Scaling Ethereum L1 and L2s in 2025 and beyond

Scaling Ethereum L1 and L2s in 2025 and beyond

https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2025/01/23/l1l2future.html

Ethereum distinguishes itself in two ways: a principled technological and social philosophy committed to decentralization, and real value already brought to millions of users.

L2s have made great progress, and this is a testament to Ethereum's ecosystem and development philosophy working in action.

Today, there are two primary challenges:

1. Scale
2. Challenges of heterogeneity (standards, interoperability, proof system security, user experience, economics ....)

We could give up on L2s and try to do 2016-era-style L1 sharding. But this would be a mistake.

Instead, we should double down on our work on interoperability, ZK-EVMs, etc, and get the benefits of independent innovation and a unified Ethereum at the same time.

This means:

Summary: raise the blobs, work hard on interop and security, think about economics. See the post for more details on each topic.

Ethereum's future is bright.