Since the pioneering Layer 2 networks such as Arbitrum and Optimism began building on Ethereum to support faster and cheaper transaction experiences a few years ago, Layer 2 networks have emerged like mushrooms after the rain. According to L2Beat data, there are currently 73 running Layer 2 projects, 20 Layer 3 projects, 81 upcoming projects, and 12 archived projects.
However, Andre Cronje, the director of the Fantom Foundation who is known as the "Father of DeFi", and Andre Cronje, the CTO of Sonic Labs, tweeted today, targeting Layer 2, stating that Layer 2 as an application chain is illogical for developers, and listed multiple reasons:
· Almost no basic infrastructure (stablecoins, oracles, institutional custody, etc.) when deployed
· No foundation or lab to provide assistance
· Centralized architecture is vulnerable to attacks
· Fragmented liquidity and forced through cross-chain bridges
· No user and developer community
· Spending time on solving the above issues instead of focusing on applications and users
· Eliminating network effects
· Transaction confirmation times are still relatively long (some vendors are unwilling to cooperate)
· Developing independently (no collaborative teams)
Andre Cronje also stated that application chains have severely underestimated the cost of infrastructure and compliance (including browsers, hosting, trading platforms, oracles, bridges, toolkits, integrated development environments, deposits and withdrawals, native issuance and integration, regulation, and compliance), and that by 2024, application chains will have spent $14 million, a large portion of which will be recurring costs.
Regarding Andre Cronje's statements, developers have been discussing them extensively. Some developers expressed agreement, saying "100% agree, it's meaningless to build products on application chains without the support and assistance of a foundation" and "Given such high costs, I'm curious why there are even more Layer 2 projects being launched, as they need a large volume of transactions to make money".
However, there are also developers with different opinions. One developer stated that although the available basic infrastructure for generic Layer 2 is limited, the stronger composability between Layer 2 (and even Layer 1) completely eliminates the need for local stablecoins, oracles, and institutional custody, and few people understand the framework shift.
This developer also disagreed with many of Andre Cronje's points, emphasizing that Layer 2 application chains are decentralized and secure, and acknowledged that the infrastructure costs of application chains may be higher than standalone applications, but believes that as service demand competition intensifies, the costs of much of the infrastructure will tend towards zero.
Andre Cronje Pushes for Sonic
In Andre Cronje's view, Layer 1 should focus on enhancing its scalability through technology, rather than constantly creating Layer 2 problems. He is currently leading the design and development of the Layer 1 blockchain Sonic (formerly Fantom) network. The Fantom Foundation first disclosed last October that it would launch Sonic, aiming to improve scalability and performance.
The Sonic testnet was officially launched in early September this year, and on September 25th, Andre Cronje announced that the Sonic mainnet will be officially launched in December this year, inviting developers to build applications on its ecosystem. He also stated that Sonic has introduced a credit scoring mechanism, with the potential to become the first public chain to unlock the $11.3 trillion market (the global unsecured lending market).
At the time, Andre Cronje had heavily promoted the performance of the Sonic network, including that up to 90% of the transaction fees will be returned to developers, the transaction per second (TPS) will exceed 10,000, the transaction finality (TTF) will be around 1 second, and it will support native stablecoins. In terms of bridging with Ethereum, Sonic is committed to developing new native bridge technology, Sonic Gateway, to significantly improve the security and convenience of asset transfers from other chains.
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