# Chain risk

> Rollup and chain risk from L2Beat criteria - state validation, data availability, exit window, sequencer and proposer failure.

Source: https://docs.1delta.io/risk/chains/

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Rates the **chain** a position lives on: if the chain fails or censors you, no
property of the lending market can protect the deposit. Scored from L2Beat's
published risk criteria, keyed by chain id.

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## The five criteria

Each is scored 1-5 independently.

**State validation** — how the chain proves its state transitions are correct.

| Mechanism | Score |
| --- | --- |
| Validity proofs, no execution delay | 1 |
| Validity proofs with a delay, or multi-proof systems | 2 |
| Fraud proofs | 3 |
| TEE-based | 4 |
| None | 5 |

**Data availability** — whether the data needed to reconstruct state is posted on
Ethereum, to an external DA layer, to a committee, or self-custodied.

**Exit window** — how long users have to withdraw before an upgrade takes effect.
No window is the worst case; a long or infinite window is the best.

**Sequencer failure** — what a user can do if the sequencer stops or censors:
force transactions through L1, self-sequence, or nothing.

**Proposer failure** — what a user can do if the proposer stops: self-propose,
use an escape hatch, or cannot withdraw at all.

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## Composition

```
risk_score = round(mean(applicable criteria)), clamped to 1-5
```

Criteria the source does not report are dropped from the mean rather than guessed.
Ethereum mainnet is pinned to 1 across all five as the reference point.

Both the overall score and the per-criterion breakdown are exposed, so a consumer
can filter on the specific property they care about — a protocol that only cares
about censorship resistance can read `sequencerFailure` directly instead of the
average.

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## What this does and does not cover

Rollup risk is well specified and comparable, which is why these five criteria
are used. It says nothing about the operational risk of a chain's bridges,
validator set economics on non-rollup chains, or RPC and infrastructure
centralisation. A chain L2Beat does not cover has no score rather than a
flattering default.