Vitalik's Layer 2 reset: Can it save Ethereum?

Rational candor in leadership makes ecologically adaptive development possible.

Author: YQ

Compiled by: Saoirse, Foresight News

Since 2015, I have been deeply involved in scaling technology research, studying all the iterative solutions from sharding, Plasma, and App Chains to Rollups. I have extensive collaborations with every major Rollup technology stack and team in the ecosystem. Therefore, I always pay close attention to content that Vitalik releases that fundamentally reshapes our understanding of Layer 2 (L2). His post on February 3rd falls into this category of crucial content.

What Vitalik did was no easy feat—to admit that the core assumptions made in 2020 had not materialized as expected. This kind of candor is something most leaders would avoid. The "Rollup-centric" roadmap was built on the premise that "L2 would serve as a 'branded shard' of Ethereum." But four years of market data have presented a completely different picture: L2 has evolved into a platform with its own independent economic incentives, and the scaling speed of Ethereum Layer 1 has far exceeded expectations. The initial vision has long since become detached from reality.

In fact, continuing to defend old narratives would have been an easier choice—for example, forcibly pushing the team towards a vision that the market has already rejected. But this is by no means a sign of good leadership. The truly wise approach is to acknowledge the gap between expectations and reality, propose new directions, and move towards a brighter future. And this post does just that.

The actual problems diagnosed by Vitalik

The post points out two core realities that urgently require strategic adjustments:

First, the decentralization process of L2 is far slower than expected. Currently, only three mainstream L2 platforms (Arbitrum, OP mainnet, and Base) have reached the first stage of decentralization; some L2 teams have even explicitly stated that, due to regulatory requirements or business model limitations, they may never pursue complete decentralization. This is not a moral "failure," but rather a reflection of economic reality—for L2 operators, orderer revenue is the core business model.

Second, Ethereum's L1 has achieved significant scaling. Currently, L1 fees are low, the Pectra upgrade doubled block capacity, and there are plans to continue increasing the gas cap until 2026. When the Rollup roadmap was initially designed, "high L1 costs and network congestion" were fundamental assumptions; these assumptions no longer hold true. L1 can now handle a large number of transactions at a reasonable cost, which has shifted the value proposition of L2 from "a necessity for ensuring availability" to "an optional solution for specific use cases."

Reconstruction of the Trust Spectrum

Vitalik's core conceptual contribution is liberating L2 from the framework of "single category, uniform obligations" and redefining it as "multiple existences within the trust spectrum." The previous metaphor of "branded sharding" assumed that all L2 platforms must pursue Phase 2 decentralization and, as extensions of Ethereum, bear the same value and security commitments as L1. The new framework, however, acknowledges that different L2 platforms have different uses, and for projects with specific needs, Phase 0 or Phase 1 decentralization can be a perfectly reasonable endpoint.

The strategic significance of this restructuring lies in breaking the implicit judgment that "L2 platforms that do not pursue complete decentralization are failures." For example, a regulated L2 platform serving institutional clients and possessing asset freezing capabilities is not a "flawed Arbitrum," but rather a "differentiated product targeting different markets." By acknowledging this "trust spectrum," Vitalik allows L2 platforms to honestly define their position, no longer needing to make promises of "decentralization" lacking economic impetus.

Native Rollup pre-compilation proposal

The core technology of Vitalik's post is the "native Rollup pre-compilation" solution. Currently, each L2 blockchain needs to independently build a system for "transitioning to Ethereum proof states": Optimistic Rollups use fraud proofs with a 7-day challenge period, while ZK Rollups use validity proofs based on custom circuits. These implementations not only require independent auditing but may also contain vulnerabilities, and need to be updated synchronously when Ethereum hard forks cause changes in EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) behavior. This "fragmented" state of affairs brings security risks and maintenance burdens to the entire ecosystem.

"Native Rollup pre-compilation" directly embeds the function for "verifying EVM execution" into Ethereum. At that time, each L2 server will no longer need to maintain a custom prover; it only needs to call this shared infrastructure. Its advantages are significant: only one codebase needs to be audited (instead of dozens), it automatically supports Ethereum upgrades, and once the pre-compilation function is validated in practice, it may even eliminate the need for a security committee.

