Ye Zhang, the co-founder of Ethereum layer-2 community Scroll, has pushed again towards requires Ethereum to impose charges on layer-2 networks.
Zhang argued in an in depth social media publish on April 2, that the proposal was dangerous to Ethereum’s long-term imaginative and prescient. He referred to as it a “poisonous” method that prioritizes short-term income over lasting ecosystem worth.
In keeping with Zhang, Ethereum’s energy lies not in extracting charges from rollups however in positioning ETH because the central asset throughout a number of Layer-2 (L2) ecosystems. He argued that taxing these networks mirrors company conduct and runs counter to the ideas of decentralization that Ethereum stands for.
He emphasised that Ethereum’s worth shouldn’t be measured by protocol revenue. As an alternative, the community must be thought-about an financial basis for a rising rollup-centric ecosystem.
He famous:
“ETH’s actual energy isn’t in protocol charges — it’s in turning into the hub asset throughout 1000’s of rollup ecosystems. That’s the longer term.”
Zhang defined that ETH’s benefit is its presence throughout main L2 platforms like Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync, and Scroll. Even on networks like StarkNet, that don’t use ETH for fuel, he famous that the digital asset stays a key buying and selling pair on decentralized exchanges.
Ethereum’s future
Contemplating this, Zhang outlined two potential instructions for Ethereum. In a single state of affairs, ETH evolves right into a trusted retailer of worth and a central hub for rollup exercise.
In keeping with Zhang:
“Each aligned L2 expands Ethereum’s floor space and social consensus. A thousand scalable rollups with ETH as the middle > any monolithic chain.”
Alternatively, Ethereum might grow to be centered on taxing L2 exercise, which might drive them towards various knowledge availability layers and scale back ETH’s affect within the broader blockchain panorama.
To keep away from this, Zhang urged the neighborhood to concentrate on scaling execution and bettering knowledge availability infrastructure.
He referred to as for a 1000x enchancment in blob capability and inspired constructing out shared instruments like cross-rollup liquidity bridges and interoperability options.
Zhang concluded:
“ETH wins by being the gravity, not the toll sales space.”
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