After ETH prices hit a new low since May of last year, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin published a lengthy article today reflecting on Ethereum's long-standing core Layer 2 strategy and planning to increase investment in Layer 1, creating a significant impact across the entire crypto industry. The initial Rollup-centric roadmap defined Layer 2 as Ethereum-supported sharding, providing trustless block space. In this article, Vitalik appears to have abandoned his previously advocated "Rollup-centric" scaling model. He points out that while Ethereum's underlying scaling is increasing, Layer 2's decentralization speed is "far slower than expected," and many Layer 2 implementations are unable or unwilling to meet the trust guarantees required for true sharding. "These two facts, for whatever reason, mean that the original vision of Layer 2 and its role in Ethereum no longer make sense, and we need a new path," Vitalik said. From an outsider's perspective, these statements mean that Vitalik acknowledges the Layer 2 narrative is almost outdated, and that future focus will be more on scaling Layer 1 itself. Since its inception, Layer 2 has become one of the most sought-after and market-focused concepts in the crypto industry. Nearly a hundred Layer 2 projects, including Polygon, Arbitrum, and Optimism, have emerged, raising over $3 billion in total funding. They have played a crucial role in scaling Ethereum and reducing transaction costs for users, with several tokens achieving a FDV exceeding $10 billion for an extended period. However, under the strong competition from high-performance blockchains like Solana, the performance advantages of Layer 2 have not been fully realized, and the industry influence of its ecosystem projects has gradually declined. Currently, only the Base ecosystem remains active at the forefront of the crypto industry, representing Ethereum Layer 2. (Data source: RootData) Furthermore, Layer 2 outages continue to occur frequently. On January 11th of this year, Starknet experienced another outage after many years of operation. Subsequent reports indicated that a conflict between the execution and proof layers caused approximately 18 minutes of on-chain activity to be rolled back. Last September, Linea experienced an outage lasting over half an hour. In December 2024, the Taiko mainnet experienced a 30-minute outage due to an ABI issue, indicating that they remained technically unstable. In fact, Vitalik had previously proposed a framework for measuring the decentralization of Rollups, which proceeds in phases: Phase 0 (where a centralized trust committee can veto transactions), Phase 1 (where smart contracts begin to have limited governance), and Phase 2 (representing complete trustlessness).Despite the emergence of nearly a hundred Ethereum Layer 2 projects, only a very small number have reached Stage 1. Coinbase's Base, a Layer 2 project incubated since 2023, only reached Stage 1 last year. Vitalik has criticized this point on numerous occasions. According to L2beat statistics, among the top 20 Rollup projects, only one has reached Stage 2: zk.money, a product developed by the decentralized privacy protocol Aztec, but development of this product has stalled. The other 12 projects are all at Stage 0, heavily reliant on accessibility features and multi-signature. Vitalik points out that Layer 2 projects should at least upgrade to Stage 1; otherwise, these networks should be considered more competitive, vampire-like "Layer 1 networks with cross-chain bridges." (Source: L2beat) Besides the potential corporate interests that could delay the Layer 2 decentralization process, Vitalik points out that there are also technical challenges and regulatory concerns. “I’ve even seen at least one company explicitly state that they may never want to go beyond Phase 1, not only for technical reasons regarding ZK-EVM security, but also because their clients’ regulatory requirements demand that they have ultimate control,” he said. However, Vitalik hasn’t completely abandoned the concept of Layer 2, but rather broadened his vision of what Layer 2 should achieve. “We should stop viewing Layer 2 as a ‘branded shard’ of Ethereum, and the social status and responsibilities that come with it,” he stated. “Instead, we can view Layer 2 as a complete spectrum, including chains fully trusted and credited by Ethereum with various unique properties (e.g., not just the EVM), as well as various options with varying degrees of connectivity to Ethereum, which individuals (or bots) can choose whether to focus on based on their own needs.” Regarding future directions, Vitalik further suggested that Layer 2 projects should focus on added value in the competition, rather than simply scaling. His suggested development directions include: privacy-focused virtual machines, ultra-low latency serialization, non-financial applications (such as social or AI applications), application-specific execution environments, and throughput exceeding what the next generation of Layer 1 can support. It's also worth noting