Simultaneous composability vision

In his post on ethresear.ch, Vitalik detailed a mechanism for achieving "synchronous composability" between L1 and L2. Currently, transferring assets or executing logic across L1 and L2 either requires waiting for final confirmation (Optimistic Rollup takes 7 days, ZK Rollup takes several hours) or relies on a Fast Bridge, which carries counterparty risk. "Synchronous composability," however, allows transactions to "atomicically use L1 and L2 states"—reading and writing data across layers within the same transaction either succeeds completely or results in a complete rollback.

The mechanism is designed with three types of blocks:

• Regularly sorted blocks: used to process low-latency L2 transactions;
• Slot end block: Marks the boundary of the time window;
• Basic block: A block that can be built without permission after the slot ends and the block is generated.

Within the window of a base block, any block builder can create a block that simultaneously interacts with both L1 and L2 states.

L2 team's response

Mainstream L2 teams responded within hours, demonstrating healthy strategic diversity – exactly what Vitalik's "trust spectrum" framework aims to achieve: different teams can choose different roles without pretending to be heading toward the same destination.

This diversity of responses is healthy:

• Arbitrum: Emphasizes independence and self-sufficiency;
• Base: Focus on applications and users;
• Linea: Closely aligns with the native Rollup direction proposed by Vitalik;
• Optimism: Acknowledging current challenges while declaring continuous improvement.

There is no right or wrong in these positioning strategies; they are simply strategic choices for different market segments—which is precisely the rationale recognized by the "trust spectrum" framework.

Vitalik's endorsement of the economic reality of L2

One of the key implications of Vitalik's post is its implicit acknowledgment of the economic nature of Level 2 (L2) servers. When he mentions that "some L2 servers, due to 'regulatory requirements' (the need to retain ultimate control), may 'never go beyond Phase 1 decentralization,'" he is essentially acknowledging that L2 servers are not idealized "branded sharding," but rather commercial entities with legitimate economic interests. The revenue from sorting mechanisms is real, and so are the regulatory compliance requirements—expecting L2 servers to relinquish these interests to conform to ideology is unrealistic from the outset.

Vitalik's outline of the future path

Vitalik's post goes beyond simply "diagnosing problems"; it focuses more on "solving problems." He outlines several specific directions for L2 developers who want to maintain value amidst the continued scaling of L1. These are not mandatory requirements, but rather suggested paths for L2 to differentiate itself when "cheaper Ethereum" is no longer a core competitive advantage.

Summarize

In February 2026, Vitalik Buterin's post marked a crucial recalibration of Ethereum's L2 strategy. Its core insight was that L2 had evolved into an independent platform with legitimate economic interests, rather than a "branded shard" obligated to Ethereum. Instead of confronting this reality, Vitalik proposed embracing it by recognizing differentiated paths through a "trust spectrum," enhancing the collaborative efficiency of those willing to participate in L1-L2 integration through "native rollup infrastructure," and enabling cross-layer interaction through a "synchronous composability mechanism."

The L2 ecosystem's response exhibits healthy diversity: Arbitrum emphasizes independence, Base focuses on applications, Linea aligns with native Rollup directions, and Optimism acknowledges challenges and drives improvement. This diversity is precisely the outcome expected from the "trust spectrum" framework: different teams can pursue different strategies without pretending to be on the same path.

For Ethereum, this direction change maintained its credibility by "acknowledging reality" rather than "defending outdated assumptions." Given the maturity of ZK-EVM technology, the related technical proposals were feasible; while the strategic proposals created space for efficient ecosystem evolution. This exemplifies "adaptive leadership" in the technology field: recognizing that the environment has changed and proposing new paths, rather than stubbornly clinging to strategies already rejected by the market.

Having spent a decade researching capacity expansion and four years running Rollup infrastructure, I've seen far too many leaders refuse to adapt when circumstances change—and the results are often disappointing. Vitalik's choice this time wasn't easy: publicly acknowledging that the 2020 vision needed updating. But it was the right choice. Clinging to narratives the market has abandoned benefits no one. The direction we're heading now is much clearer than it was a week ago—and that in itself is invaluable.

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