Ethereum community member, Ryan Berckmans, has refuted claims that the layer-2 (L2) ecosystem is underperforming, stating that it is "growing like crazy". He highlighted the growth of Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) scaling platforms and protocols, and the involvement of major players like Coinbase, Worldcoin, and Immutable X in the L2 space.

Berckmans argued that L2s are an integral part of Ethereum, offering better value than alternative layer-1 networks due to Ethereum’s larger and more diverse ecosystem. He also predicted that L2s will significantly surpass Solana’s transaction throughput in the coming years, by up to 100 times.

He further emphasized Ethereum’s L2 ecosystem's appeal to corporations and governments due to its security and decentralization properties. He described a "settlement network effect" where the growing ecosystem of L2 protocols increases the benefits and reduces the costs of settling on Ethereum.

Currently, the total value locked across all L2 protocols is $42.86 billion, according to L2beat. The leading L2 protocol is Arbitrum One, with a total value locked (TVL) of $17 billion, followed by Coinbase Base with $7.3 billion TVL.