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Vitalik Buterin stated Ethereum wants “a brand new path” that depends much less on layer-2 networks.
He warned some L2s have compromised on decentralization and shouldn’t be handled as “branded” extensions of Ethereum.
Buterin urged L2 builders to pitch a price proposition past merely “scaling Ethereum.”
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated Tuesday that the community should discover “a brand new path” involving much less dependence on layer-2 scaling networks, also referred to as L2s.
“The unique imaginative and prescient of L2s and their function in Ethereum now not is smart,” Buterin wrote in an X put up.
For years, Ethereum builders have pursued a long-term purpose of “scaling” the community, which might successfully imply creating sufficient obtainable block house to permit all method of functions and transactions to circulate on the community, with out sacrificing its safety, effectivity, and decentralization.
Many within the Ethereum group, together with Buterin, beforehand stated this purpose would finest be achieved by way of layer-2 networks, resembling Base, Polygon, Arbitrum, and Optimism, that are constructed on prime of the Ethereum mainnet by third-parties.
However Buterin has now modified his tune, arguing that the Ethereum mainnet is at the moment scaling at adequate velocity—and additional, that some L2s can’t be trusted to reside as much as Ethereum’s requirements, and thus shouldn’t be thought-about “branded” shards of the community, notably in terms of adequate decentralization.
“L2s will not be in a position or prepared to fulfill the properties {that a} true ‘branded shard’ would require,” the Ethereum co-founder stated. “I’ve even seen not less than one explicitly saying that they might by no means need to transcend stage 1, not only for technical causes round ZK-EVM security, but additionally as a result of their clients’ regulatory wants require them to have final management.”
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As Buterin first laid out in 2022, “stage 1” L2s are these with “restricted coaching wheels” in terms of safety and decentralization, whereas “stage 2” networks are totally decentralized.
Buterin proposed Tuesday that customers and builders ought to begin to consider L2s much less as an extension of Ethereum in all instances, and extra as a spectrum: by which some networks are thought-about as much as Ethereum’s requirements, and a few aren’t, as a result of they provide customers one other perk or profit on the expense of safety or decentralization.
The announcement might show to be a watershed second for the world of L2 growth and advertising and marketing. For years, most networks constructing on Ethereum have honed their pitch round “scaling Ethereum”. Now, Buterin says, leaning on that framing will now not suffice.
“What would I do as we speak if I have been an L2?” the software program developer posited. “Establish a value-add aside from ‘scaling.’”
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