Vitalik finally admits to a major strategic mistake by Ethereum. Are you still holding your position?

Author: Gu Yu, ChainCatcher

After ETH price hit a new low since last May, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin published a lengthy article today reflecting on the long-standing Layer 2 strategy that has been at the core of Ethereum. He plans to increase investment in Layer 1, which is expected to cause a sensational impact across the entire crypto industry.

Initially, the roadmap centered around Rollups defined Layer 2 as Ethereum-supported sharding, providing trustless block space. In this article, Vitalik seems to have abandoned his previous advocacy for a “Rollup-centric” scaling model. He points out that while Ethereum’s base layer is scaling, the decentralization speed of Layer 2 is “far slower than expected,” and many Layer 2 solutions cannot or do not want to meet the trust guarantees required for true sharding.

“These two facts, for whatever reason, mean that the original vision of Layer 2 and its role within Ethereum no longer makes sense. We need a new path,” Vitalik said. To outsiders, these statements imply that Vitalik admits the Layer 2 narrative is nearly outdated, and future focus will shift more toward scaling the Layer 1 itself.

Since its inception, Layer 2 has been one of the most capital-enthusiastic and market-focused concepts in crypto, with nearly a hundred Layer 2 projects like Polygon, Arbitrum, and Optimism raising over $3 billion in total funding. They have played a key role in scaling Ethereum and reducing user transaction costs, with multiple tokens’ FDV exceeding $10 billion long-term.

However, under strong competition from high-performance blockchains like Solana, Layer 2’s performance advantages have not been fully realized, and its ecosystem influence has waned. Currently, only the Base ecosystem remains active at the forefront of crypto, representing Ethereum Layer 2.

主要已发布 Layer2 代币市值与融资数据 来源：RootData

Additionally, Layer 2 outages still occur frequently. On January 11 this year, Starknet experienced a outage again after many years of operation. Post-incident reports showed a conflict between execution and proof layers caused about 18 minutes of on-chain activity rollback. In September last year, Linea was down for over half an hour. In December 2024, Taiko’s mainnet went down for 30 minutes due to an ABI issue, indicating ongoing technical instability.

In fact, Vitalik previously proposed a phased framework to measure Layer 2 decentralization, starting from Phase 0 (centralized trust committee can veto transactions), Phase 1 (smart contracts begin to have limited governance rights), to Phase 2 (completely trustless).

Despite nearly a hundred Ethereum Layer 2 projects, only a few have reached Phase 1. Coinbase’s Layer 2 project Base, started in 2023, only reached Phase 1 last year. Vitalik has criticized this multiple times. According to L2beat statistics, among the top 20 Rollup projects, only one—Aztec’s zk.money, a privacy protocol—has reached Phase 2, but development has stalled. The other 12 projects are still at Phase 0, heavily reliant on auxiliary functions and multi-signatures.

Vitalik points out that Layer 2 projects should at least upgrade to Phase 1; otherwise, these networks should be viewed as more competitive, vampire-like “Layer 1 networks with cross-chain bridges.”

来源：L2beat

Beyond potential corporate interests delaying Layer 2 decentralization, Vitalik highlights technical challenges and regulatory concerns. “I’ve even seen at least one company explicitly say they may never want to surpass Phase 1. This is not only due to ZK-EVM security reasons but also because their clients’ regulatory requirements demand ultimate control,” he said.

However, Vitalik has not completely abandoned the Layer 2 concept. Instead, he broadens his view on what Layer 2 should achieve.

“We should stop viewing Layer 2 as Ethereum’s ‘brand sharding’ with associated social status and responsibilities,” he stated. “Instead, we can see Layer 2 as a full spectrum, including chains fully trusted and credit-supported by Ethereum with various unique attributes (not just EVM), as well as options with different degrees of connection to Ethereum. Everyone (or bots) can choose whether to focus on these options based on their needs.”

For future development, Vitalik suggests Layer 2 projects should focus on added value rather than just scaling. His recommended directions include: privacy-focused virtual machines, ultra-low latency serialization, non-financial applications (like social or AI), application-specific execution environments, and pushing beyond the throughput limits of next-generation Layer 1.

