Sidechains Are Not Layer 2
Duration: 00:20:06
Speaker: Georgios Konstantopoulos
Type: Talk
Expertise: Beginner
Event: Devcon
Date: Jul 2026
In this talk we argue that sidechains are strictly an interoperability protocol, and any attempt at describing them as scalability solutions is misleading. Proof of Work sidechains require each chain to be individually secure, and thus make a double honest majority assumption. Proof of Stake sidechains rely on DMMS-like mechanisms, but even with proper short-long range attack protection they have a different security model to a Proof of Work chain. On the other hand, Layer 2 is a set of mechanisms which allow state to be manipulated more efficiently than the base layer, while inheriting the base layer's security. This is achieved through fraud proofs and client side validation or validity proofs which enforce valid state transitions.