that Vitalik reiterated his mention of ZK-EVM proofs, which can be used to extend Layer 1. This is a pre-compiled layer that is written into the base layer and "automatically upgrades with Ethereum."In the past year, the Ethereum Foundation's organizational restructuring and two network upgrades have made Layer 1 one of its core strategies. One goal is to gradually increase the gas limit through multiple iterations, allowing L1 to handle more native transactions, asset issuance, governance, and DeFi settlements without over-reliance on L2. This year's Glamsterdam upgrade plan includes several improvements aimed at reducing MEV-related manipulation and abuse, stabilizing gas rates, and laying a crucial foundation for future scaling improvements. In an earlier speech, Vitalik stated that 2026 will be a pivotal year for Ethereum to regain lost ground in self-sovereignty and trustlessness. The plan includes simplifying node operation through ZK-EVM and BAL technologies, launching Helios to verify RPC data, implementing ORAM and PIR technologies to protect user privacy, developing social recovery wallets and time lock functionality to enhance fund security, and improving on-chain UI and IPFS applications. Vitalik emphasized that Ethereum will correct the compromises made over the past decade regarding node operation, application decentralization, and data privacy, refocusing on its core values. While this will be a long process, it will make the Ethereum ecosystem stronger. Appendix: Many industry figures have also shared their opinions on Vitalik's article and views. Below are some key excerpts from ChainCatcher: Wei Dai (Research Partner, 1kx): It's good to see Vitalik discuss the hindsight error of the Rollup-centric roadmap. However, asking "If I were in the L2 layer, what would I do today?" misses the point. The key isn't what Vitalik would do, but what these L2 layer and application teams would do. The L2 layer and its applications will always prioritize their own interests, not Ethereum's. For the L2 layer to reach Phase One or achieve maximum interoperability with Ethereum, it must be worthwhile. This issue has long been defined as a security problem (the L2 layer requires the L1 layer to support functionality and CR). But the most important question is whether the Ethereum L1 layer can provide more users and liquidity for the L2 layer and applications. (I don't think there's a simple solution, but the efforts in interoperability are heading in the right direction.) Blue Fox (renowned crypto researcher): Vitalik's point is that L2 utilizes L1, but L2 hasn't done a good job in terms of value feedback or ecosystem feedback. Now L1 can scale on its own without relying on L2 for scalability. L2 either needs to be consistent with L1 (native rollup) or become L1. What does this mean? It's bad news for general-purpose L2, and good news for L2 application chains, as we've consistently said before.L2 application chains can be used in many creative ways, providing value back to the ecosystem. Jason Chen (renowned crypto researcher): With the expansion of Ethereum itself, the most significant change is that gas fees have become almost indistinguishable from those of L2 blockchains. Gas fees will continue to decrease, and with the gradual rollout of ZooKeeper, its speed will also become comparable to L2 blockchains. Therefore, L2 blockchains are currently in a very awkward position. Vitalik's tweet essentially declares that L2's initial historical mission of expanding Ethereum has been completed. If new narratives aren't found for L2 blockchains, they will become relics of the past and be eliminated. For project teams, the biggest goal of developing L2 is still to profit from transaction fees, but L2 has little meaning for users, as its gas fees and performance are not significantly different from the mainnet. L2 was born from Ethereum and will die from Ethereum; the struggle between the dominant player and its subordinate players has ended. Haotian (renowned crypto researcher): I've mentioned this at least 10 times in previous articles, saying that the general-purpose Layer 2 strategy is no longer viable, and each Layer 2 blockchain should transform into a dedicated Layer 2, which is essentially a type of Layer 1 blockchain. Unexpectedly, after Vitalik Buterin guided the long-term Stage 2 strategic alignment, many Layer 2s still became "abandoned pawns." Layer 2s, especially general-purpose Layer 2s, carried a heavy development burden. Initially, they faced the technical roadmap of aligning with Ethereum's security; later, they encountered regulatory issues related to the centralized Sequencer after token issuance; and finally, they suffered from the burden of being "falsified" due to a weak ecosystem. The fundamental reason is that all Layer 2s initially depended on Ethereum Layer 1 for survival. When Ethereum found itself in a precarious position and began to dominate the performance evolution of Layer 1, Layer 2s lost any potential to empower Ethereum, becoming nothing more than a burden and a nuisance. [ChainCatcher]