Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said the original vision of layer-2 scaling “no longer makes sense,” arguing many L2s have not properly inherited Ethereum’s security and that scaling should increasingly come from the mainnet and native rollups.
“We need a new path,” Buterin wrote on X, saying many layer-2s have failed to decentralize while the Ethereum mainnet is already scaling thanks to gas limit increases and the prospect of native rollups. “Both of these facts, for their own separate reasons, mean that the original vision of L2s and their role in Ethereum no longer makes sense, and we need a new path.”
L2s were intended as extensions of Ethereum that handle most transactions quickly and cheaply while inheriting mainnet security. Buterin argued that to count as true Ethereum scaling, an L2 must fully rely on L1 guarantees; otherwise it is simply a separate chain. “If you create a 10000 TPS EVM where its connection to L1 is mediated by a multisig bridge, then you are not scaling Ethereum,” he said.
Buterin suggested that many existing L2 projects — such as Arbitrum, Optimism, Base and Starknet — should pivot away from claiming to be the primary scaling solution and instead specialize in niches like privacy, identity, finance, social apps and AI.
The shift arrives amid growing discussion within the Ethereum community about prioritizing mainnet scaling. Some developers have long focused on L2s as Ethereum’s main scaling avenue, but others have pushed for more on-chain improvements. Former ConsenSys researcher Max Resnick moved to the Solana ecosystem after his efforts to prioritize mainnet scaling failed to gain traction. Ryan Sean Adams of the Bankless podcast publicly backed Buterin’s stance, calling it “the pivot.”
Central to Buterin’s argument is native rollups. Unlike traditional rollups that post transaction data to Ethereum from off-chain execution, native rollups would be integrated into the base layer so validators directly verify their processing. Buterin expects native rollups, particularly those using zero-knowledge EVM proofs integrated into the base layer, to play a major role in future scaling.
Mainnet throughput has also been boosted by protocol-level changes. Developers discussed raising the gas limit from 60 million to 80 million around a blob-parameter-only hard fork, which took effect in January, allowing more transactions and smart contract operations per block and helping reduce fees.
Longer-term plans remain ambitious: Ethereum researcher Justin Drake outlined a 10-year roadmap aiming for 10,000 transactions per second on the mainnet once planned scaling features are in place, a large leap from the roughly 15–30 TPS typically seen today.
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