With the launch of the ESP token, the Espresso network has officially transitioned to a permissionless proof-of-stake blockchain, opening up participation in securing the network and distributing community airdrops representing 10% of the total supply.
The transition coincides with the launch of the ESP token, which is used for staking, securing the network, and protocol participation. The Espresso Foundation said the total supply is 3.59 billion ESP, with 10% allocated to fully unlocked community airdrops targeting early ecosystem participants and users of Espresso-integrated Rollups.
“There are many ways to determine who is eligible,” Ben Fisch, CEO and co-founder of Espresso Systems, told CoinDesk. “The idea here is to allow tokens to circulate among members of our extended community while also rewarding early participation and adoption of the Espresso network.”
The foundation said additional token supply has been allocated to contributors, investors, future ecosystem incentives and long-term network sustainability, with the majority of allocations subject to vesting.
Espresso acts as the orchestration and final layer of aggregation, running as a standalone execution environment. Fisch said the network is designed specifically for layer 2 blockchain services, rather than competing with them at the execution layer.
“Tier 2 only needs one thing from Tier 1, and that’s finality,” Fisch said. “The extent to which Layer 1 provides services to Layer 2 can be measured by two things: the security of the blockchain and how quickly it provides finality.”
“Unlike Ethereum or any other existing layer 1, it is designed for layer 2,” he added. “It’s not going to compete with L2. It’s designed for L2.”
Currently, Espresso rolls up blocks in about six seconds on average, while Ethereum’s finalization window takes more than 12 minutes (finalizing blocks means they become immutable). Fish believes that this gap has become a structural bottleneck as applications and liquidity are distributed across multiple aggregations rather than concentrated on a single chain.
“Quick finalization is not a good thing for rollups,” Fisch said. “This is the missing piece to transform siled chains into unified, composable ecosystems.”
The launch comes as the Ethereum ecosystem debates the future role of Layer 2 networks, following recent comments from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin that the network may eventually move away from an L2-centric roadmap as improvements to Ethereum’s base layer reduce the need for rollups as a scaling solution.
The debate raises broader questions about whether the second-layer network itself is an extension of Ethereum or a separate blockchain, and whether infrastructure designed primarily to scale Ethereum remains relevant as the base layer becomes faster and cheaper.
As Ethereum’s long-term scaling strategy comes under renewed scrutiny, Espresso is betting that demand for application-specific aggregation, especially from institutional and consumer platforms, will continue to grow regardless of Ethereum’s roadmap.
Learn more: Espresso, a composability project between blockchains, launches major product
