Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron believes that the extreme rivalry between Ethereum layer-2 networks is the “greatest downside” going through 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 constantly. He defined:
“Ethereum’s greatest downside is cannibalizing itself constantly through all L2s competing over devs, customers and liquidity somewhat than competing exterior of the Ethereum ecosystem. Microeconomics 101 would inform you it is a unhealthy technique. I don’t have the reply but it surely must be addressed.”
A number of crypto group members share Boiron’s perspective, asserting that Layer 2 networks ought to goal these exterior 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 exterior Ethereum as we speak. If we battle over the identical individuals which are 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 proportion uplift in worth to y-L2 . Stealing functions is a cannibalization of that worth.”
In the meantime, some group members argued that the competitors amongst layer-2s might finally improve Ethereum’s ecosystem.
Layer-2s reputation
Layer-2s are blockchain networks designed to reinforce Ethereum’s scalability. Over the previous years, they’ve gained vital reputation and adoption inside the crypto ecosystem.
Knowledge 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 biggest layer2 blockchain, recorded larger transactions per second than Ethereum mainnet prior to now day.
Moreover, originally of this month, the variety of lively wallets using the networks surpassed 5 million. On the identical time, the whole worth of property locked on these platforms has exceeded $42 billion, and there are indications that the development might proceed.