The time is finally here. On March 14, 2024, we completed Phase 1 of the Metis Decentralized Sequencer upgrade, establishing Metis as the first-ever rollup platform with a decentralized sequencer. Now, it’s time for Phase 2, opening the door to proper incentive alignment across all network participants, and more.
In this blog post, we will delve into what this means for our community and how users can start interacting immediately.
On Phase 1 of this historic upgrade, Metis successfully added multiple sequencer nodes and introduced sequencer rotation. Phase 2 of the Decentralized Sequencer upgrade was activated by a hard fork on block 16500000, introducing:
Before the most recent hard fork (Phase 2 of the Decentralized Sequencer upgrade), each block had one transaction. The sequencer would process transactions as they come and either reject them or put them in a block and broadcast them. After the hard fork, transactions have a fixed confirmation time of 2 seconds, even during spikes, and blocks will be able to carry multiple transactions, drastically enhancing the network’s throughput.
The transaction pool is a private transaction pool for the sequencer nodes, just like a mempool. This will be an essential piece to facilitate the fixed confirmation time of 2 seconds, in which transactions will be added to a queue and then added to the next block.
These two additions, multiple transactions within a block (1) and the transaction pool (2), will contribute to a reduction in block production overhead.
Sequencer Mining is arguably the most important concept introduced through Phase 2 of the historic upgrade, as it will allow Metis to properly align incentives across all network participants.
Sequencer Mining consists of METIS tokens earned by sequencer nodes for their role in processing transactions and generating blocks on Metis. Operated by various entities globally to avoid a single point of failure, these nodes ensure fairness in block sequencing. Their tasks include ordering and batching transactions, as well as submitting these batches to Ethereum mainnet.
An essential part of Sequencer Mining is LST providers. Similar to Lido Finance on Ethereum, LST providers will operate nodes on the network, and users will be able to lock their tokens via these LST providers, unlocking liquid staking tokens in the process(think of it as a receipt token for your stake, that can also be utilized in other DeFi protocols).
In other words, LST providers engage with the sequencer, and users in turn interact with the providers. Through our Community Ecosystem Governance (CEG), the community chose Artemis Finance and Enki Protocol as the two LST protocols for the Alpha Phase.
Artemis Finance
Artemis Finance is a liquid staking protocol designed exclusively for Metis’ Decentralized Sequencer. Users can stake METIS tokens on Artemis Finance and receive the liquid staking token artMETIS.
Enki Protocol
Enki Protocol is a Metis-native liquid staking protocol leveraging dual-token architecture from protocols like Frax and Lido to implement the most battle-tested LST design to the Metis Decentralized Sequencer. Users can stake METIS via Enki and receive seMETIS, but the protocol utilizes ENKI for its governance.
Metis LSB is an initiative focused on accelerating growth for LSTs and LST focused products on Metis.
In the first year, sequencer nodes will benefit from a 20% Mining Rewards Rate (MRR), which is the pace at which smart contracts compensate participants for producing blocks. Additionally, LST-focused products like liquidity pools on DEXs, Lending Pools, and CDPs, will allow METIS LST holders to benefit even further by tapping into new and deeper DeFi use cases for these.
To ensure proper decentralization and high participation rates on the decentralized sequencer, Metis has secured important partnerships that will recognize crypto institutions that will help us achieve this goal.
Sequencer Mining Rewards are now available to users.
Anyone can now deposit and start mining immediately through Artemis. Enki will deploy on Mainnet soon, but users can already interact with Enki’s Pre-Staking initiative.
