Is L2 the future of blockchain?
Millie, the project leader of the decentralized prediction market TrueMarkets, recently shared her personal views on Layer 2 (L2) on social media. She stated that L2 is the most sustainable 'block sale business' model under current technical standards, and no L1 (including Ethereum) can compete with it. Millie said:
In this framework, the role of L1 is to provide a source of authenticity for the coexistence of multiple L2s, becoming the final basis for their settlement. This is the only long-term sustainable business model for L1. Ethereum is the only blockchain that has made significant progress in this direction.
However, regarding Millie's perspective, Solana co-founder Toly Yakovenko seems to disagree. Toly Yakovenko stated that Millie's theory seems reasonable but is actually incorrect. Toly Yakovenko believes that multiple L2s are unnecessary because a single L2 is sufficient to meet all needs.
Solana co-founder denies the multi-L2 route.
Toly Yakovenko pointed out that if an L2 can achieve parallel execution, it can efficiently utilize all data block space (blobspace) and support all possible application scenarios simultaneously. In other words, an efficient L2 can theoretically independently carry all the operational needs of decentralized applications (DApps) and smart contracts.
In addition, Toly Yakovenko believes that there are only six truly important smart contracts. There is no need to provide infinite developer options. Moreover, every time a new L2 network is added or a new design change is introduced, it requires new governance mechanisms, new security validations, and new infrastructure maintenance. These factors accumulate significantly increase the systemic risk and cost of the entire system.
In fact, any developer optionality that increases business risk is negative, such as the ERC20 standard interface. Each addition of a sequencer, L2 multisig, governance system, VM customization, etc., increases business risk.
The route dispute between Solana and Ethereum
It is well known that Ethereum's development path relies more on the development of L2, while Solana focuses on a single-chain architecture as its main emphasis. Therefore, Toly Yakovenko's disagreement with the 'multi-L2 development path' will inevitably spark polarized discussions in the community.
AFAICT one of the biggest philosophical differences between @solana + SVM and @ethereum + EVM is our perspectives on what we can and will build onchain with smart contracts. In Solana land, the current perspective is that there are 'only ~6 contracts worth writing'. So those are… https://t.co/5A03I0PyTK
— jesse.base.eth (@jessepollak) January 4, 2025
Among them, Base ecosystem developer Jesse Pollak pointed out that in the world of Solana, the current mainstream view is that:
There are only about 6 types of smart contracts worth writing.
As a result, these contracts are enshrined and reused, and developers pay relatively little attention to contract validation, open-source nature, scalability, and extensibility.
In contrast, the mainstream mindset in the Ethereum world is:
We have only just scratched the surface of the world computer; there are countless smart contracts waiting to be created.
This perspective leads to everything on Ethereum emphasizing open-source, verifiability, and being designed for scalability, forking, and extensibility.
Jesse Pollak summarized that it can be seen that Solana focuses on building an efficient capital market infrastructure, while Ethereum is dedicated to creating a comprehensive and all-encompassing global economy.
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