After Vitalik's skepticism about the L2 scalability logic: How do L2 builders respond to the direction of de-commodification?

On February 3, 2026, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin posted a lengthy article on social media, explicitly stating that the original vision of using Layer 2 as the primary scaling engine “is no longer applicable.” This public statement was quickly interpreted by the market as a major turning point in Ethereum’s scaling strategy. Over the past five years, Ethereum’s “rollup-centric” scaling architecture has supported the entire ecosystem’s throughput expansion and user base growth, positioning Optimism, Arbitrum, and other L2 networks as “branded sharding.”

However, as L1’s own scalability capabilities have significantly improved, the decentralization process of L2s has lagged far behind expectations, and most L2 projects still heavily rely on centralized security committees or multi-signature mechanisms, Vitalik believes that the previous branded sharding paradigm no longer reflects the true evolution direction of the Ethereum ecosystem. This statement is not a rejection of L2 tools per se, but a deep redefinition of L2’s role, marking a shift in Ethereum’s scaling narrative from “throughput first” to “security first + differentiated functions.” This article will systematically analyze the core logic of this strategic shift, the responses of various L2 projects, and the deeper implications of this change for Ethereum’s future.

Why does Vitalik believe the original vision of L2 has become invalid?

In Vitalik’s roadmap centered on rollups, L2 was initially assigned the role of “branded sharding”—a vertical division of labor where the Ethereum mainnet provides trust guarantees, and L2 networks execute transactions. The core goal of this design was to enable Ethereum to achieve significant network throughput expansion without sacrificing security and decentralization, through the L2 layer.

However, after five years of ecosystem evolution, Vitalik points out two fundamental facts that have led to the failure of this vision: first, the progress of L2 networks toward full decentralization has been much slower than expected; second, Ethereum’s L1 itself is rapidly scaling. As of early 2026, only a few mainstream rollup projects have reached Stage 2 (trustless) standards, with most still at Stage 0, relying on centralized sequencers and multi-sig bridges. This means many L2s are not true “shards” inheriting Ethereum’s security but are highly dependent on project-controlled centralized nodes and security committees. Meanwhile, Ethereum’s mainnet, through increasing gas limits, blob capacity optimizations, and native rollup precompilation schemes, is continuously enhancing its throughput, directly eroding the necessity of L2 as the sole scaling path.

How does L1’s own scalability change the game?

The core variable driving the redefinition of L2’s role is the improvement of Ethereum’s own capacity. When Vitalik proposed the rollup-centric roadmap in 2020, Ethereum faced a severe transaction fee bottleneck—by May 2021, the average transaction fee soared to a peak of $53.16, with gas prices exceeding 500 gwei during the NFT boom. At that time, high-performance blockchains like Solana posed direct competition to Ethereum with much lower fees and higher throughput.

But between 2025 and 2026, Ethereum underwent multiple technical iterations: the gas limit was expected to rise from 60 million to 200 million, blob capacity optimizations significantly reduced data availability costs for rollups, and ZK-EVM verification mechanisms are being integrated into the protocol layer, providing technical pathways for direct mainnet scaling. These changes mean that low-cost, high-throughput transaction scenarios previously only feasible on L2 are gradually flowing back to the L1 mainnet. Vitalik states, “As the mainnet gas limit increases, more transactions can be directly completed on L1 at low cost, weakening the justification for L2 as the ‘scaling solution for Ethereum’.”

Why has L2 decentralization progress fallen far short of expectations?

In addition to external factors like L1’s own capacity expansion, the internal technical and commercial landscape of L2s has also deviated from the original ideal blueprint. Vitalik previously proposed a phased framework to measure the decentralization level of rollups: Stage 0 relies on centralized security committees or multi-sig mechanisms, where the security committee can veto transactions; Stage 1 introduces limited governance to smart contracts; Stage 2 achieves fully trustless decentralization. According to L2beat data, as of early 2026, only 1 of the top 20 rollup projects has reached Stage 2, with 12 still at Stage 0. Vitalik openly states that some projects even explicitly say they may never want to surpass Stage 1, partly due to security concerns with ZK-EVMs, and partly because regulatory requirements compel project teams to retain ultimate control over protocol operation. This situation means many L2s are not “trustless” decentralized scaling layers but are instead highly centralized execution layers running on Ethereum, leveraging the “Ethereum L2” brand to gain market trust while maintaining key control nodes. Vitalik warns clearly: if an L2 cannot at least reach Stage 1, it should not be considered an “Ethereum scaling solution,” but rather an “independent Layer 1 with bridges.”

