The Ethereum founder's new perspective on L2 fast withdrawals raises thoughts

Recently, the founder of Ethereum's views on L2 fast withdrawals have attracted widespread attention. He believes that achieving fast withdrawals within 1 hour is more important than reaching Stage 2, and this adjustment in priority reflects profound thinking.

First of all, the one-week withdrawal waiting period has indeed become a tricky issue in practical applications. It not only affects user experience but more importantly, significantly increases cross-chain costs. For example, in certain intent-based bridging solutions, liquidity providers need to bear the cost of capital occupation for a week, which directly leads to an increase in cross-chain fees. As a result, users have to choose multi-signature solutions with weaker trust assumptions, which goes against the original intention of L2.

To address this issue, the founder of Ethereum proposed a 2-of-3 hybrid proof system that combines ZK, OP, and TEE technologies. In this scheme, ZK and TEE can provide immediacy, while TEE and OP both have sufficient production verification. Theoretically, any combination of two systems can ensure security, thus avoiding the time cost of simply waiting for ZK technology to mature completely.

Secondly, the new statement from this founder seems to show a pragmatic shift. From the previous emphasis on decentralization and anti-censorship idealism to now directly providing hard metrics: 1-hour withdrawals, 12-second finality. This clear and straightforward goal setting has re-prioritized the entire L2 track.

This transformation is actually paving the way for the ultimate form of the "Rollup-Centric" grand strategy, aiming to make Ethereum L1 truly a unified settlement layer and liquidity hub. Once rapid withdrawals and cross-chain aggregation are achieved, the difficulty for other public chains to challenge the Ethereum ecosystem will greatly increase.

This shift from "ideal-driven" to "result-oriented" reflects the entire Ethereum ecosystem's movement towards a more commercial and competitive direction. The market has already demonstrated through real actions that users are more concerned about experience and actual benefits, rather than decentralized technological slogans.

However, to achieve the ideal user experience and infrastructure construction goals, the Ethereum ecosystem is likely to face intense competition in the future regarding the maturity and cost control of ZK technology. Currently, although ZK technology is advancing rapidly, cost remains a real constraint. A ZK proof of 500k+ gas means that only an hourly submission frequency can be achieved in the short term, and to reach the ultimate goal of 12 seconds, breakthroughs in aggregation technology will still be needed.

This logic is clearly visible: the cost of a single Rollup frequently submitting proofs is too high, but if multiple Rollup proofs can be aggregated into one, it becomes economically feasible when averaged over each time slot (12 seconds). This also presents a new technical route for the L2 competitive landscape, where L2 projects that can achieve breakthroughs in ZK proof optimization may find a foothold, while those still focused on optimistic proofs may face directional challenges.