On February 4th, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin stated that with the Ethereum mainnet's (L1) scaling and the significant increase in gas limits, Layer 2 (L2), originally envisioned as "brand sharding," is no longer necessary. L2 cannot fully meet the characteristics of "brand sharding," and some projects may even remain in Phase 1 indefinitely to meet client regulatory requirements. Therefore, L2 should be repositioned, no longer solely pursuing scaling, but providing unique additional features such as privacy-dedicated virtual machines, application-specific efficiency, extreme scaling, design for non-financial applications like social/identity/AI, and low latency or built-in oracles.
The Ethereum community's reaction to Vitalik's views on L2 is mixed. On one hand, some users agree with his shift, believing that the L2 narrative is designed to mask the shortcomings of L1 scaling and emphasizing that the advancements in L1 render L2 redundant. They also point out that L2 often centralizes and fragments liquidity, introducing additional risks, and is far from a true "secure scaling" solution. Ryan Sean Adams, co-founder of Bankless, stated, "This is a 'turning point,' and I'm glad someone is saying this now. A strong ETH cannot exist without a strong L1." Furthermore, Mike Dudas, founder of The Block, said, "I was actually three years ahead of Vitalik on this issue, and I'm glad we've finally acknowledged it."
On the other hand, some users in the Ethereum community worry that this will damage confidence and funding for L2 projects, leading to community splits. They believe that L2 can still provide value, especially in specific use cases (such as high-throughput applications). In the Chinese community, the saying "Vitalik abandoned the L2 route" is widely circulated, but a more accurate understanding is: it's not abandoning it, but redefining it.
Paradigm General Partner Dan Robinson stated, "Ethereum L1 has indeed made progress in improving throughput, but I think its scaling roadmap is far from aggressive enough in terms of reducing latency and addressing MEV. As long as L1 doesn't have a clear roadmap to reduce block times to under 6 seconds, or replace the current PBS-based block building auction mechanism, L2 still has enormous room for improvement and filling gaps." Furthermore, Avalanche founder Emin Gün Sirer stated, "We said this years ago and have developed technology that is years ahead of other projects."