How do Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base respond: consensus and divergence coexist

In response to Vitalik’s systemic reassessment of L2’s role, the mainstream L2 builders show a clear divergence. Overall, most agree on the direction of “de-homogenization and repositioning,” but there are significant disagreements on whether “scaling remains L2’s core mission.”

Optimism co-founder Karl Floersch adopts a pragmatic and supportive stance toward transformation. He welcomes the challenge of building a modular L2 stack supporting “full-spectrum decentralization,” and admits that the current L2 ecosystem still faces practical engineering obstacles, including long withdrawal windows (current fraud proof challenge period still takes 7 days), immature Stage 2 proof systems, and a severe lack of cross-chain development tools. Floersch explicitly supports Vitalik’s proposal for native rollup precompilation, planning to incorporate it into the OP Stack ecosystem, aiming to lower the technical barriers for trustless cross-chain verification through protocol-level standardization, and to transform Optimism from a “scaling provider” into an “ecosystem standard-setter.”

Compared to Optimism’s moderate reform approach, the Arbitrum team shows a more assertive stance. Offchain Labs co-founder Steven Goldfeder emphasizes that, despite the evolution of rollup models, scaling remains the core value of L2s. He refutes the idea that “mainnet scaling can replace L2,” pointing out that during peak times, Arbitrum and Base systems have exceeded 1,000 TPS, while Ethereum mainnet remains in the double digits. The nature of a universal settlement layer means it cannot meet the extreme performance and differentiated execution needs of social, gaming, and high-concurrency applications. Goldfeder further warns that if the Ethereum ecosystem is perceived as hostile to rollups, many institutional developers might choose to launch independent Layer 1 blockchains instead of continuing to deploy on Ethereum. This warning highlights the “mutual dependence” between Ethereum and L2s: Ethereum needs the vitality of L2 ecosystems to stay competitive, while L2s rely on Ethereum’s security guarantees to gain institutional trust.

The Base team, incubated by Coinbase, offers a more differentiated response. Jesse Pollak believes that Ethereum’s L1 scalability “is a victory for the entire ecosystem,” and fully agrees that L2 should not merely be “cheaper Ethereum.” As mainnet gas fees continue to decline, the homogenous model of competing solely on price advantage has lost strategic significance. Pollak states that Base is building its moat through application-layer differentiation, account abstraction, and privacy features, while actively pursuing Stage 2 decentralization goals to establish an irreplaceable core advantage in product onboarding and user experience. Base’s strategic direction aligns with Vitalik’s suggested evolution of L2—focusing on building differentiation in privacy, identity, and user experience rather than just scaling.

The obstacles in evolving L2 from “scaling tool” to “differentiated service”

Despite the positive responses from builders, the engineering reality still presents systemic barriers to transforming L2 from “cheaper Ethereum” into “differentiated service layer.” The three major engineering pain points listed by the Optimism team are common across the ecosystem: long withdrawal periods impair capital efficiency and user experience; Stage 2 proof systems are not yet mature enough to securely custody hundreds of billions of dollars in assets without human intervention; fragmented cross-chain development tools hinder developers from building unified application logic. Meanwhile, market data also reflects another layer of difficulty: the total value locked (TVL) in Ethereum rollups has declined by over 13% from its peak in 2025 compared to early 2026. This decline is not due to decreasing activity—rollups’ per-second user operations continue to grow—but indicates that the market and users are beginning to see L2s as “execution layers” rather than long-term value storage. In other words, once the “cheaper Ethereum” positioning is discredited, the value capture ability at the asset layer will also be under pressure.

Transition from rollup-centric to trust layer paradigm

Vitalik’s reassessment of L2 is not only a correction of scaling strategy but also a reflection of a profound shift in Ethereum’s core value proposition. The old “rollup-centric” roadmap cast Ethereum as a “traffic platform”—attracting users and applications to L2 to expand the ecosystem, with ETH value capture mainly through transaction fees and blob costs. But as L1’s own capacity expands and a large portion of activity migrates to L2, the mainnet’s direct fee revenue faces structural pressure. Under the new strategic orientation, Ethereum is repositioning itself from a “traffic platform” to a “trust anchor for global settlement sovereignty.” In this new framework, the core mission of L1 is no longer to carry as many transactions as possible but to provide the highest level of security, censorship resistance, and finality. L2s are encouraged to evolve into specialized service environments tailored to different technical needs and economic models—including privacy, high-frequency trading, social identity, and other differentiated domains. As a result, ETH’s value logic is also undergoing a structural revaluation: shifting from a cash flow model based on transaction fees to a value model centered on security premiums and native asset attributes.

How does this shift in Ethereum’s scaling narrative affect the future landscape of L2s?

