Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of the Ethereum network, wrote another article titled “Possible Futures of the Ethereum Protocol, Part 2: The Surge”, proposing an expansion of Ethereum. floor (L1) max Layer 2 (L2) Scalability. He also mentioned how to achieve maximum L2 interoperability in the same article.
This article explains that as Ethereum’s L2 scaling solutions evolve to become more scalable and successful, certain risks arise if Ethereum’s L1 has limited transaction processing capacity. One major concern is the long-term security of the Ethereum network. This is because a weak L1 can reduce the economic viability of Ethereum (ETH) and undermine its value. The L2 benefits from tight integration with the L1’s strong financial ecosystem, and as the L1 weakens, the incentive to operate in the L2 rather than an independent L1 decreases.
Vitalik also argued that the security guarantees of the L2 are not yet equivalent to those of the L1, which could pose a risk in the event of an L2 failure. In these cases, Ethereum’s co-founders found that users would still have to rely on the L1 for asset recovery, emphasizing that the L1 must be able to manage complex operations while the L2 is shut down.
To solve these problems, “L1 extensions are essential,” Vitalik said. Vitalik added that gradually increasing gas limits is one approach, although there are risks of centralization. According to Vitalik, a more balanced strategy would include improving Ethereum client software and introducing advanced technologies such as multidimensional gas pricing and reducing gas costs for certain operations.
Vitalik also added that proposals such as EVM-MAX and SIMD aim to improve computational efficiency, while native rollup can enable parallel execution of transactions, thereby increasing Ethereum’s overall scalability. As the ecosystem evolves, it is important to balance this innovation with Ethereum’s core values of decentralization and security.
“Obviously, it is absurd for everything to go on in L1,” concludes Vitalik. He continued to explain. “However, increasing the gas limit by 10x significantly undermines the decentralization of Ethereum L1, and instead of us having 99% of activity occurring in L2, 90% of activity occurs in L2. The result is that most of the irreversibility that makes Ethereum L1 special is eliminated. “It looks pretty much the same except for the loss.”
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