Layer1's New Ethereum, Better Ethereum?

2022.03.15

Layer1's New Ethereum, Better Ethereum?

A group of Ethereum community members has launched a new improvement initiative called CUN, aiming to inherit and reform Ethereum by proposing solutions in compatibility, performance, and decentralization. Their supporter base within the crypto industry is rapidly growing.

2022.03.15 - 03:25:11

以太坊Layer1

Navigating Web3 tides with focused insights

Abstract: Ethereum's status as blockchain infrastructure appears unshakable, yet it faces issues such as high fees, low efficiency, and deviation from its original decentralization principles. The formation and entrenchment of vested interest groups within the ecosystem are also making innovation increasingly difficult. A group of Ethereum community members has launched a new improvement project, CUN, aiming to inherit and reform Ethereum by offering solutions in compatibility, performance, and decentralization—gaining rapidly growing support within the crypto industry.

Bitcoin has become a totem; Ethereum is today’s blockchain infrastructure reshaping how the internet operates—but even Ethereum itself will be transformed.

When Satoshi Nakamoto invented Bitcoin in 2008, blockchain was merely a technical means to ensure system stability. It wasn't until Vitalik Buterin created Ethereum in 2013 that blockchain truly became independent from Bitcoin, emerging as next-generation internet technology capable of changing how the internet functions.

Bitcoin emphasizes payment attributes, using decentralized blockchain architecture to create a secure, central bank-free digital currency. Ethereum evolved into a new digital network—a blockchain system enabling deployment of various applications and transactions via smart contracts.

However, alongside its success, Ethereum's flaws have surfaced: high costs, inefficiency, and departure from its initial decentralization ideals. Competitors have emerged, broadly categorized into two approaches: “replacement” and “inheritance with improvement.”

The Rise of Ethereum

After Bitcoin's creation, numerous alternative cryptocurrencies (AltCoins) appeared. By modifying or directly copying Bitcoin’s open-source code and using the same blockchain technology, they established their own independent digital currency systems.

Most altcoins were mere imitations of Bitcoin, often called "shitcoins." Ethereum stood out by building a Turing-complete Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), enabling the development and operation of smart contracts and decentralized applications (DApps) on its blockchain network, thus becoming the representative of the “second-generation blockchains.”

Ethereum experienced several explosive growth phases driven by smart contract applications across different scenarios.

ICO (Initial Coin Offering) became the primary fundraising method for blockchain projects. Ethereum itself raised over $18 million in July 2014 through an ICO for project development and deployment. After launch, Ethereum quickly became the main platform for ICOs. Its ERC-20 standard simplified token issuance, leading to a surge in 2017 when many blockchain projects raised funds using ERC-20 tokens—creating a massive bubble but also marking the first large-scale application of Ethereum's smart contracts.

DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) represents an ideal organizational model for many, with blockchain solving trust issues between individuals, making DAOs feasible. Today, numerous DAOs exist within the Ethereum ecosystem, forming diverse communities based on shared philosophies and agreements, enriching Ethereum’s overall ecosystem.

DeFi (Decentralized Finance) has long been considered the most promising area for blockchain adoption. Ethereum’s smart contracts can act as self-executing financial agreements, holding funds and automatically transferring them based on predefined conditions and events. Currently, DeFi is one of the most widespread application categories on Ethereum.

Collectible tokens like CryptoKitties had brief moments of fame, but in 2021, NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) built on Ethereum’s ERC-721 standard became the hottest trend, breaking into mainstream popularity and fueling the rise of the Metaverse concept.

Competing Public Chain Ecosystems

Similar to Bitcoin, after Ethereum became the dominant blockchain platform, competitors began to emerge, primarily following two paths: “replacement” and “improvement.”

One approach aims at replacing Ethereum. Projects like Polkadot, Solana, and Dfinity attempt to build new consensus mechanisms, some even developing new programming languages, to address scalability, efficiency, decentralization, and cross-chain interoperability.

