"We are confident Base will progress from a Stage 0 to Stage 1 rollup in 2023 and a Stage 2 rollup in 2024." In reality Base transitioned to Stage 1 two years late. And Stage 2 never arrived. Not to blame Base here! Not a single economically important L2 reached stage 2. Optimism cofounder @tyneslol said Stage 2 is "a distraction from what users want." It's not technically ready: proof systems are fragile, and Ethereum hardforks break L2 proofs. I wonder what Base/Coinbase teams will take from this shifting overton window. Does it give them more freedom for BASE token just as Coinbase is 'exploring' the token? Perhaps they could drop the alignment with Ethereum roadmap altogether? Giving them more chose for their development without public backlash. In any case, it's not the death for L2s as many posted. It's the end for generic L2s that competed with Ethereum, instead of enhancing it. Truly aligned L2s like Aztec and Fhenix (privacy), MegaETH (SPEEEED) could thrive in this environment. Even L2s like Starknet (due to CAIRO language) are validated in Vitalik's post. Bullish news is that Ethereum L1 is scaling. L2s served their purpose to reduce cost while L1 txs cost 10 USD. But now Ethereum transactions are cheap and will scale even more with each hardfork. Nature is healing.(Ignas | DeFi)