He also emphasizes the importance of ZK-EVM proofs, which can be used to extend Layer 1. This is a pre-compiled layer embedded into the base layer that “automatically upgrades with Ethereum.”

Over the past year, Ethereum Foundation’s organizational restructuring and two network upgrades have made Layer 1 a core strategic focus. One goal is to gradually increase gas limits through multiple iterations, enabling Layer 1 to handle more native transactions, asset issuance, governance, and DeFi settlements without over-relying on Layer 2. The Glamsterdam upgrade plan this year includes several improvements aimed at reducing MEV manipulation and abuse, stabilizing gas fees, and laying a solid foundation for future scaling.

In earlier statements, Vitalik indicated 2026 will be a key year for Ethereum to regain ground in sovereignty and trustlessness. Plans include simplifying node operation with ZK-EVM and BAL tech, launching Helios verification RPC data, implementing ORAM and PIR privacy protections, developing social recovery wallets and time-lock features for security, and improving on-chain UI and IPFS applications.

Vitalik emphasizes that Ethereum will correct the compromises made over the past decade regarding node operation, application decentralization, and data privacy, refocusing on core values. Although this will be a long process, it will strengthen the Ethereum ecosystem.

附：关于 Vitalik 文章与观点，行业人士也发表了看法，以下为 ChainCatcher 摘录的部分精华内容：

Wei Dai（1kx 研究合伙人）：

很高兴看到 Vitalik 讨论了以 Rollup 为中心的路线图的后见之明错误。但是，问“如果我是 L2 层级，我今天会怎么做？”就偏离了重点。

关键不在于 Vitalik 会怎么做，而在于这些 L2 层级和应用团队会怎么做。L2 层级及其应用始终会以自身利益为先，而不是以以太坊的利益为先。要让 L2 层级达到第一阶段或实现与以太坊的最大互操作性，必须确保这样做有价值。

长期以来，这个问题一直被定义为安全问题（L2 层级需要 L1 层级来支持功能和 CR）。但实际上，最重要的是以太坊 L1 层级能否为 L2 层级和应用提供更多用户和流动性。（我认为没有简单的解决方案，但互操作性方面的努力方向是正确的。）

蓝狐（知名加密研究员）：

Vitalik的意思是，L2利用了L1，不过在价值反馈或生态反馈上，L2都没有做到位。现在L1自己可以扩展了，不用依赖L2实现可扩展。L2要么跟L1保持一致（native rollup），要么成为L1。

这意味着什么？对通用L2是坏消息，对L2应用链是好消息，正如我们之前一致在说的那样。L2应用链可以玩出花样，反馈价值给生态。

Jason chen（知名加密研究员）：

随着以太坊本身的扩展，最显著的就是Gas费低到和L2们相差无几，而接下来Gas还要继续低，再加上ZK逐渐上马后速度也会和L2们相差无几，所以L2们现在的位置非常尴尬，Vitalik的这条推文相当于正式宣告了L2最初至今扩展以太坊的阶段性历史任务已经完成了，如果再不继续给L2们找到新的叙事角度，L2将会成为历史时代的产物被淘汰了。

对于项目方来说搞L2最大的目的还是能自己把手续费都赚了，但L2对于用户来说已经没有什么存在的意义，毕竟Gas和性能都和主网拉不开什么差距。

L2生于以太坊，也死于以太坊，周天子和诸侯的纷争也结束了。

Haotian（知名加密研究员）：

我在之前的文章中提过不下10次，说通用型layer2战略行不通了，每一条layer2应该转型专用型layer2，其实也是一种layer1了。没想到， Vitalik Buterin在引导了漫长的Stage2战略对齐后，众多layer2还是沦为了“弃子”。

layer2尤其是通用型layer2背着很大的发展包袱，一开始面临对齐以太坊安全的技术路线问题，之后又存在发币后Sequencer中心化的监管问题，再到最后遭遇生态孕育不力的“被证伪”包袱。根本原因就是一开始所有的layer2都依附以太坊layer1存活，而当以太坊发现自身难保开始主导layer1性能进化的时候，layer2就没了任何赋能给以太坊的想象空间，只剩下累赘和麻烦