Overlaying the timelines of L2 decentralization progress and L1’s capacity expansion reveals a clearer picture of Ethereum’s scaling narrative evolution. Assuming L1 completes gas limit increases and native verification mechanisms between 2026 and 2027, the mainnet’s throughput could significantly improve, and transaction fees may stabilize at lower levels. In this context, pure “cost-reduction” L2s will face severe survival challenges, as their core business—differentiating on price from L1—may be directly undermined by the mainnet’s own advancements. Currently, in the rollup market, this risk is not evenly distributed: according to L2beat’s decentralization data, only 1 mainstream rollup has reached Stage 2, while over 60% of top projects remain at Stage 0.

This means only a few L2s with sufficient technical depth and decentralization architecture can truly serve as “trust extensions” of Ethereum. Many Stage 0 projects, in the context of further L1 expansion, face not only value ambiguity but also difficulty in differentiating in user experience and transaction costs from the native mainnet. From an optimistic perspective, L2s with higher decentralization and already building differentiation—such as Optimism’s Superchain ecosystem and modular standards, or Base’s focus on account abstraction and application-layer experience—may gain a structural advantage in this strategic reorientation. But from a conservative view, the long-term trust relationship between L1 and L2 still faces significant technical uncertainties—large-scale deployment of trustless proof mechanisms remains years away. During this transition, the core value proposition of L2s will shift from “throughput advantage” to a dual competition of “trust depth + functional differentiation,” which may lead to ecosystem reshuffling and systemic asset revaluation in the short term.

Summary

Vitalik Buterin’s systemic questioning of the original L2 scaling vision does not mean the value of Layer 2 as a technological tool is negated, but marks a fundamental shift in Ethereum’s scaling narrative from “throughput first” to “security first + differentiated functions.” Under this new framework, L1 is repositioned as the highest-security settlement layer, while L2s evolve into a spectrum of specialized networks covering different trust levels and functional domains—such as privacy, high-frequency trading, and social identity. The responses from major L2 builders like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base indicate broad consensus on “de-homogenization,” but substantial disagreements remain on whether “scaling remains L2’s core mission.” Coupled with the ongoing capacity expansion of L1 and the lagging decentralization progress of L2s, the future Ethereum ecosystem will likely feature a “trust layering + functional differentiation” dual-track pattern: high-throughput, high-interaction scenarios will increasingly migrate to specialized L2s with differentiated capabilities, while global settlement and sovereign-anchored asset liquidity will continue to rely on Ethereum’s mainnet. Understanding this strategic shift is crucial for market participants to gain a key cognitive advantage in asset valuation and sector assessment in the next phase of Ethereum’s ecosystem.

FAQ

Is Vitalik completely negating the necessity of L2?

Not entirely. Vitalik is rejecting the old positioning of L2 as merely “branded sharding” for Ethereum, not the necessity of L2 as a technological layer. He explicitly suggests that L2 should shift from simple scaling to providing differentiated functions, such as privacy, dedicated efficiency, and ultra-low latency. Therefore, L2 will continue to play an important role in the Ethereum ecosystem, but its specific form and core value proposition will be redefined.

Does L1’s scaling mean L2’s competitive advantage will disappear completely?

Not entirely. Although improvements in L1 throughput and fee reduction weaken L2’s “low-cost” selling point, the core nature of the mainnet as a universal settlement layer means it cannot meet all the extreme performance and differentiated execution needs of social, gaming, and high-frequency trading applications. In high concurrency and high interaction scenarios, specialized L2s still have significant advantages in performance and user experience.

What minimum security standards must L2 meet?

According to Vitalik, if an L2 involves ETH or native Ethereum assets, it should at least reach Stage 1 security standards; otherwise, it should not be considered a “meaningful Ethereum scaling component,” but rather an “independent Layer 1 with bridges.” Currently, most mainstream L2s are still at Stage 0 or Stage 1, with a significant gap from full decentralization at Stage 2.

What specific directions does the differentiated development of L2 include?

Vitalik has proposed several specific paths for specialization, including privacy-focused non-EVM virtual machines, application-specific efficiency optimizations, dedicated designs for social or identity applications, ultra-low latency sequencers, and built-in oracles and dispute resolution mechanisms. Base’s focus on account abstraction and user experience is a concrete response to this trajectory.

What is the long-term impact of this strategic shift on the Ethereum ecosystem?

Ethereum is transitioning from a “traffic platform” to a “trust anchor for global settlement sovereignty.” The division of labor between L1 and L2 is evolving from simple scaling to a “trust layering + functional differentiation” dual system. In this new pattern, ETH’s value logic will shift from a cash flow model based on transaction fees to a value model centered on security premiums and native asset attributes.