Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has signaled a significant shift in the network's scaling strategy, asserting that the original vision for Layer 2 (L2) solutions is largely obsolete. This bold declaration underscores a pivot towards strengthening Ethereum's mainnet capabilities and redefining the role of L2s within the ecosystem.
Re-evaluating Layer 2's Role
Buterin argues that many existing Layer 2s have failed to adequately inherit Ethereum's robust security and decentralization, which was a core tenet of their initial purpose. Originally conceived to offload transactions at high speed and low cost while remaining fully secured by the mainnet, several L2 implementations have fallen short of this standard, often relying on multi-sig bridges that compromise the integrity of Ethereum's security guarantees. Consequently, Buterin suggests that L2s, including prominent ones like Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, and Starknet, should re-orient their focus from general scaling to more specialized niches such as privacy, identity, decentralized finance (DeFi), social applications, or AI, leaving the primary scaling to the mainnet itself.
The New Path: Mainnet-Centric Scaling
The "new path" emphasizes scaling directly on the Ethereum mainnet through two key advancements: native rollups and an increased gas limit. Buterin expresses growing conviction in native rollups, especially with the future integration of zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) proofs at the base layer. Unlike traditional rollups built on top of Ethereum, native rollups are integrated directly into the core protocol, allowing transaction processing to be verified directly by Ethereum validators, thus ensuring stronger security and integrity. Complementing this, Ethereum developers have also debated increasing the gas limit from 60 million to 80 million, which directly boosts the number of transactions and smart contract operations per block. These combined efforts are part of a broader 10-year roadmap to achieve an ambitious target of 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) on the Ethereum mainnet, a substantial leap from its current 15-30 TPS. This strategic re-prioritization signifies a maturing Ethereum, capable of handling more of its scaling needs internally.
