After being "backstabbed" by Vitalik, L2s rush to remove the "cheap" label. What kind of restructuring will this bring?

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Author: Jae, PANews

As founders question their own ecosystems, a debate about the essence of scaling, decentralization progress, and future dominance is pushing L2 into a crossroads.

With Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin sharply questioning the technical approach to scaling, the L2 ecosystem is experiencing a profound “identity crisis.”

Related reading: EF slimming down for winter, L2 repositioning, Vitalik’s Ethereum “rebirth script”

Subsequently, leaders from projects like Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, and Starknet have spoken out, engaging in a fierce debate over L2’s value proposition, business models, and ecosystem philosophy.

Optimism: Acknowledging engineering challenges, embracing modular transformation

As a pioneer in the Optimism Rollup space, Optimism’s response is pragmatic yet optimistic. Co-founder Karl Floersch openly states he is willing to accept the challenge of building a modular L2 stack supporting “Full-spectrum Decentralization.”

Although Optimism remains a steadfast supporter of decentralization, Floersch does not shy away from harsh realities. He admits that OP-type L2s still face three major engineering pain points to achieve full decentralization:

• Long withdrawal cycles: The current fraud proof mechanism still requires a 7-day challenge period, leading to low capital efficiency and harming user experience.
• Stage 2 proof system not ready: The so-called “Stage 2 proof system” in the market is not yet capable of securely holding hundreds of billions of dollars without human intervention.
• Lack of cross-chain development tools: Developers lack standardized tools for managing multi-chain applications, making ecosystem integration difficult.

Optimism’s choice is “deep modularization.” Floersch supports Vitalik’s emphasis on native Rollup pre-compile solutions and plans to integrate this into the OP Stack. This effectively provides a “plug-and-play” foundation for all projects on the Superchain, inheriting Ethereum mainnet security at a lower cost.

For Optimism, the future is no longer just providing an execution environment but building a highly interoperable standardized protocol. This shift will move Optimism’s competitive edge from gas costs to developer experience and network synergy, transforming its role from “scaling solution provider” to “ecosystem standard setter.”

Arbitrum: Firmly defending scaling sovereignty, warning of “institutional migration” risks

If Optimism is a moderate reformist, then Arbitrum is a staunch establishment.

Goldfeder firmly states that the “downgrade” of L2 scaling functions is a mischaracterization, emphasizing that scaling remains an unshakable core value of L2.

He highlights that Arbitrum’s choice of Ethereum as the settlement layer is based on its high security and reasonable settlement costs. This is a business optimal choice, not just a technical dependency.

Goldfeder also counters the argument that “L1 scaling can replace L2” with data. During peak trading times, Arbitrum and Base’s throughput exceeded 1,000 TPS, while Ethereum mainnet was only in the double digits.

Therefore, even with mainnet scaling, Ethereum’s role as a general-purpose settlement layer makes it difficult to meet the high concurrency demands of social, gaming, and high-frequency trading applications.

More deterrent is Goldfeder’s warning about “institutional migration.” He points out that many institutions choose L2 because of the combined security backing of Ethereum and the flexibility of L2. If this symbiotic relationship breaks down, these institutions may shift to independent L1s or other ecosystems to pursue performance sovereignty.

This goes beyond technical debate into ecosystem game theory. Arbitrum’s implicit message is: denying the value of L2 scaling weakens Ethereum’s overall attractiveness.

Base: Breaking free from the cheap Ethereum label, pursuing application differentiation

Coinbase’s incubated Base offers a unique perspective connecting Web2 and Web3. Co-founder Jesse Pollak agrees with Vitalik: L2 cannot just be “cheaper Ethereum.”

As mainnet gas fees continue to decline, this homogeneous price war has lost strategic significance. Base will focus on differentiated features to build a moat, especially in user experience and product accessibility.

Eliminating seed phrases: Base is actively promoting account abstraction and related standards, allowing users to manage wallets via FaceID or TouchID, removing reliance on seed phrases, and lowering the biggest barrier to Web3 adoption. This user experience cannot be achieved solely through L1 layer scaling.

Deep privacy integration: For enterprise and sensitive applications, integrating lightweight, efficient privacy computing tools enables users to enjoy blockchain transparency while effectively protecting personal data.

Incubating consumer applications: By focusing on social, gaming, and content creation use cases, Base aims to become a service layer for end users.

Overall, Base’s strategic positioning is to serve as Web3’s “retail front end,” with Ethereum playing the “settlement backend.”

While more application-layer focused, Base does not neglect underlying security. Pollak states that Base is working towards “Stage 2,” aiming to reduce dependence on centralized sequencers.

Ethereum ecosystem enters adjustment period, L2 moves toward functional differentiation

Interestingly, among all responses, StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson’s stance is the most detached, even with a prophetic tone. He hints that native L2s like Starknet, based on ZK (Zero-Knowledge Proof) technology, naturally align with Vitalik’s description of “dedicated execution environments.”

Ben-Sasson’s view reveals a trend of the L2 ecosystem shifting toward a “multi-functional center.” While Optimistic Rollup still struggles with decentralized proofs, ZK-Rollup is ready to handle complex computations that the mainnet cannot.

The Ethereum ecosystem will also undergo a deeper division of roles:

• L1: Aims to enhance its capabilities by increasing Gas limits and optimizing data availability, providing a solid foundational security for the entire ecosystem.
• L2: Moving away from “homogeneous” competition, evolving from a simple “low-cost branch” to a “dedicated environment” serving specific technical and commercial needs, such as large-scale full-chain gaming, complex logic computation, and high-performance trading. These applications, even if technically feasible on L1, are not economically viable.

This debate marks a major adjustment in Ethereum’s ecosystem structure. Vitalik’s questioning will force a reevaluation of the value of the entire L2 track.

Ethereum is evolving from a “master-slave structure” to a multi-polar, functionally complementary matrix system. The era of homogeneous expansion is over; the era of differentiated innovation may have arrived.

For investors and developers, the criteria for evaluating L2 are also changing: those who can create “uniqueness” that the mainnet cannot provide will hold the next five-year entry ticket.