Written by: Jae, PANews

When founders question their own ecosystem, a debate about the essence of scalability, the progress of decentralization, and future dominance is pushing L2 to a crossroads.

With Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin sharply questioning the technical route of scalability, the L2 ecosystem is undergoing a profound "identity crisis."

Related reading: EF Slimming Down for Winter, L2 Repositioning, Vitalik's Ethereum "Rebirth Script"

Subsequently, leaders from projects such as Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, and Starknet have spoken out, engaging in a fierce debate over L2's value proposition, business models, and ecological philosophy.

Optimism: Acknowledging Engineering Obstacles, Embracing Modular Transformation

As a practical pioneer in the Optimism Rollup space, Optimism's response is pragmatic yet optimistic. Co-founder Karl Floersch candidly stated that he is willing to accept the challenge of building a modular L2 stack that supports "Full-spectrum Decentralization."

Although Optimism has always been a staunch advocate of decentralization, Floersch does not shy away from the stark realities. He acknowledges that OP-type L2s still face three major engineering pain points to achieve complete decentralization:

1. Long withdrawal periods: The current fraud proof mechanism still requires a 7-day challenge period, leading to low capital efficiency and a poor user experience.
2. Stage 2 proof system not yet ready: The so-called "Stage 2 proof system" on the market is still insufficient to securely hold hundreds of billions of dollars in assets without human intervention.
3. Lack of cross-chain application development tools: Developers lack standardized tools to manage multi-chain applications, making ecological integration difficult.

Optimism's choice is "deep modularization." Floersch supports the native Rollup pre-compiled solution emphasized by Vitalik and plans to integrate it into the OP Stack. This effectively provides a "plug-and-play" base for all projects on the Superchain, inheriting the security of the Ethereum mainnet at a lower cost.

For Optimism, its path forward is no longer just to provide an execution environment but to build a set of highly interoperable standardized protocol specifications. In this way, Optimism's competitive barrier will shift from gas costs to developer experience and network synergy, transforming its role from "scalability solution provider" to "ecological standard setter."

Arbitrum: Firmly Defending Scalability Sovereignty, Warning of "Institutional Migration" Risks

If Optimism is the moderate reformist, then Arbitrum is the hardline establishment.

Goldfeder expressed a firm stance against the description of L2 scalability functions as "downgraded," asserting that scalability remains an unshakable value lifeline for L2.

He emphasized that Arbitrum's choice of Ethereum as a settlement layer is based on its extremely high security and reasonable settlement costs. This is a commercially optimal choice, not a technical dependency.

Goldfeder also countered the argument that "L1 scalability can replace L2" with data. During peak trading times, Arbitrum and Base's throughput exceeded 1,000 TPS (transactions per second), while Ethereum's mainnet was only in the double digits.

Therefore, even if the mainnet scales, its nature as a general settlement layer determines that Ethereum is unlikely to meet the extreme concurrency requirements of applications such as social networking, gaming, and high-frequency trading.

More compellingly, Goldfeder issued a warning about "institutional migration." He pointed out that many institutions choose L2 due to the synergy of Ethereum's security endorsement and L2's flexibility. If the symbiotic relationship between the two breaks, these institutions may very well turn to independent L1s or other ecosystems in pursuit of performance sovereignty.

This has transcended technical debate and risen to ecological competition. The subtext of Arbitrum is: denying the value of L2 scalability is undermining the overall attractiveness of Ethereum.

Base: Breaking Free from the Cheap Ethereum Label, Pursuing Application Differentiation

Coinbase's Base offers a unique perspective connecting Web2 and Web3, with co-founder Jesse Pollak agreeing with Vitalik's view: L2 cannot just be "a cheaper Ethereum."

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

1. Eliminating mnemonic phrases: Base is vigorously promoting the application of account abstraction and related standards, allowing users to manage wallets directly through FaceID or TouchID, eliminating reliance on mnemonic phrases and smoothing out the biggest usability barrier in Web3, which cannot be achieved solely through L1 scaling.
2. Deep integration of privacy features: For enterprise-level and sensitive applications, integrating lighter and more efficient privacy computing tools allows users to enjoy blockchain transparency while effectively protecting personal data.
3. Incubating consumer-grade applications: By focusing on consumer-grade application scenarios such as social networking, gaming, and content creation, Base aims to transform into a service layer for end users.

Overall, Base's strategic positioning is to become the "retail front" of Web3, while Ethereum comfortably plays the role of the "settlement backend."

Although more focused on the application layer, Base has not overlooked the underlying security. Pollak stated that Base is working towards "Stage 2," aiming to reduce reliance on centralized orderers.

Ethereum Ecosystem Enters Adjustment Period, L2 Moves Towards Functional Differentiation

Interestingly, among the responses, StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson's stance is the most detached, even carrying a prophetic tone. He hinted that native L2s like Starknet, based on ZK (zero-knowledge proof) technology, naturally align with the "dedicated execution environment" described by Vitalik.

Ben-Sasson's viewpoint reveals a trend of the L2 ecosystem shifting towards a "multi-functional center." While Optimistic Rollups are still struggling with decentralization proofs, ZK-Rollups are already prepared to handle complex computational demands that the mainnet cannot fulfill.

The Ethereum ecosystem will also undergo a more profound functional division:

• L1: Aims to enhance its capabilities by increasing gas limits and optimizing data availability, providing solid underlying security for the entire ecosystem.
• L2: Bids farewell to "homogenized" competition, evolving from a simple "low-cost branch" to a "dedicated environment" serving specific technical and business needs, such as large-scale full-chain gaming, complex logical computations, and high-performance trading. These application scenarios, even if technically feasible on L1, cannot generate economic benefits.

This debate marks a significant adjustment in the structure of the Ethereum ecosystem, and Vitalik's questioning will force the entire L2 track to undergo a value reassessment.

Ethereum is evolving from a "master-slave structure" to a multipolar coexistence, complementary functional matrix system. The era of homogenized expansion is coming to an end, and the era of differentiated innovation may have arrived.

For investors and developers, the evaluation criteria for L2 are also undergoing a qualitative change: whoever can create "uniqueness" that the mainnet cannot provide will hold the ticket to entry for the next five years.

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