Facet: The Unstoppable Ethereum Rollup

Facet is the first Ethereum rollup engineered to withstand "hard times"—delivering unstoppable censorship resistance and permanently eliminating critical vulnerabilities threatening billions in user assets today.

The Critical Vulnerability in Ethereum's Scaling Future

Ethereum rollups currently secure billions of dollars based on a fundamental promise: inheriting Ethereum Layer 1's security guarantees. Yet, today this promise remains unfulfilled. Every major rollup relies on multisig admin keys that can be compromised by government entities, sophisticated attackers, or coerced insiders—leading to forced shutdowns, frozen withdrawals, and locked assets.

This vulnerability persists even should rollups hypothetically achieve "Stage 2" decentralization, the industry's highest standard. Proposed safeguards like the 30-day exit window remain insufficient in practice:

• Mass withdrawals could collectively cost users up to $900 million.
• Assets locked in smart contracts with timelocks become irretrievable.
• L2-native assets risk permanent loss with no clear migration path to L1.
• Complex DeFi protocols face impossible migration scenarios under pressure.

Such scenarios are not hypothetical. In March 2024, for example, Blast blocked three addresses from force-including transactions to prevent them from withdrawing stolen funds.

The fundamental issue is clear: Rollups cannot genuinely inherit Ethereum's security if a small group of admin key holders can shut them down.

Facet: Built for Hard Times

Facet fundamentally reimagines rollup architecture to eliminate these vulnerabilities, introducing three innovations:

1. No Privileged Layer 1 Contracts: Unlike existing rollups, Facet has removed all privileged on-chain contracts. No single entity or multisig can forcibly upgrade or halt the chain, structurally preventing forced shutdowns.

2. Permissionless Sequencing Without Admin Contracts: Facet uses based sequencing, enabling anyone to submit rollup blocks directly to Ethereum without any privileged oversight. This removes a common attack vector present in current rollups.

3. Native Gas Token (Facet Compute Token - FCT): Facet introduces FCT, a native gas token earned through a novel "proof-of-L1-blockspace" issuance mechanism. Users mint FCT proportional to Ethereum gas usage, eliminating reliance on upgradeable bridge contracts.

Together, these innovations create an unstoppable rollup that preserves Ethereum’s foundational promise of censorship resistance, even under extreme adversarial conditions.

Why Facet Matters Today

Ethereum’s scaling vision depends heavily on rollups, yet current designs compromise Ethereum’s core promise of censorship resistance. Facet directly addresses these risks, enabling:

• Secure Financial Applications: Safely implement long-term contracts (e.g., DAO timelocks, perpetual futures) without risk of forced shutdowns.
• Robust Infrastructure: Build decentralized applications resilient to regulatory or adversarial pressure.
• Asset Security: Provide users with L1-equivalent asset protection.
• DeFi Resilience: Enable financial protocols that can endure severe external pressures.
• Ethereum’s Mission: Allow scaling without sacrificing core decentralization and censorship-resistance principles.

Our Progress & Road Ahead

Facet is already live on Ethereum mainnet, proving L1-level censorship resistance at Layer 2 is achievable today. With your support, our ongoing development includes:

1. Transaction Batching: Economical transaction submission without compromising decentralization.
2. ZK Fault Proofs: Next generation proof systems in collaboration with Succinct.
3. Enhanced Developer Tooling: Simplifying the creation of robust, censorship-resistant applications.
4. Educational Initiatives: Raising awareness about governance-minimized architectures as secure alternatives to multisig-based rollups.

Support Unstoppable Ethereum

Your support for Facet directly advances:

• The technical development of an urgently-needed governance-minimized alternative to multisig-dependent rollups.
• Educational efforts highlighting the importance of genuine security guarantees in Ethereum scaling.
• Infrastructure capable of safeguarding billions of user assets during extreme adversity.
• Ethereum’s fundamental promise of censorship resistance at scale.

Join us in creating an Ethereum ecosystem that remains unstoppable, resilient, and true to its core principles no matter what challenges arise.