This article was compiled and organized by BlockWeeks
Vitalik's Rollup Reset and the Evolution of Ethereum Layer 2
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published an essay this week, re-examining the rollup-centric scaling vision he proposed in 2020. The originally envisioned "branded shards" failed to materialize as expected in actual development; many Layer 2 networks have evolved into independent platforms with their own incentive and governance mechanisms, while the Ethereum main chain, while improving throughput and reducing fees, has gradually shifted toward higher L1 capacity.
From L1 Scaling to the Rollup-Centric Path
In 2020, the Ethereum mainnet processed only about 15 transactions per second, far below the traditional financial system, with high fees and congestion limiting daily use. To resolve this contradiction, Vitalik promoted a rollup-centric roadmap in 2020, through the rapid adoption of optimistic rollups and zero-knowledge (ZK) rollups, and introduced Proto-Danksharding in the March 2024 Dencun upgrade, adding low-cost "blobs" data channels, making rollup batch publishing more cost-effective, with transaction volume increasing to thousands of TPS and fees dropping from dollar-level to cent-level.
The Trust Spectrum and the Current Form of Layer 2
Vitalik believes that the current Layer 2 ecosystem presents a trust spectrum: Stage 0 still retains the team's centralized control and flexibility; Stage 1's major rollups such as Arbitrum, OP Mainnet, and Base have strengthened on-chain security but still retain limited fallback mechanisms; Stage 2 is the ultimate state where Ethereum directly enforces rules without the need for trusted operators. Many projects retain operational control due to business or compliance needs, causing decentralization progress to stall; Layer 2 is no longer the only scaling solution, but rather the most appropriate trust model is chosen based on the use case.
New Architecture Proposals: Native Precompiles and Synchronous Composability
Vitalik further proposed two technological innovations: first, native rollup precompile, allowing the network to directly verify EVM execution, with Layer 2 only needing to prove the correctness of its upper-layer logic; second, shifting from asynchronous to synchronous composability, enabling applications on different rollups to achieve near-instant finality within the same user flow, breaking free from the limitations of waiting for multiple blockchains or relying on slow bridges.
Responses from Various Projects and Ecosystem Diversity
Leading Layer 2 projects such as Arbitrum, Base, Linea, and Optimism have all responded, demonstrating significant differences in trust models, governance approaches, application focus, and technical roadmaps. This precisely aligns with the "spectrum" expectation described by Vitalik, indicating that the ecosystem remains healthy and diverse in its strategies.
Moltbook: The Rise of the AI Agent Social Network
This week, Moltbook, a social platform that allows AI Agents to interact in real time, attracted over 1.6 million registered Agents in a short period, with posts including Agent self-criticism and other content going viral. The platform primarily interacts through APIs, terminal commands, and scripts, emphasizing machine-led instant communication rather than human intermediation. However, the platform lacks mechanisms to verify the true autonomy of Agents, and questions remain about the ratio of human-machine collaboration and the prompts and constraints behind them.
Conclusion
As Ethereum main chain fees decrease and data capacity expands, the necessity of Layer 2 is shifting from pure scale expansion to specialized options that meet specific use cases and industry needs. Vitalik's Rollup Reset and new architecture aim to make Layer 2 more aligned with actual scenarios, while Moltbook's popularity foreshadows a new business form of decentralized AI interaction.
