Crypto startup project Rome has raised $9 million in funding from investors. Via the funds raised, Rome intends to open up Solana's modular services for Ethereum layer-2 projects.
Specifically, Solana will be used as the foundation network for shared sequencers and data availability. The project is also looking to foster atomic transactions between layer-2 networks.
Companies and angel investors that injected funds into the startup include Hack VC, Polygon Ventures, HashKey, Portal Ventures, Bankless Ventures, Robot VC, LBank, Anagram, TRGC, Perridon Ventures, Anatoly Yakovenko, Nick White, Santiago Santos, Comfy Capital, Austin Federa, and Jason Yanowitz.
Elaborating on why Solana was picked as the auxiliary chain, the Rome team highlighted,
“Solana is one of the fastest and most performant consensuses. We are integrating its capabilities into services on Ethereum, allowing rollups to use Solana as a shared sequencer, confirm transactions faster, enhance privacy and scalability, and reduce blockchain costs.”
Sequencers typically batch transactions and send them to the Ethereum network to be settled. Meanwhile, data availability infrastructures store layer-2 transactional data at a cheaper cost when compared to the cost endured to save data directly on the Ethereum mainnet.
The team pointed out that concerns surrounding the Ethereum rollup roadmap revolve around liquidity fragmentation, weakest-link security, and interoperability because of isolated sequencers.
Furthermore, most rollups continue to rely on a centralized sequencer, thereby putting censorship, limited visibility, and critical downtime at risk. Highlighting how Rome’s solution irons out all the creases, the team said,
“Rome enables Solana’s existing validators to be used as a shared sequencer that executes rollup transactions, maintains state, and publishes transactions. This ensures atomic composability with transactions confirmed on Solana before submission to Ethereum.”
While some community members remain critical about Rome and its endeavors, others continue to defend it.
A gated network will be open to developers in the foreseeable future, following which a testnet will be launched by the end of the year. The mainnet launch, on the other hand, is slated for mid-2025.
