The year is 2030 — Earth (Ethereum)’s population has now been completely migrated off planet (Layer-2), with Earth becoming exclusively the security for these new colonies (the Global Settlement Layer).

In 2021, populations on Earth were becoming too large. It was overcrowded and becoming more-and-more uninhabitable due to environmental sustainability concerns, so low-Earth-orbit Stations (Layer-2s) began to emerge.

These new Utopia Stations (like Loopring Station) rekindled hope for the future.

They were secured in Earth’s orbit using Earth’s gravity. This way, if anything should ever happen to these new Utopia Stations, one could easily fall back to the security of Earth using its gravity through escape pods (force withdrawals back to L1).

Early on, people attempted to live part-time between these Stations and Earth, but this just proved to be too costly. Ship transfers to and from Earth (deposits + withdrawals) were just too expensive (so much fuel!). These new Utopias needed to become full-time, all-encompassing new homes.

Due to the exponential growth of the human population (Ethereans) and subsequent demand, a few Utopia Stations were built (other Layer-2s) across low-Earth-orbit.

Luckily, thanks to major innovations like Loopring Station’s EthPort — hyperloops were built between Loopring Station + Earth as well as Loopring Station + other stations, so people could easily use Loopring Station as a home-base and quickly and cheaply port to another station or Earth + back in a zap (one block) if needed.

Just like Earth had numerous countries with different cultures and values, these Utopia Stations evolved in a similar way. People chose to reside mainly on one or the other, as a home-base, depending on their personal preferences, cultures or values.

By 2030, Earth had migrated completely off planet and everyone lived in harmony on their new space homes, travelling freely between.

Okay — analogies are great, but back to reality — Here’s a complete guide to Loopring and some insight into how we are building this future, today.

TLDR :

• Loopring is building an all-encompassing Ecosystem for the entire Cryptoverse
• Upcoming major releases (EthPort + new web app + new mobile app + AMM/pool upgrades) will move us a huge step closer to this vision
• Think of Loopring Layer 2 as the self-custodial, trustless, secure version of Binance or Coinbase
• Depositing to a CEX (Centralized Exchange) + withdrawing from a CEX is expensive (gas/miner fees)
• Same for Loopring L2 (deposits + withdrawals still incur gas costs) — this is why we are building an all-encompassing Ecoystem — so once your Layer 2 account is funded, you should never need to leave!
• The future is trustless and self-custodial —
  users will ultimately choose to not trust centralized third parties with their funds (this is the foundation of crypto after all!)
• Loopring: a CEX user experience + all-encompassing Ecosystem but without the need to trust anyone else with your funds — powered by the magic of zkRollups + Ethereum base layer

What exactly is Loopring Layer 2

In a future where physical banks are no longer needed, thanks to the advances of blockchain technology, Loopring is harnessing this technology to build an all-in-one digital bank of the future.

Payments + transfers
Trading + swapping
Borrowing + lending
Earning + saving

Loopring aims to be the home-base for millions of people around the globe to securely self-custody their funds, while simultaneously having access to the entire stack of what the crypto universe has to offer.

All-in-one, trustless, self-custodial banking in your pocket — for the masses.

In the crypto space, a good parallel for Loopring is a Binance / Coinbase ecosystem, but completely trustless and self-custodial. A CEX (centralized exchange) experience (near instant transactions + cheap fees) but without having to trust anyone else with your funds.

To accomplish this future, we have taken on the ambitious approach of building the entire technology stack ourselves. A complete, vertically integrated approach that is truly unique in the crypto space.

The Infrastructure :

(zk-Rollups, secured by Ethereum)

First, we built an incredibly powerful zkRollup (Layer-2) on top of Ethereum to power it all.

zkRollups use incredibly advanced zero-knowledge proof technology while binding itself directly to Ethereum as its security base-layer.

“In the medium to long term ZK rollups will win out in all use cases as ZK-SNARK technology improves” — Vitalik Buterin (creator of Ethereum)

Our zkRollup is extremely secure and only relies on math (not game-theory like other rollups) along with the base-layer security of Ethereum + Ethereum validators.

We strongly believe that this is the most future-proof technology out there, which is why we chose it as the base for our infrastructure that would power everything else on top of it.

You can read more on why Vitalik (creator of Ethereum) also believes zkRollups are the future here.

Unlike other Rollups (like Starkware, zkSync or Optimism), we built ours to solely run our applications and to build-out our ecosystem… not to be (general purpose) infrastructure for other peoples apps to run on.

The L2 Exchange (web app) :

(swap, trade, farm, earn)
exchange.loopring.io

Next, we built out the Loopring Layer 2 DEX (Decentralized Exchange) that is powered by the zkRollup infrastructure.

This is the application layer of Loopring, and where millions of users can interact with DeFi (decentralized finance) and the entire crypto universe.

This is where you can swap, orderbook trade, farm +earn (all gas-free!) — with nearly instant transactions that are up to 1000x cheaper than the same actions on Ethereum L1 — without compromising on your security thanks to the magic of zkRollups.

By accessing the Exchange using the Web App portal, you can connect any existing wallet that you currently own. You can connect your very own Loopring Smart Wallet (using WalletConnect), a hardware wallet (like Ledger), a simple MetaMask wallet, or many others.

Funding your Layer 2 account (depositing onto Layer-2) is as simple as funding a normal CEX (centralized exchange) account. There is a big difference though.

On Loopring Layer-2, you do not need to trust any centralized 3rd party with your funds. Your funds are in your control and should anything ever happen to the Loopring Exchange, you can easily withdraw your funds back to Ethereum L1 at any point.

