‘We Need a New Path’: Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin Rips Up L2-Focused Roadmap

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has delivered a powerful and critical assessment of the network’s current developmental trajectory, asserting that the ecosystem has become overly fixated on complex scaling solutions at the expense of foundational simplicity and security. The critique, encapsulated in the phrase, “We Need a New Path,” signals a potential major pivot away from the previously dominant focus on Layer 2 (L2) execution scaling.

For several years, Ethereum’s post-Merge roadmap centered heavily on the ‘Surge’ and subsequent incremental upgrades designed to maximize transaction throughput via L2 solutions, such as Optimistic and ZK rollups. While these technologies have successfully driven scalability, Buterin’s primary concern is that this relentless optimization risks introducing systemic complexity and centralization points, particularly regarding L2 sequencers and overall governance structures.

Buterin argues that the push for faster, cheaper transactions has inadvertently led developers to overlook core architectural vulnerabilities. He emphasized the necessity of returning to a ‘minimal viable L1’ (Layer 1) philosophy, where the main chain serves primarily as a robust, decentralized data availability and settlement layer. This approach suggests that future upgrades should prioritize making L2s inherently secure and trustless, rather than simply focusing on boosting their raw speed.

The proposed ‘new path’ puts significant weight on finalizing Data Availability Sampling (EIP-4844/Danksharding) to secure the data needs of L2s, but more importantly, it stresses addressing the ‘Scourge’—the roadmap phase dedicated to combating economic centralization risks. This implies a future focus on decentralized L2 sequencing mechanisms, better cross-chain communication standards, and rigorous testing for censorship resistance across the rollup ecosystem.

Buterin’s intervention acts as a powerful course correction, urging the community to temper its ambition for immediate, high-performance speeds in favor of architectural longevity. This renewed focus signals a commitment to long-term trustlessness, even if it potentially means a slower pace of pure throughput increases in the short term.

Source: ‘We Need a New Path’: Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin Rips Up L2-Focused Roadmap