L2 teams respond to Vitalik’s comments on rethinking the role of rollups

Vitalik Buterin’s statement that L2s can no longer serve as Ethereum’s primary scaling engine sparked an open debate among leading developers in the ecosystem. He argued that many rollups still fail to inherit Ethereum’s security because of their reliance on multisig bridges, while Ethereum itself is becoming more scalable through a higher gas limit and upcoming native mechanisms. Given this shift, Buterin said L2 networks should evolve toward specialization rather than being “a cheaper version of Ethereum.”

Optimism cofounder Karl Floersch welcomed the rethinking of the model and said L2s should span the full spectrum of decentralization. He acknowledged several critical limitations: long withdrawal windows, the absence of production-ready Stage 2 proofs, and a lack of tools for cross-chain applications. Floersch also reiterated support for a native precompile for rollups, an idea Buterin previously proposed.

Offchain Labs CEO Steven Goldfeder took a firmer stance. He agreed the model is evolving but stressed that scaling remains a foundational mission for L2s. He noted that Arbitrum and Base have surpassed 1,000 transactions per second during peak activity – performance that Ethereum cannot currently match. Goldfeder warned that if L1 were to take a “hostile posture” toward rollups, institutional players might choose to launch standalone L1s rather than build on Ethereum.

Base lead Jesse Pollak called improvements to L1 “a win for the entire ecosystem,” but emphasized that L2s must not become “Ethereum, but cheaper.” He said Base is prioritizing onboarding, privacy, account abstraction, and progress toward Stage 2 decentralization – all aligned with a shift toward specialization.

StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson offered only a brief comment, hinting that Starknet was designed from the start as a specialized rollup aligned with Buterin’s updated vision.

The discussion highlights a broader shift in Ethereum’s roadmap. As L1 throughput increases, L2s are no longer viewed solely as a scaling necessity but as infrastructure for highly specialized applications. The future of L2 networks will be defined not only by speed and cost but by the unique capabilities they can offer on top of Ethereum.