The power of Layer 2
DappRadar has recently starting tracking dapps using Loom Network’s Layer 2 solution.
To-date, less than a dozen dapps — mainly games still in beta — are live with the technology, but as this interview with Loom’s head of business development Mike Cullinan explains, that situation will soon change.
For, despite initially launching as a scaling technology for Ethereum, Loom’s aggressive push to support multiple blockchains including TRON and EOS will see it becoming an interesting cross-chain facilitation option for many dapp developers.
Dapp Radar: Loom is best known as providing a sidechain for Ethereum, but you’re now also supporting TRON with others to come. Why is it important for Loom to support multiple chains given they don’t require scalability as Ethereum does?
Mike Cullinan: We’re aiming to give developers access to the broadest pool of users and customers with the least friction possible.
Whereas developers previously chose to build on one chain vs. another, they can now build on Loom and get automatic compatibility with any of our supported Layer 1 networks (TRON, EOS, Cosmos, and more).
The idea is to write your code once, and automatically hook into multiple blockchains and their communities.
For end-users, it enables them to transact across multiple chains and then securely store their assets on their Layer 1 of choice.
To-date the majority of developers using Loom are making games. Do you expect that to remain the case?
Our initial focus has been on games and social apps because that’s where we see adoption coming from first, but as a technology and infrastructure, developers can build any type of dapp on top of Loom.
In fact, we’re already seeing a broad array of dapps building and launching on the platform — social, DeFi, supply chain, e-commerce, education, ticketing, etc.
Regardless of one’s use case, just about every developer has been hamstrung by the fundamental scalability constraints of existing blockchain infrastructure. Loom is relevant for any dapp that requires frictionless UX with fast and gasless transactions at scale.
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How can Loom help in terms of onboarding, which remains the biggest pain point for dapps?
Loom allows developers to onboard end-users to a fast and gasless blockchain while giving them the freedom to transfer valuable assets back to the Layer 1 chain of their choice. That makes it possible for developers to build dapps that look and feel like any normal web or mobile app.
We’re continually working to simplify end-user workflows with features such as:
- Near instant confirmation times
- Gasless transactions (developers pay dapp hosting fees instead of end-users, similar to a traditional web 2.0 model)
- Ability to sign Layer 2 transactions directly from your existing Layer 1 wallet (i.e. Metamask, TronLink, Scatter, etc.)
- Integration of the top 100 ERC20s so users can transact in whichever tokens they prefer
- Interoperability to seamlessly transact assets across different chains
Your game Relentless is one of the high profile Loom projects. How have you improved Loom through this process of ‘eating your own dog food’?
Building our own dapps on top of the platform has been massively valuable for us in proving out the tech and showing people what’s possible.
Additionally, it’s definitely accelerated our development cycle by allowing us to more quickly identify requirements and shortcomings rather than releasing tools and waiting to suss out feedback from external developers.
Any public ETA on when Relentless comes out of beta?
We’ll continue to steadily open Relentless and will be launching out of beta toward the end of 2019.
You can find out more about Loom Networks via its website and download beta versions of Relentless for PC and mobile here.
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