Forced Inclusion
A mechanism letting a user submit a transaction directly through a Layer 2's base layer, bypassing a potentially censoring or unresponsive sequencer.
Forced inclusion is a mechanism that lets a user submit a transaction directly through a Layer 2's underlying base layer, guaranteeing it will eventually be processed even if the Layer 2's own sequencer (see Kaavon's "Sequencer" glossary definition) is censoring that transaction, unresponsive, or otherwise failing to include it through the normal path.
Forced inclusion is a genuinely important censorship-resistance safeguard specifically because many Layer 2 networks rely on a single, potentially centralized sequencer for ordinary operation — without a forced-inclusion escape hatch, that sequencer alone could indefinitely block a specific user's transactions.
Examples
- A user whose transaction is being censored by a Layer 2's sequencer can use forced inclusion to submit it directly through the base layer instead.
- Forced inclusion is a key censorship-resistance safeguard specifically for Layer 2 networks that rely on a single, potentially centralized sequencer.