After years of Layer 2 (L2) networks popping up in an attempt to scale Ethereum and claim market share, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin says that the L2 model for scalability no longer makes sense due to the Layer 1’s (L1) scaling efforts.
“The original vision of L2s and their role in Ethereum no longer makes sense, and we need a new path,” Buterin wrote on X, citing issues such as slow progress towards decentralization, while noting that the Ethereum mainnet is scaling and consistently maintaining low gas costs.
Gas costs, in particular, were a major obstacle for decentralized finance (DeFi) power users in 2021 and 2022, when network activity surged amid the popularity of DeFi and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). During high-demand periods, such as a hyped NFT mint or a capped DeFi vault deposit, gas fees could skyrocket to thousands of dollars just to attempt a transaction, with no guarantee of its success.
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