Remember two years ago when everyone screamed that registering anything on Ethereum was impossible thanks to gas fees? Back then, ENS seriously planned its own L2 — Namechain. Made sense: $5 gas per name registration, versus a cheap, dedicated chain.
But the game changed. Upgrades like Fusaka pushed block gas limits to 60M, with 200M targeted by 2026. Result? Registration costs plunged from $5 to $0.05 — nearly 100x cheaper. So why bother with a separate L2 and its headaches — centralized sequencers, bridge dependencies, trust assumptions — when L1 suddenly became fast and dirt cheap?
Katherine Wu from ENS put it bluntly: subsidizing Namechain would've cost hundreds of thousands yearly. On L1? Almost zero. Plus no cross-chain gymnastics — your .eth name resolves cleanly, no bridges required.
Vitalik nailed it too: ENS names aren't just labels — they're semi-financial assets. Their security belongs on Ethereum's bedrock, not a compromise-laden L2 layer.
This isn't a retreat — it's strategic agility. Smart projects don't cling to old blueprints when fundamentals shift. ENS recalibrated — and nailed it.
So here's the real question: in the era of ultra-cheap L1 gas, do infrastructure primitives like ENS even need their own L2 anymore?