Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron believes that the extreme rivalry between Ethereum layer-2 networks is the “largest drawback” dealing with the second-largest digital asset by market capitalization.
In an April 7 publish on social media platform X, Boiron emphasised how the competitors between these networks has led to Ethereum cannibalizing itself repeatedly. He defined:
“Ethereum’s largest drawback is cannibalizing itself repeatedly through all L2s competing over devs, customers and liquidity relatively than competing outdoors of the Ethereum ecosystem. Microeconomics 101 would inform you this can be a dangerous technique. I don’t have the reply however it must be addressed.”
A number of crypto group members share Boiron’s perspective, asserting that Layer 2 networks ought to goal these outdoors the Ethereum ecosystem. Karthik Senthil, the enterprise associate at crypto hedge fund Lattice, mentioned:
“L2s solely grow to be profitable in the event that they meaningfully develop the pie and entice the 99% of stuff (web2 included) that’s outdoors Ethereum immediately. If we battle over the identical individuals which can be already right here, nobody is profitable something.”
Notably, Boiron reposted a social media publish that urged the layer-2 networks to play the long-term recreation and “champion one another wins.” The publish reads:
“As fragmentation and chain abstraction will quickly be solved, L2s ought to reshape their views on the worth of siphoning apps from one L2 to the opposite. Quickly a profitable utility on x-L2 will present a share uplift in worth to y-L2 . Stealing purposes is a cannibalization of that worth.”
In the meantime, some group members argued that the competitors amongst layer-2s might in the end improve Ethereum’s ecosystem.
Layer-2s recognition
Layer-2s are blockchain networks designed to boost Ethereum’s scalability. Over the previous years, they’ve gained important recognition and adoption throughout the crypto ecosystem.
Information from L2Beat reveals that the networks cumulatively course of 123 transactions per second, surpassing Ethereum’s mainchain by an element of 10.7. For context, Coinbase’s high-flying Base community and Arbitrum, the most important layer2 blockchain, recorded increased transactions per second than Ethereum mainnet up to now day.
Moreover, in the beginning of this month, the variety of energetic wallets using the networks surpassed 5 million. On the similar time, the entire worth of property locked on these platforms has exceeded $42 billion, and there are indications that the development might proceed.