A group of developers from Gnosis and Zisk, backed by the Ethereum Foundation, has put forward a proposal called the Ethereum Economic Zone (EEZ). The EEZ is a framework intended to reduce fragmentation across Ethereum’s layer-2 (L2) ecosystem by enabling rollups to interoperate and interact with mainnet state within a single transaction, without relying on traditional bridges.
Under the EEZ concept, smart contracts on different rollups could execute synchronously across networks and settle back to Ethereum as the canonical layer. That design aims to let applications share infrastructure and state across rollups, cut duplicated development and deployments, lower the number of cross-chain transfers, and concentrate activity that is today spread across many parallel execution environments.
The initiative is being developed in collaboration with Ethereum researchers and industry participants. Early contributors reportedly include infrastructure providers and DeFi protocols exploring a shared standard for interoperable rollups. The group plans an “EEZ Alliance” to coordinate standards, drive adoption, and evolve governance as the ecosystem matures. Technical design documents and performance benchmarks are expected to be published in the coming weeks.
The proposal arrives amid a broader debate about the trade-offs of Ethereum’s rollup-centric scaling strategy. While L2s have greatly increased throughput, they have also dispersed liquidity and user activity across many chains. L2BEAT data shows more than 20 active L2 networks securing nearly $40 billion in total value, with liquidity split among networks such as Arbitrum, Base and Optimism.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has highlighted concerns with some L2 design choices—centralized sequencers and trusted bridging mechanisms among them—prompting calls for adjustments in how rollups interoperate and preserve security. Reactions from L2 teams have varied: some, like Optimism co-founder Karl Floersch, argue that rollups must evolve beyond pure scaling, while others, including Offchain Labs’ Steven Goldfeder, stress that delivering scale remains essential because rollups address transaction load that the base layer cannot.
Gnosis, an early Ethereum infrastructure contributor, and Zisk, a zero-knowledge proving project led by Jordi Baylina (creator of Polygon zkEVM), are driving the EEZ effort alongside other stakeholders. The proposal aims to strike a balance between improved interoperability and strong security guarantees, while keeping Ethereum as the final settlement layer.