Author: Jason Chen

Compared with the sluggish Ethereum price and Vitalik's distraction from his job and dating his girlfriend, what is even more upsetting and worrying is that Ethereum's Layer2 has brought it into what may be the most critical moment of the "Zunyi Conference".

Ethereum gave up the difficult sharding and moved towards the simpler Layer2. This was not due to laziness. The impossible triangle could not be solved, so Layer2 seemed to be smoother and more cost-effective, but it also laid the mine for the quarrel that broke out today. All debts must be repaid, and now is the time for Ethereum to repay its debts.

The Layer2 route was conceived perfectly at the beginning. There was no problem with the relationship between the central bank and local banks. Ethereum only needed to lie back and collect money while leaving the dirty work to other Layer2s. But what if Layer2s are unwilling to be Ethereum's dogs? The state machine can force local banks to belong to the central government, so what should Ethereum do? Can it just rely on Vitalik and those Senate elders to be politically correct?

Do you think Polygon is Ethereum? Is BSC Ethereum? You hesitated for a moment, probably not. Although they use the same wallet address and development language, it seems that they have nothing to do with Ethereum.

Then I ask you again, do you think Arb, OP, and Base are Ethereum? At this time, you are more hesitant. I think they are, after all, I use ETH as gas, but if one day they no longer use ETH, do you still think they are Ethereum? Going further, do you think Movement is Ethereum? This... doesn't count, but they also call themselves Ethereum Layer2.

So the main problems brought by Layer2 are

1. The user experience is fragmented. Switching chains and crossing chains back and forth is so annoying.

2. Dilute the market value of Ethereum. Every Layer2 that issues a coin can be understood as biting off a piece of meat from Ethereum.

3. Ethereum is no longer united. Each Layer2 has its own ulterior motives and is supported by different interest groups, competing for TVL and users.

4. Reduced willingness to innovate. Most people understand that Layer2, as a higher-performance application chain, should bear the responsibility of innovation. How can it be reduced? Because every time a Layer2 comes out, there will be a large number of xxx on xxx... You know what I mean, when you can make money by copying and pasting, who will do more difficult innovation?

The most ideal Layer2 itself should not be a self-contained ecosystem, but an application chain that only serves a certain application! However, no one wants to be just a dog, and everyone wants to form a gang and become the boss.

If the Layer2 problem is not handled properly, Ethereum may fall into the situation of Cosmos. If it can be successfully resolved and overcome the difficulties, Ethereum will be reborn from the ashes.

But sometimes I understand the current situation of Ethereum. Ethereum is not a company. Everyone has heard this sentence, but how to understand it? Let me express it with a more concrete thing. Every public chain has a marketing team or a person in charge of the ecology of the xx area. Every year, a large budget is allocated for marketing. Solana has it, Ton has it, and even the dying Polkadot spent 40 million US dollars a year on marketing and gave KOL 4 million US dollars (but I didn’t receive it, I advise Polkadot to find me when the mouse is about to die).

Have you heard that Ethereum has a marketing team? Does Ethereum have an Asia director? Has Ethereum allocated tens of millions to find KOLs to shout orders and media to make short videos to diss Solana? This is Ethereum's advantage, but also its disadvantage. It can't make things happen, and it can't make things happen.

I once asked a big investor of BAYC why the stock price of Boring Ape fell so badly, and he said, "Because it is no longer so cool, and has become really boring." Yes, since a bunch of wealthy bosses like Zhu Xiaohu bought a few monkeys, changed their avatars to show off, and rushed into the Web3 market and then left, the Boring Ape began to change from a symbol representing the rebellious geek spirit.

Will Ethereum one day become uncool?