Layer 2 is a great blockchain success story. They reduced the congestion on the main Ethereum network, reducing gas fees, maintaining security.

But maybe they were too successful, attracting the chain activity and income from the parent who gave birth to them? At least this is what some recently suggest, recently at the Blockchain Cornell Tech conference at the end of April.

Indeed, some believe that Ethereum should be a little greedy, or at least difficult to fight for most of the income dough, especially charges for sequencing.

“People at the Ethereum Foundation [the nonprofit that supports the Ethereum ecosystem] Tell you that “yes, we set off, being too tower of ivory.” I have heard it many times – said David Hoffman, the owner of Bankless, during a panel discussion at the Cornell Tech party in New York on April 25.

Elsewhere Hoffman has called Ethereum, to create a “strategic turnover”, noticing that the cryptocurrency environment has changed over the past few years. Ethereum no longer has “luxury to be a research project in peace … used by the competition.”

According to James Beck, the boss of growth at Ens Labs and another speaker at the L2S sequencing conference, they derive millions of dollars in transaction order fees (sometimes called sequencing fees), but none of these revenues is transferred to Ethereum, head of development at Ens Labs and another speaker at the conference in New York. Beck said CointeLgraph:

So this cultural layer of podcasters and researchers says: “Well, the price of ETH has fallen compared to other tokens. What do we do to make Ethereum stronger?

In compact, Ethereum is a neutral verification layer, but the mainnet ethereum is not compensated for the work he performs. Centralized L2 for profit, such as base, optimism and arbitration, accumulate lucrative sequencing fees, while enjoying security and life guarantees for the main Ethereum network at relatively low economic costs.

L2S did not make up after Dencun update

ROLPS L2 is a recent innovation; They only appeared in 2023. The idea was to reduce chain hubs and gas fees by transferring transactions processing from the main block chain (layer 1) to separate the chains that are located at the Dainet (L2S) top. But transaction processing is probably the most profitable part of the revenue game, especially when users decide to pay for priority to process orders faster.

Sharing fees rarely was a huge problem before improving Dencun in March 2024, Ethereum, which introduced blob transactions to support on the scale of layer 2. Blobs significantly reduced L2S costs on Ethereum, enabling them to be more gained, the analyst of the Coinmetry researcher, Tanay Ved, said CointeLraph this week.

Since then, the demand for L2 users has increased, especially on the basis, L2 launched by Coinbase in August 2023 on Ethereum Mainnet.

As he knows excellent On the blog of April 8, Base earned a total of ~ 98 million dollars revenues from fees for user transactions (including base and priority fees), “at the same time paying only ~ $ 4.9 million in the basic layer of Ethereum, which caused a total profit of USD 94 million from the upgrade.”

Ved added:

This dynamics led to many questions whether Layer-2 is positive for Ethereum or whether they are “extracted.

Base response

When asked about the fees, the spokesman for the base told CointeLgraph: “Today the base is already paying Ethereum fees for each transaction based on the basis. All transactions are settled on Ethereum, and the base has paid Ethereum over $ 20 million dollars fees for the settlement since the base of the base.” You can see these fees Topen terminal Added a spokesperson under the “cost of revenues”.

“In general, the base makes it available in rapid and budget-friendly transactions and helps in the development of the Ethereum ecosystem by implementing more users, builders, applications and resources, all of which go into ETH and the demand for driving,” said the spokesman.

Related: The institutions break down from Ethereum, but keep ETH on the hook

However, in many, if not for most months, the general fees of the base are about 10 times more than the amount paid Ethereum getting stuck transactions, according to the examination of the database financial statement. For example, in April the latest full month base increased by $ 3.7 million fees, but only USD 305,000 was delivered to Ethereum as a billing fees – about 8% of all fees.

Despite this, maybe things are not so tragic. Even if the fees are now outside the killer, the imbalance may not last, others warn. Ethereum Hard Forks, such as Pectra, which began yesterday (May 7), and Fusak, planned at the end of 2025, will increase the bandwidth of the blob. “This means that L2S will be able to post more spots, potentially driving higher fees for the total blob to mainnet,” said Ved Cointelegraph.

