Thank you @jgorzny for this summary on the properties and details on Rollup Escape Hatches.
Through your summary, one can understand that when a rollup becomes incapable of performing its functions when an operator goes offline, an Escape hatch is deployed to avoid assets from being blocked and allow state updates.
This mechanism which occurs after a rollup operator goes offline and makes state updates impossible through rollup, helps to allow state and digital assets escape from a non functional rollup.
Reading through the research paper, I understand that this escape hatch is crucial in blockchain as it helps to secure users’ assets by preventing it to be blocked or frozen.
The characteristics of escape hatches are at an edge of ensuring proper regulation to the blockchain. One of its basic properties details on correcting the escape. Basically, when an operator returns online, the operation is returned on the existing blockchain and this is to prevent having a continuous escape hatches on the already underlying blockchain.
On security, every user would like to have an efficient and secured assets that are void of any impending danger. The Escape Hatches for rollup are not required to deal with malicious operators as these are guarded against by the fraud proof and validity proof of optimistic and ZK rollups respectively. Also the escape hatches’ functionality could create a larger surface for an attack, hence, requiring a good security measure to avoid exploitation.
I was pondering on what would happen to Layer 1 with minimum scalability if there is a bulk or congested transaction traffic, if it would be able to hold it up, until reading through the transaction property, and could see that it permits the feasibility of mass-exit for transactions if congested on the underlaying layer during an escape hatch. This property would ensure no overload on the underlying blockchain and would help users have smooth transactions.
However, the research explains that if an operator fails to publish update, a user’s assets locks up and that a forced transaction must be censored by an operator. Hence, an offline operator is akin to one who censors all transaction, therefore, an offline operator deploys the escape hatch before going offline since they are to be aware of all transactions?
An escape hatch is considered to be part of the rollup functionality called Validity bridge which could create a large surface area for an attack, therefore, when an operator goes offline, do other operators not try to manipulate some transactions in the blockchain?