For an in-depth tutorial on how-to onboard onto the Loopring Layer 2 Exchange — click here — if you prefer a video guide — click here.

We have many exciting upgrades coming to the Exchange. Many new features, new earning opportunities, and a whole new user experience + paint job! Here’s a little preview.

The L2-integrated Smart Wallet (mobile app) :

(the Social Recovery Smart wallet of the future)
loopring.io

Lastly, and certainly not least, is our flagship and ultra-secure Loopring Smart Wallet with Social Recovery.

Our wallet should be the last and only digital wallet you’ll ever need.

When building the Loopring Smart Wallet, we were looking well into the future to build the most secure, most future-proof wallet anyone would need to self-custody their funds and sleep well at night with ultimate peace of mind.

“Hardware wallets are not enough… memonic phrases are not enough… multi-sig is good… social recovery is better!” — Vitalik Buterin (creator of Ethereum)

Storing your own funds (self-custody) can be scary for the average person.

The way most crypto wallets are built is not a safe or sustainable model if we are going to onboard the masses into crypto. Even worse, many choose to not self-custody at all and rather store their funds on centralized exchanges that are notorious for being hacked.

We need to give the average person the same peace of mind they feel when they deposit their money at a bank if we are going to make self-custody + crypto sustainable.

This is why we built the Loopring Smart Wallet with Social Recovery.

For a quick, in-depth look into the wallet, you can also check out this Twitter thread.

Here are the important points :

• Basic EOA wallets (like MetaMask) are not secure for any significant amounts of funds — if your passphrase is lost, stolen, phished or hacked, your funds will likely be gone as well — this is far too common
• Hardware wallets (like Ledger) are better, but still are a single point of failure — private keys are stored offline, but still can be easily lost, stolen, phished or hacked — if they are, you have no recourse
• Smart Wallets w/ Social Recovery are the future of self-custody
• If your device (wallet) is lost, stolen, phished or hacked — you have all sorts of protections in place to protect your funds
• Guardians can lock your wallet if you lose it — if it can’t be found your Guardians can also recover your funds onto a new wallet!
• With Smart functionality enabled, you can add white-lists of addresses you trust — your funds cannot be transferred out to other addresses by potential hackers or phishers — daily limits can also be set to add further protection

All-in-all there is no better security for your funds and this will enable us to securely onboard the masses into crypto.

The Loopring Smart Wallet also comes with Loopring Layer 2 Exchange (and all of its functionality) already integrated — the only crypto wallet with native, Layer-2 enabled gas-less transactions!

With a lot more upgrades and functionality coming soon (like EthPort + a fresh new look!) it really is the last and only wallet you will ever need.

For an in-depth tutorial on how to install + setup the mobile wallet — click here.

The next steps for the Loopring Ecosystem :

We have come a long way since launching our last major upgrades (Loopring 3.6 w/ AMMs) in December 2020.

Major Milestones in just 6 months :

• Approaching 25k users across Web + Mobile apps
• Over $1.5 BILLION in trading volume
• Recent TVL (total value locked) all-time high of over $275 MILLION
• Worldwide Google searches for “Loopring” at all-time-highs in May 2021

This is all great, but we are only just getting started.
So, what’s next.

EthPort :

Imagine being able to use Loopring Layer 2 as your permanent home-base for your funds, while having complete (gas-free!) access to the entire Crypto + DeFi ecosystem (Ethereum L1, other L2s) in a zap, at the click of a button.

This is what EthPort enables and will be a huge step forward and necessary infrastructure needed to accomplish Loopring‘s vision of onboarding millions to crypto.

This will be launched imminently and the UI/UX + functionality will be continually developed and added to in the weeks/months following the launch.

For a more detailed look into the amazing tech behind EthPort —
check this post out.

Other major upgrades coming :

Coming Q2/Q3 :

• Continued EthPort functionality
• Concentrated liquidity (AMM upgrades) — less slippage +more liquidity
• Hybrid pools (across L2 + L1)
• Smart Wallet deployments across multiple L2s — dramatically lower costs
• Brand new Web app UI/UX
• Brand new Mobile app UI/UX

LRC — the token that Governs the Ecosystem :

(Loopring Coin)

At the heart of it all is our native token, LRC.

LRC holders are governors of the ecosystem + in doing so, share in it’s growth.

A forthcoming DAO will formalize this and cement LRC’s place in the center of the Loopring ecosystem.

Currently, as we continue to bootstrap the liquidity and growth of the Loopring Exchange, incentives (protocol fees) are being distributed to help drive this liquidity growth. You can read more about the recently launched LRC tokenomics v2 here.

Eventually, the DAO (LRC stakers) will govern this and determine how protocol fees are distributed.

What are you waiting for? Get onboard Layer-2 :

Want the best security / an all-in-one mobile experience?
— download the Loopring Smart Wallet w/ social recovery (mobile)
loopring.io
tutorial

Have your own wallet / just want to onboard + stop paying gas-fees?
— connect to the Loopring Layer 2 Exchange (web)
exchange.loopring.io
tutorial

About Loopring

Loopring is an Ethereum zkRollup protocol for scalable, secure exchanges & payments. Loopring builds non-custodial, high-performance products atop our Layer-2, including the Loopring Wallet — a mobile Ethereum smart wallet, and the Loopring Exchange — an L2 orderbook and AMM DEX. To learn more, you can sign up for our Monthly Update or see Loopring.org.

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