Vitalik Remains Wary Of Overly Complex Layer 2s

A commonly held belief in the blockchain community is that the design of Layer 1 networks should be as simple as possible without sacrificing functionality to minimize the chances of critical bugs and attack vectors for malicious actors. As a result, scaling solutions like Layer 2 networks are expected to take on the burden of more complex features.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin remains unconvinced and took to social media on Wednesday to reiterate his concerns over exceedingly complicated Layer 2s.

Buterin went on to point out that a Layer 1 blockchain can recover relatively quickly from a potential consensus failure but that “people could permanently lose lots of money” in case of a critical bug in a Layer 2 network’s code.

He concluded by calling for a balanced approach, suggesting that it could “actually be worth adding some pretty sophisticated L1 features to reduce the code burden of L2s and allow them to be reasonably simple.”

The crypto ecosystem has evolved greatly over the past decade through the emergence of diverse blockchain ecosystems centered around Layer 1 networks like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana.

With developers looking to create increasingly complex onchain applications, attention shifted in recent years to scaling solutions in the form of Layer 2 networks, which bundle together transactions executed on a separate network and submit them in batches for validation on Layer 1 to significantly boost throughput and reduce transaction fees.

Ethereum’s Layer 2 ecosystem has grown tremendously over the past year and a half and commands over $27 billion in total value locked (TVL). Transaction activity surpassed mainnet in October 2022, with Layer 2s now routinely processing five times as many transactions, according to L2beat.