What is the roll-up centric roadmap?

The "roll-up centric roadmap" refers to an Ethereum development strategy that shifts the focus from executing all transactions directly on the Ethereum main chain (layer 1) to utilizing layer 2 solutions, specifically roll-ups, to handle transaction execution. This approach emerged due to the increasing demand and congestion on Ethereum, which led to high transaction fees.

Here's a breakdown of the key aspects of the roll-up centric roadmap:

1. Data Shards and Roll-ups: Ethereum's layer 1 focuses on data availability and security while offloading computational tasks to roll-ups. This setup allows roll-ups to bundle many transactions together off-chain, process them, and then post a proof back to the main chain. This greatly reduces the transaction load on the main chain but maintains the security and data availability benefits of Ethereum 1.

2. Scalability and Performance: By utilizing roll-ups, the Ethereum network can achieve higher transaction throughput, as roll-ups can scale significantly better by doing most of the computational work off-chain. The roadmap also envisions that data sharding will complement roll-ups, allowing them to operate more efficiently by providing abundant data space needed for their operations 2.

3. Decentralization and Security: The roadmap aims to maintain Ethereum’s decentralization and security by ensuring that the base layer remains accessible and verifiable by ordinary users. It contrasts with methods like increasing block size, which can compromise decentralization and lead to performance issues 2.

4. Future Proofing: The roadmap is seen as a pragmatic approach to quickly address scalability issues while leaving room for additional enhancements like full sharding of execution and state in the future. This provides a balance between immediate needs and long-term development goals 2.

Essentially, the roll-up centric roadmap is part of a broader effort to optimize and scale Ethereum infrastructure to support higher user adoption and more complex applications without sacrificing key properties like security and decentralization.