Polkadot primarily addresses cross-chain challenges: Blockchains traditionally operate in data silos. To break this isolation, Polkadot aims to create a network protocol allowing all connected blockchains to communicate more effectively. Parachains handle computation and transaction processing. Multiple parachains enable horizontal scaling, addressing performance limitations.

Bridges function as special parachains connecting blockchains with different architectures. The Relay Chain serves as Polkadot’s core, verifying blocks produced by parachains and providing finality proofs. While Polkadot currently holds advantages over Ethereum in scalability and cost, its foundational logic remains within the conceptual framework established by Ethereum.

Solana aims to become a high-performance public chain: Its standout feature is the use of PoH (Proof of History), where each node generates local timestamps without waiting for global network synchronization, significantly improving efficiency.

Combined with innovations including Tower BFT (a variant of Byzantine Fault Tolerance), Turbine (block propagation protocol), Gulfstream (mempool-less transaction forwarding), Sealevel (parallel smart contract execution), Pipelining (transaction validation), Cloudbreak (horizontally scalable account database), and Archivers (distributed ledger storage), Solana has become a strong competitor to Ethereum.

The Emergence of the "Ethereum Family"

While “Ethereum replacements” offer many advantages, other projects have risen by adopting the strategy of “imitating or modifying Ethereum.”

BSC (Binance Smart Chain) uses the PoSA (Proof of Stake Authority) consensus algorithm, combining features of DPoS (Delegated Proof of Stake) and PoA (Proof of Authority), operating on a network of 21 validator nodes with second-level block times, providing fast infrastructure for DeFi protocols. The term “smart” refers to BSC’s support for smart contract functionality. BSC is fully compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and supports all existing Ethereum-based applications and tools, allowing developers to easily migrate and deploy Ethereum DApps.

Backed by resources—including capital and users—from Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, BSC rapidly attracted a large user base and projects seeking broader reach.

In 2018, the Polygon team began building Layer2 solutions on Ethereum, aiming to reduce costs and meet scalability demands. Unlike traditional Layer2 models, Polygon integrates multiple scaling solutions—such as zkRollups, Optimistic Rollups, and Validium—into a one-stop Layer2 aggregation platform. With the easy-to-use Polygon SDK, development barriers are greatly reduced.

In May 2020, Polygon launched Matic, which consists of two components:

A set of PoS sidechain variants known as the “commit chain,” supporting smart contract development.
A Plasma-based entry ramp routing transactions from Ethereum to the Matic sidechain.

The Polygon PoS chain sits between a pure sidechain and a true Layer2 solution—it inherits security from the mainnet, batches transactions, and confirms them off-chain before submitting data back to the Ethereum main chain.

Today, Polygon hosts a wide range of applications and infrastructure, including DeFi, NFTs, wallets, oracles, and DAOs. Notable examples include Aave (a major DeFi lending protocol), SushiSwap (decentralized exchange), Curve (automated market maker), and 1inch (aggregated DEX); NFT projects include OpenSea (the largest NFT marketplace) and Decentraland (NFT-based virtual game); oracle services like Chainlink and AP13; and wallets such as MetaMask, Math Wallet, and Fortmatic.

Problems with Layer2 Solutions

Projects like Polygon have relatively solved Ethereum’s inefficiency and high costs by adopting Layer2 scaling: most transactions occur off the main Ethereum chain and are aggregated before being submitted to the Ethereum network. However, these Layer2 solutions rely heavily on Ethereum’s mainnet security, thereby deepening dependence on Ethereum. More importantly, beyond congestion and high fees caused by surging usage, Ethereum is increasingly becoming a dominant “oligopoly,” leveraging its ecosystem advantage much like mainstream Web2.0 platforms—straying from blockchain’s original ideals of decentralization and community participation.

Layer2 solutions that further depend on Ethereum should not be the optimal path forward for the crypto world. Layer2 strengthens Ethereum’s “monopolistic” position without addressing its inherent flaws. New networks should be faster, more secure, lower-cost, privacy-focused, and better positioned to embrace emerging opportunities like NFTs and the Metaverse. Most importantly: this network should belong to the crypto community.

