cost
This burn is multiplied by a dynamically adjusted mint rate
The product is the FCT mint for that transaction

Because users don't have to bridge to get the gas token, there is no need for a protocol-level bridge and the admin controls that come with it. This enables Facet to dispense with all admin controls. No multisigs, no security councils, no emergency pause functions. The protocol is truly immutable, just like Ethereum L1.

What This Means for Users

Does this mean Facet is guaranteed safer than every other rollup? Does this mean users will never lose money on Facet?

No, not necessarily. Users still must use apps to experience Facet or any blockchain. Applications can be poor stewards of user value, and users can lose money.

The Crucial Difference

What Facet ensures is that, like Ethereum L1, if money is lost, it won't be because of protocol-level risk. It won't be because protocol admins intervened. It will be because an app – which the user chose and hopefully researched – did something harmful.

Facet is not a bridging protocol or an asset escrow protocol like typical L2s. It is a pure computation platform - an enabler of freedom. Facet provides the computation layer while leaving asset management to user-chosen applications.

This protects users' right to choose which applications to use on their own terms, and it gives apps complete control over their relationship with users.

Bridging: A Matter of Choice

When it comes to bridging, users must choose the bridges they want to use. This is already happening across all rollups today:

Over 70% of rollup assets are not issued via the rollup's "official" / "canonical" bridge
Some users prefer bridges with more sophisticated proof systems
Others sacrifice proof system security for faster withdrawals, cheaper withdrawals, or direct rollup-to-rollup bridging
Users vote with their feet and choose the option that suits them

Facet embraces this trend, giving bridge operators the ability to respond to user demand and create bridges that win usership – all without protocol intervention.

The Right Tools

However, Facet doesn't take a maximally hands-off approach to bridging by offloading all bridge development to app developers. Instead we have made it a priority to build the tools bridge developers can use to create trust-minimized bridges. This is why we made Facet provable via our hybrid ZK-fault proof system. Any bridge developer can use this permissionless system instead of developing their own.

Platform Philosophy: Thin vs. Thick

Facet chooses to be a "thin platform" rather than a "thick platform":

Thick platforms try to leverage their power to provide as much functionality as possible directly to users
Thin platforms remain neutral and stable, allowing users to interact with their chosen apps without knowing or caring about the underlying platform

We believe "thin" rollups serve users better and are more aligned with Ethereum's original vision.

After all, there are many "thick" cloud computing platforms, and they will often use their powers to protect users. However they retain the right to shut down any application (or all applications). What makes Ethereum a World Computer is that it has no "owner" that can intervene with application functionality. Users shouldn't have to forfeit this protection when they use a rollup.

Beyond Stage 2: The Unstoppable Rollup

Facet is proud to be the first general-purpose Stage 2 rollup. However, we believe the Stage 2 criteria don't go far enough because they still permit admin intervention with an exit window.

Unfortunately, a 30-day exit window does little to protect users in practice:

Exit costs are prohibitively high
DeFi lockups may prevent withdrawal within the window
Native assets cannot be withdrawn at all

Therefore, we encourage other rollups to not only meet Stage 2 requirements but to meet a higher standard, which we call being an "Unstoppable Stage 2 Rollup" – a rollup where admins have no ability under any circumstances, with any exit window, to tamper with apps and their relationship with users and user funds.

Conclusion

Becoming the first Stage 2 rollup is just the beginning. Join the Facet and Unstoppable Rollups movement!

Thank you!