Ethereum already consistently hits the current blob target at three on the block, as the chart below shows. “Pectra will raise it to six objects per block – with a maximum nine – creating a place for an increased fee for the scales of L2 activity,” added Ved.

Are “based on developments” a response?

Some Ethereum researchers, podcasters – and even L2 – bend into “developed” as a more permanent way to solve the problem of fees and ensure better security in the occasion. Here, ordering transactions (IE, sequencing) would take place on Mainet, not L2S.

Sequencers used by optimism, arbitrum One, the base and others are more susceptible to attack or failure, considering that they are centralized, with one point of failure, some scientists say. Jarrod Ward Polygon I’m writing:

If the centralized sequencer falls, the ROLP effectively stops doing its work. He ceases to operate transactions from users to L2, and also stops sending the party’s data back to Ethereum.

“Layer sequencers 2 have become dangerously centralized” in addition Volume NGO, Executive conduct in metis-blockchain of the Ethereum layer.

In June in June, $ 2.6 million Hack Ethereum Layer-2 Linea Blockchain went home to a non-governmental organization and other significance of decentralization and dangers of centralized sequencers.

Related: “Vitalik: An Ethereum Story” does not apply to cryptowal

Last year, several L2S based on the list moved. Taiko Alethia, the first and largest, was launched in May 2024. A year later it had USD 148.3 million in complete security of value – Ranking 14 On the L2beat L2S list, although far behind for $ 12.06 billion, Base leader.

SpeedWise, Taiko, who was respectable 20.3 user operations per second (UOPS), on May 7, far from 86.3 UOPS base, but on an equal footing with Arbitrum One (21.6 UOPS) and much better than optimism (10.3 UOS).

Tax on L2S?

Another idea that floats in the Ethereum community is imposed by a type of tax on L2. But according to Veda, doing this may have unintentional consequences. This can make L2S less competitive. He also risks “leakage of activity on a competing layer of 1S outside the Ethereum ecosystem.” Ved said that the activity that flows into the base can flow to Solana or other L1.

There could also be philosophical issues that Ethereum submitted an additional payment to L2S. Ved noticed:

Tax can be seen as contrary to the ethos of the decentralization of Ethereum, which would decide on market forces and not enforce tax.

In general, the Ethereum Foundation seems to be a priority to treat a long -term increase in relation to short -term income, explained Ved. Proposals such as EIP-7762However, which increases the minimum Blob base fee in order to accelerate the discovery of prices during demand tides, can increase the income of fees at Ethereum Mainnet, which has such a tax effect.

Social pressure?

According to Beck Ens Labs, it may require some social pressure so that the leading centralized L2S will voluntarily give up sequencing fees. Other L2, such as a line, may need to come in and say about the centralized L2S something like: “Listen, you have this risk associated with a more centralized project, and here is a chance to bake [the order processing] to Ethereum, which is more decentralized. “

In these lines Ens took part in three -day workshops in Great Britain in January with leading researchers and programmers from entities such as line, status, Openzepelin, Titan, Spire Labs and Ethereum Foundation. The direct task was to create a scalable, decentralized infrastructure for the name Ens Labs, but also to gather various Ethereum ecosystem teams to jointly solve the challenges related to L2 interoperability with developments.

Beck admits that it is not always easy to do things in a flat (non -hammer), like Ethereum, like Ethereum. “Ethereum is a decentralized ecosystem. You can’t make everyone on the same side at once.” But cooperation such as the recently, which took place in Great Britain, is the beginning.

The panelist of the Cornell Tech conference, Hoffman, expressed the confidence that Ethereum could rotate and “transform layer 1 in rolling” at the processing speed comparable to today’s L2S.

As mentioned, Hoffman criticized the Ethereum Foundation for being too island and academic, but sees signs that now everything can change, writing Lately:

The appointment of executive directors Tomasz Stańczyk and Hsiao-Wei Wang means a new era of accountability, direction and internal cohesion.

“I feel hopeful,” added Beck. “Ethereum still has the most assets blocked for DEFI; most Stablecoin is on Ethereum. Blackrock has a fund that settles on Ethereum.”

In other words, Ethereum is still well prepared to provide infrastructure for “networks” -tj., Smoothly interaction of private and public blockchain multi-public networks, which will be the future of technology.

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