Based rollup Taiko activates preconfirmations to speed up Layer 2 transactions

Ethereum Layer 2 Taiko has activated preconfirmations on its mainnet, aiming to speed up transactions while maintaining Ethereum-level decentralization.

The Ethereum-aligned rollup, which launched last year without a centralized sequencer, previously followed Ethereum’s 12-second block times, resulting in slower performance compared to rollups using centralized sequencing.

Taiko is a based rollup — a type of rollup that relies on Ethereum block validators to sequence transactions, benefiting from the liveness and security assurances provided by the underlying layer.

The introduction of preconfirmations on Taiko now allows transactions to receive a soft confirmation before being finalized on-chain, enabling execution 20 to 30 times faster than before.

Under the system, designated preconfirmers commit to including certain transactions in the next block, with penalties imposed for non-compliance. The feature is being launched in “Phase 1” with a whitelist of approved preconfirmers. A move to “Phase 2” will open participation to anyone, making the process fully permissionless.

The upgrade was delivered as part of Taiko’s Pacaya release, which also includes batch block proposals for more efficient preconfirmations, simplified proving by removing guardian provers, faster withdrawals with a reduced proving window, ERC-20 solver support for improved bridging, and the option to use ether as proving bonds for other Layer 2s.

Development involved contributions from Chainbound, Gattaca, and Nethermind, with the long-term goal of enabling use cases such as fast DeFi transactions, real-time gaming, enterprise applications, and censorship-resistant voting on a decentralized rollup.

Since its inception in 2022, Taiko has raised $37 million to date across two rounds.