‘We Need a New Path’: Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin Rips Up L2-Focused Roadmap

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said Tuesday that the network needs to find “a new path” that relies less on layer-2 scaling networks, also known as L2s.

“The original vision of L2s and their role in Ethereum no longer makes sense,” Buterin wrote in an X-post.

For years, Ethereum developers have pursued a long-term goal: “scaling” the network, which would essentially mean creating enough available block space to allow all kinds of applications and transactions to flow on the network without sacrificing its security, efficiency, and decentralization.

Many in the Ethereum community, including Buterin, previously said that this goal is best achieved through layer 2 networks, such as Base, Polygon, Arbitrum and Optimism, which are built on top of the Ethereum mainnet by third parties.

But Buterin has now changed his tune, arguing that the Ethereum mainnet is currently scaling at sufficient speed – and furthermore, that some L2s cannot be trusted to meet Ethereum’s standards, and thus should not be considered ‘branded’ shards of the network, especially when it comes to sufficient decentralization.

“L2s are unable or unwilling to deliver the features that a true branded shard would require,” the Ethereum co-founder said. “I have even seen one explicitly say that they may never want to go beyond Phase 1, not only for technical reasons around ZK-EVM safety, but also because the regulatory needs of their customers require them to have ultimate control.”

Like Buterin first constructed in 2022, “Phase 1” L2s will be those with “limited training wheels” when it comes to security and decentralization, while “Phase 2” networks will be fully decentralized.

Buterin suggested Tuesday that in all cases, consumers and developers should start thinking of L2s less as an extension of Ethereum, and more as a spectrum: where some networks are considered up to Ethereum’s standards, and others are not, because they offer users another benefit at the expense of security or decentralization.

The announcement could be a turning point for the world of L2 development and marketing. For years, most networks building on Ethereum have honed their pitch around “scaling Ethereum.” Now, Buterin says, leaning on that framework will no longer be enough.

“What would I do today if I were an L2?” the software developer stated. “Identify an added value other than ‘scaling.'”