# Beginnings

A multitude of fragmented solutions—Layer 1s, rollups, DA layers, sequencers—clutter the blockchain landscape today, each striving to scale, decentralize, and power the internet's future. However, execution inefficiencies, unsustainable growth, and security compromises hamper the current array of solutions.

In the race to market, numerous solutions opted to copy and paste existing architectures. Few dared to build from the ground up. Why? Most projects focused on sustaining innovations, making incremental improvements to older frameworks. We took the opposite approach and aimed for disruptive innovation, challenging the status quo with a completely new architectural vision to overcome the limitations others had accepted.

Picture a group of early Ethereum developers, driven by a vision to enhance the performance, sustainability, interoperability, and developer experience of Ethereum. Recognizing the need for a fresh architectural approach to achieve ambitious goals, these devs envisioned a system incorporating years of blockchain evolution while adhering to cypherpunk ideals of decentralization and accessibility.

The blockchain ecosystem has undergone a remarkable transformation since the inception of Bitcoin in 2009. Bitcoin and Ethereum, as pioneering Layer 1 blockchains, established the foundation for decentralized systems, but quickly encountered scalability challenges. In response, alternative L1s offered differing approaches to decentralization, security, and performance. As demand for scalability grew, Ethereum explored modular approaches and various solutions like state channels, plasma, and eventually rollups—Layer 2 solutions that aggregate transactions to improve throughput while leveraging the security of L1s.

Sequencers, integral to rollups, emerged to manage transaction ordering and boost efficiency, forming a critical piece in the evolving blockchain landscape. This wave of innovation also sparked developments in Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS) and other modular solutions that allowed for specialization at various layers of the blockchain stack—execution, settlement, data availability, and consensus—pushing the boundaries of what these networks could achieve.

Despite such advancements, the blockchain landscape still lacks a crucial piece of the puzzle: scalability without compromise. Most solutions sacrifice decentralization for performance, or security for speed, resulting in trade-offs that undermine the core principles of blockchain technology.

Many L1 and L2 solutions boost transaction capacity by increasing node requirements, thus enhancing throughput and cutting latency. This approach, however, shrinks the pool of participants capable of validating and securing the chain.

Similarly, some rollups and sidechains achieve higher speeds by implementing trust assumptions that deviate from the foundational principles of security and decentralization. These solutions may rely on multi-signature schemes or other trust-based models to validate transactions, which introduce vulnerabilities. Users must place their trust in small groups of signers, which can be susceptible to hacking or coordination attacks.

This critical need for a scalable, trustless, and performant system—one that doesn’t trade off on the core principles of blockchain—remains unmet.

We built Fuel to address this critical gap.

In December 2020, Fuel emerged as the first optimistic rollup on Ethereum, with the launch of Fuel V1. We sought to create a trust-minimized sidechain that would inherit the security of Ethereum while introducing a radically redesigned execution model based on UTXOs, or Unspent Transaction Outputs.

Fuel V1 garnered significant attention within the blockchain community from day one. Many regarded Fuel V1 as the one “pure” rollup, primarily due to its approach to security and execution. Unlike other architectures, Fuel V1 demonstrated security inheritance without relying on third-party multi-signatures or sacrificing the integrity of optimistic fraud proofs.

[Vitalik's appreciation for Fuel.](https://x.com/vitalikbuterin/status/1838862177824051712?s=46&t=fyJoiPJn7gE_VIRS05WBaQ)

Fuel V1’s design philosophy set the bar for Ethereum rollups and ultimately, our vision, leading to a more refined architecture in Fuel V2.

Over the past three and a half years, Fuel has evolved significantly, morphing into a new blockchain architecture that thoughtfully addresses the common challenges faced by modern blockchains. Our vision culminated in what we now call Fuel V2, an operating system for rollups—the "Rollup OS." This framework empowers developers to build and customize their own rollups while leveraging the security and robustness of underlying L1s like Ethereum for settlement and access to Ethereum’s vast liquidity and assets.

Imagine Fuel as a robust framework designed to foster the development of sustainable and high-performance rollups, along with novel, advanced applications never before seen in blockchain. By providing this architecture, we empower developers to build innovative, decentralized solutions that push the boundaries of what's possible in the ecosystem.

We envision every application eventually evolving into its own app-chain, with Fuel providing the optimal architecture, tools, and developer experience for that future. Our commitment extends to creating pathways for the community to support millions of innovative app-chains, establishing Fuel as the foundation for the next generation of decentralized applications.

Fuel's narrative interweaves with Bitcoin and Ethereum's histories. Bitcoin's concise yet revolutionary whitepaper sparked a philosophical movement centered on self-sovereignty and cryptographic trust. Ethereum then expanded the horizon, introducing a programmable platform that unleashed developers' creativity and innovation.

Fuel acknowledges these contributions while seeking to fill the gaps left by conventional architectures. As we delve deeper into the intricacies of blockchain technology, we invite you to explore the problems we aim to solve and the vision we aspire to realize. Welcome to the beginnings of Fuel—a journey toward a sustainable, performant, and decentralized future.