Currently, those advocating change in Ethereum propose the following principles:

1. Inherit Ethereum to resolve compatibility issues with Ethereum and other Ethereum-based blockchains. Use cross-chain bridges to solve asset portability.
2. Improve consensus through novel mathematical logic to enhance network communication efficiency.
3. Build a new Layer1 network rather than a Layer2 solution, reducing reliance on Ethereum’s mainnet while ensuring security and avoiding centralization.
4. Achieve ecosystem migration and smooth network upgrades through inheritance from Ethereum and modular design.
5. No single founder or core developer—governance should ultimately be achieved through DAO.

Changing Ethereum at the Layer1 Level

CUN is a new Layer1 network. For consensus mechanism, CUN adopts a permissioned PoA (Proof of Authority) in Phase One (Origin Network), transitions to PoS+PoA with staking and voting in Phase Two (Cape of Good Hope Network), and evolves toward PoS+PBFT consensus in Phase Three (Next-Gen Network).

During initial launch, the CUN Origin Network is a Layer1 network with its native coin, using PoA as the access mechanism. Multiple trusted nodes are elected to initiate and maintain the network, forming a node set. These nodes must stake part of their CUNP tokens, and all block collection, packaging, consensus, and verification are executed by this node set.

When the number of nodes and community-held CUNP reaches a threshold sufficient for staking-based voting elections, CUN will transition from the Origin Network to the Cape of Good Hope Network. The Cape of Good Hope Network is a transitional phase toward the next-generation network, employing a PoA+PoS access mechanism.

A key innovation in this phase is the introduction of PoS: community nodes join via staking. This stage encourages broad community participation and incentivizes long-term involvement in the CUN ecosystem through staking rewards. By combining PoA and PoS, the network enhances both decentralization and performance stability.

Like Ethereum, CUN’s Next-Gen Network uses PoS as the entry mechanism. However, CUN proposes adopting an improved PBFT-like algorithm during the main chain consensus phase to achieve Byzantine fault tolerance, along with full DAO governance at this stage.

"The widely used PBFT consensus protocol has a communication complexity of O(n^2). As the network grows and node count increases beyond 100, consensus efficiency drops quadratically. To address this, CUN will improve BFT-type consensus during the transition phase to enhance scalability, security, and performance."

According to this formula, when the number of nodes scales to N=84, PBFT requires 13,944 communications, whereas a three-tiered PBFT only needs 152. Multi-layer PBFT algorithms can significantly boost main chain consensus efficiency even theoretically at 1,000 nodes—a scale comparable to Solana’s current size.

Notably, CUN is among the few Ethereum-aligned projects proposing actual upgrades at the main chain consensus layer. Compared to Ethereum’s transitional Layer2 solutions, this represents an evolutionary Layer1 approach.

The CUN community carries an idealistic spirit reminiscent of the Bitcoin era. Supporters include CTOs of tech firms, exchange professionals, university professors, nonprofit organizations, industry groups, and social scholars—yet they remain anonymous, perhaps to minimize individual prominence.

It is too early to make definitive judgments about this emerging network’s future, as success isn’t solely determined by technology. Still, we hope the reformers succeed. Bitcoin reminds us that the internet should belong to the community—not any single institution or individual.

Appendix:

1. "Layer1's New Ethereum, a Better Ethereum?"

http://tech.china.com.cn/news/20220218/385088.shtml

2. "The Coopunion Network Moves From The Origin Network To The Cape Of Good Hope Network — The New Official Website Is Online"

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/coopunion-network-upgrades-origin-network-054500188.html

3. "Conception and roadmap of Coopunion Network"

https://coopunion.net/#/pages/blog/info?uuid=fbc3a1d6926a4bf5891e339b28d51ae4&type=2

4. Socials

Official website: www.coopunion.net

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CUNFans

Medium: https://coopunionnetwork.medium.com

Telegram: https://t.me/CUNOfficialEnglish