Several Layer 2 developers reacted after Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said the unique vision of L2s as the first scaling engine “now not is sensible” and called for a shift towards specialization.
In a post on Wednesday, Buterin argued that many L2s have failed to completely adopt Ethereum's security attributable to the continued reliance on multisig bridges, while the bottom layer is becoming increasingly able to handling more throughput through increases in gas limits and future native rollups.
The comments drew responses from Ethereum Layer 2 staff, who broadly agreed that Rollups have to evolve beyond the cheaper versions of Ethereum, but disagreed on whether scaling should remain on the core of their role.
The Ethereum ecosystem is grappling with a changing roadmap geared toward making the bottom layer more powerful while L2s reposition themselves as specialized environments that meet different technical needs.
Ethereum L2 developers accept a shift and differ on the role of scaling
Karl Floersch, co-founder of the Optimism Foundation, said in an X post that he welcomes the challenge of constructing a modular L2 stack that supports “the total spectrum of decentralization.”
Source: Karl Flörsch
He also acknowledged that major hurdles remain. These include long payout windows, the dearth of production-ready Phase 2 proofs, and inadequate tools for cross-chain apps.
“Stage 2 shouldn’t be yet ready for production,” Flörsch wrote, adding that the prevailing evidence shouldn’t be yet certain enough to support large bridges. He also supported native Ethereum precompilation for rollups, an idea Buterin recently highlighted as a solution to make trustless verification more accessible.
Steven Goldfeder, co-founder of Arbitrum developer Offchain Labs, took a more forceful stance in a lengthy X thread. He argued that while the rollup model has evolved, scaling stays a core value of L2s.
Goldfeder said Arbitrum was not developed as a “service for Ethereum,” but relatively because Ethereum provides a highly secure and low-cost settlement layer that makes large-scale rollups viable.
Source: Steven Goldfeder
He also dismissed the concept a scaled Ethereum mainnet could replace the throughput currently handled by L2 networks. Goldfeder cited periods of high activity where Arbitrum and Base processed over 1,000 transactions per second, while Ethereum processed fewer.
He warned that if Ethereum was perceived as hostile to rollups, institutions could launch independent Layer 1 chains as an alternative of deploying them on Ethereum.
Base frame differentiation, Starknet indicates alignment
Jesse Pollak, head of Base, said in an X post that Ethereum's L1 scaling is “a win for the whole ecosystem.” He agreed that L2s cannot only be “Ethereum, but in addition cheaper.”
Pollak said Base has focused on onboarding users and developers while working toward Level 2 decentralization. He added that differentiation through applications, account abstraction and privacy features are consistent with the direction outlined by Buterin.
Source: Jesse Pollak
StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson, whose company is developing the non-EVM Starknet rollup, issued a temporary but clear response to X, writing: “Say Starknet without saying Starknet.”
Ben-Sasson's comment suggested that some ZK-native L2s imagine that they already fulfill the precise role described by Buterin.
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