Towards an Intelligent Decision Engine for Smart Contract Deployment

Abstract

Layer 2 (L2) blockchain solutions emerged in recent years, predominantly in the Ethereum ecosystem, as a viable option for scaling a main blockchain network (L1). However, the selection of a L2 solution for deploying smart contracts backing blockchain applications is a decision that depends on many factors, such as costs, efficiency, popularity, and stability. We propose here a systematic methodology to help with this decision making process by using a set of relevant metrics and introducing user-defined profiles that capture different priorities among these metrics. We collect the major categories of smart contracts from a community-maintained data source, and we gather transactions for a six months period from three major L2 solutions: Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base. For each contract category and each blockchain, we compute a set of metrics and scores tailored to each user profile. By applying our methodology, we identify a clear bias in the classification, showing which L2 solutions are better suited for particular application types and user profiles.

arXiv commentAccepted for the 30th IEEE International Conference on System Theory, Control and Computing, ICSTCC 2026; Copyright is with IEEE