Max Resnick, the core developer of Ethereum, recently talked about the development dilemma of Ethereum on a podcast, including whether Ethereum has fallen off the roadmap, Layer 2 versus Layer 1, centralized sequencers and other issues. He even bluntly stated that the development of Ethereum has deviated from the originally planned path. For example, in his eyes, the Ethereum mainnet and Layer 2 no longer seem to have a mutually beneficial and symbiotic relationship. It even warns that Layer 2 may be the "Ethereum killer".
Developer admits that Ethereum hasn’t done the right thing for a long time
In the past, our understanding of Layer 2 was to outsource transactions from the main network for execution and then send them back to the main network for verification. Layer 2 takes the burden off the mainnet, and the mainnet provides Layer 2 security. However, Max Resnick got straight to the point and pointed out that the current Layer 2 is basically in competition with the Ethereum main network. He said: "But I think L2 is actually a direct competitor of Ethereum. How can you call it a direct competitor to Ethereum?" What about things being part of Ethereum? That makes no sense to me, they're competing for the same set of users on the same set of applications."
He said that in his opinion, the Ethereum mainnet is good enough, although there is still a lot of room for improvement. He also pointed out that the past few hard forks revolved around Optimistic Roll up, but he believed that Layer 1 should still be a priority. The author adds: For example, EIP-4844 reduces Layer 2 fees.
(What impact will the Cancun upgrade have on users? Focused summary of Ramble Bar, an offline gathering of Lian News)
There is a concept that is constantly emphasized in this interview. Max Resnick believes that the Ethereum mainnet should continue to increase capacity and speed up transactions to catch up with these Layer 2. He said: "Even if we can't be better than them, we will have more security, better mechanical design, and ultimately the combination of these advantages will help us win. For example, especially compared to Solana, I think we have many advantages in other aspects, but if we refuse to compete on speed and throughput, we will lose anyway, because these are the two core functions of the blockchain, and users do not want to wait 12 seconds to log in. chain."
He believes that the Ethereum team has not done things right since The Merge, and launching blobs to lower transaction fees is indeed a good thing. But closer to home, Ethereum’s resources are limited. Prioritizing reducing Layer 2 fees is a choice that goes against the roadmap. In his point of view, there are more important things to do.
There is no avoidance of interests within Ethereum, shocking that most people work part-time in the Optimistic camp
Max Resnick also revealed that most members of the Ethereum development team work part-time on the Optimistic Roll up project. He said that the current roadmap of Ethereum can be called the Opmisti Roadmap instead of the ZK roadmap. "I think we were influenced by some people. For example, there was a core development team member working on the development of EIP-4844, but he was also working on another Optimistic L2 project, and the people on the ZK L2 project were not involved at all. To promote this part of the roadmap, almost all people from Optimistic L2 are promoting the roadmap, and the direction is favorable to them.”
Max Resnick said that Ethereum’s roadmap has been adjusted, mainly due to misestimation of the evolution of ZK technology.
"We thought ZK Rollups would have to wait ten years, but it actually only took about two years. We made some decisions on the roadmap based on this, but now we should take a step back and re-evaluate whether the decisions we made at the time were correct, especially In the case where we misestimated the progress of ZK technology."
He also pointed out that although the Ethereum mainnet fee has reached a balance recently, it still needs to continue to work hard on expansion. Even if a killer application appears on the chain, it must be able to maintain stable fees and execution speed. If we want to take the road of roll up, we need to make the cost of verifying ZK proof on the chain lower, rather than continuing to reduce the cost of data.
L2 parasitizes L1, division of labor leads to mutual benefit and symbiosis
But Max Resnick's core idea is not completely against Layer 2. His focus is on sequence and chain division of labor. He believes that transactions such as buying coffee or small transfers can be compressed using Layer 2, but at the core Layer 1 should be where people transact. He will always emphasize that the reason why the performance of the Ethereum main network should be enhanced is that he hopes that transactions can actually be executed on the main network. Applications such as Uniswap should not be forced to build their own application chains just because the main network is too difficult to use, or push people to use unsecured Layer 2.
He believes that the current relationship between Layer 1 and Layer 2 is more like parasitism. Layer 2 actually directly steals the number of users of the main network and DeFi, and uses its own centralized sequencer to execute it. But if the main network is upgraded to an environment more suitable for DeFi, less sensitive transactions such as buying coffee are handed over to Layer 2. This allows Layer 2 to truly share the pressure for Ethereum and allow the main network to better complete its tasks. This is mutually beneficial symbiosis.
In vernacular, he believes that the main network and Layer 2 need to create differences in transaction types in order to end the tense competitive relationship. Layer 1 should focus on how to improve the efficiency of the main network to the level of Layer 2. The more features Layer 2 inherits from Ethereum (such as decentralized sequencers), the closer it will be to Ethereum.
Unable to find any reason to convince the L2 giant to give up the sequencer business, Based Rollup Odu gave
As for Optimism’s recent super chain project, Max pointed out the extreme centralization. At the same time, he also pointed out that Layer 2 such as Base and Arbitrum have made a lot of money from sequencers. They will not give up this good business and embrace decentralization.
(Optimism announced the super link roadmap, aiming to integrate the Ethereum ecosystem from Layer 2)
Regarding the solution to the decentralized sequencer, Max mentioned Based roll up. Based Rollup, also known as L1-sequenced Rollup, is a Rollup in which the sorting is completely handled by L1. Although Based Rollup is aligned, it can be smoothly converted from L1 to L2 and from L2 to L1. But one of the disadvantages is that the block generation speed is the same as L1. For the current Ethereum, it takes about 12 seconds to generate a block.
But Maxs also said that he really can’t find a good reason to persuade Layer 2 companies like Base and Arbitrum to give up the good business of sequencers. At this stage, they can only rely on social pressure.
The ideal endgame of Max's Rollups roadmap: every Rollup is a Based Rollup, but it's a "Super Based Rollup." This should be the long-term goal that Ethereum should pursue: maximizing user welfare. When everyone agrees on this, I will prefer to call them part of Ethereum.
This article, Ethereum’s core developers talk about the development dilemma, revealing that Ethereum is off the track, first appeared on Chain News ABMedia.
