Crypto glossary
Native (enshrined) rollup
A native or enshrined rollup has its state transitions verified by the base chain's protocol itself, instead of by custom proof contracts written by each team.
Today each Ethereum rollup deploys its own verifier or fault-proof contracts, which are complex, upgradeable and a major source of risk. A native rollup, also called an enshrined rollup, would instead rely on Ethereum's protocol to check that its blocks follow EVM rules, for example through a proposed precompile that re-executes or verifies an EVM state transition as part of L1 consensus.
The idea, championed by Ethereum researchers since the early days of the rollup roadmap and revived in 2025 proposals, aims to give rollups the same security as L1 without security councils or bespoke proof systems. Combined with based sequencing, it is sometimes described as the path to rollups that are indistinguishable from Ethereum in trust assumptions, and it ties into plans to verify L1 itself with zero-knowledge proofs.
Native rollups are still research, not a deployed feature, and the design involves trade-offs. Enshrining one execution environment limits customisation, since a rollup would have to follow the EVM as Ethereum defines it. Changes to consensus are slow, and the term is sometimes used loosely for any tightly integrated L2.
Example
In a proposed design, a native rollup submits its block and Ethereum validators verify the EVM execution through a built-in function, so no separate fault-proof contract or upgrade council is needed.