For years, L2s were positioned as āEthereum shardsā: ā¢ Cheap execution
ā¢ Secured by L1
ā¢ One unified system
That narrative no longer matches reality.
Hereās why š
1ļøā£ Ethereum L1 is scaling fast
Fees are already near zero, and gas limits are expected to rise aggressively in 2026.
2ļøā£ Most L2s arenāt becoming fully trustless Stage-2 rollups
Some canāt. Some simply donāt want to.
So the shift is clear:
L2s are no longer here to āscale Ethereum.ā
Theyāre here to do what Ethereum wonāt do.
š¹ Privacy-focused execution
š¹ Ultra-fast trading environments
š¹ AI & custom execution
š¹ Specialized VMs
š¹ App-specific chains
š¹ Non-financial use cases
Ethereumās new role: the credibility layer
L2sā role: the feature layers
What matters most now is the glue between them: ā¢ Native ZK proof verification
ā¢ Trustless interoperability
ā¢ Synchronous composability
Big picture š
Ethereum is becoming the base layer of digital trust.
L2s are becoming everything built on top of it.
No hype.
No price talk.
Just a fundamental shift in how the ecosystem is being designed.