Espresso & Caldera Co-Launch Milan
TLDR:
Espresso & Caldera co-launch Milan, the first Arbitrum-based chain to leverage Espresso’s shared sequencing network.
Today, the Espresso team officially introduced Milan, “an Arbitrum rollup leveraging the Gibraltar testnet’s integration with the Arbitrum stack”.
Okay, but what does this mean? 👇
ICYMI, last week, Espresso unveiled Gibraltar, Espresso’s latest testnet deployment. The difference between this testnet and the previous one (Cortado), is that Gibraltar features the integration of Arbitrum’s tech stack, making it the fourth rollup framework to be integrated with Espresso, after the OP Stack, Polygon CDK, & Cartesi’s own stack.
In other words, builders on Arbitrum can start experimenting with Espresso’s shared sequencing network.
So what does this mean?
Today, builders are able to start experimenting with Milan, but soon enough, anyone will be able to permissionlessly add the Espresso sequencer to their own Arbitrum-based chain.
Why should you care as an end-user?
Over the coming years, we’ll be seeing many Arbitrum rollups deploy, and we want to make sure these networks we’re trusting our funds with are as safe & decentralized as possible. While a centralized sequencer cannot run away with user funds, it does present a few challenges:
a centralized sequencer can censor or withhold transactions (not process your transactions)
it can take advantage of MEV opportunities at the expense of the end-user
if that single entity goes down for some reason, then nothing can get processed - the rollup is at a standstill.
Introducing Milan
Milan is the first Arbitrum-based chain to leverage Espresso, and similar to the previous time with the OP Stack, Milan was launched using Caldera’s RaaS platform.
As of today, users can only add the Milan network to their wallet, and access testnet ETH through two methods:
Adding the network:
Accessing testnet tokens:
Use the faucet provided on the official Milan portal:
if you already have some testnet ETH, then you can simply bridge over to Milan using the native bridge:
This is all we can do on Milan for now, but similar to the previous time, maybe we see some DEX fork launch on Milan for users to start interacting with.
Why would you even care to try this yourself?
Several modular projects have announced an airdrop/points this year, and it doesn’t look like this is set to slow down any time soon. So who knows, maybe Espresso, Caldera, or both, reward early Milan users one day. 🤷♂️
Modular Expansion 🧱