For years, Ethereum’s layer-2 network has marketed itself as extensions of Ethereum itself. “Arbitrum is Ethereum,” Offchain Labs co-founder Steven Goldfeder wrote on X in March 2024. “Base is Ethereum,” Coinbase’s layer-2 team posted in April 2025.
But after recent comments from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin questioning whether Ethereum still needs a dedicated layer-2 roadmap, many of the same teams are now stressing something else: that rollups aren’t Ethereum at all.
Goldfeder, for one, struck a noticeably different tone after Buterin’s post, writing on X instead: “Arbitrum is not Ethereum.”
“It’s a core part of the ecosystem, a close ally and has had a symbiotic relationship for the last half decade. But it’s not Ethereum,” he added in the post.
Buterin’s remarks, which suggested that as Ethereum gets faster and cheaper, the original rationale for layer-2s may change, reignited the debate over whether rollups will become less necessary as the base layer improves.
Layer-2 networks were previously incorporated into Ethereum’s roadmap to scale the network by processing transactions from the main blockchain and settling them back to Ethereum, helping to reduce congestion and fees.
The debate is not abstract. Several layer-2 networks now secure billions of dollars in user funds, making them some of the largest platforms in crypto. Coinbase-backed Base has about $4 billion in total value locked up, while Arbitrum is securing more than $2 billion, according to DefiLlama data.
‘Less relevant’
But leaders across the tier-2 ecosystem say this moment is being misunderstood.
Rather than signaling an existential threat, they argue, Ethereum’s progress is forcing rollups to clarify their purpose and stand on their own.
Ben Fisch of the Espresso Foundation said Buterin’s comments reflect a logical evolution in how Ethereum’s scaling strategy is designed.
“I think Vitalik’s post is very much in line with that idea, now that he’s saying, ‘The whole purpose of layer-2s in the first place was to scale Ethereum. Well, now we’re making Ethereum faster so they become less relevant,'” Fisch told CoinDesk in an interview.
Still, Fisch dismissed the idea that this makes rollups obsolete.
“I think this is the start of layer-2s blossoming and becoming independent of Ethereum,” he said.
“A layer-2 can use Ethereum as a service, but it is in no way dependent on Ethereum or what the leaders of Ethereum think.”
That perspective is increasingly echoed by layer 2 managers themselves.
Base, Coinbase’s layer-2 network, welcomed improvements to the base layer, with Jesse Pollak, the head of Base, calling Ethereum scaling “a win for the entire ecosystem” while stressing that rollups must offer more than lower fees.
“Going forward, L2s can’t just be ‘Ethereum, but cheaper,'” Pollak said.
Polygon CEO Marc Boiron made a similar argument. Polygon recently said it would pivot its efforts to focus primarily on payments, and Boiron said Buterin’s comments were less about abandoning rollups than raising expectations for them.
“Vitalik’s point was not that rollups are a mistake, but that scaling alone is insufficient,” Boiron told CoinDesk. “The real challenge is to build a unique blockchain that works for real-world use cases like payments, where cost, reliability and consistency matter.”
Others have gone further, arguing that rollups should be understood as independent platforms rather than extensions of Ethereum itself. Jing Wang, co-founder of the Optimism Foundation and CEO of OP Labs, compared layer-2s to standalone web services.
“L2s are websites. Each business will have its own, tailored to its needs. Ethereum is an open settlement standard,” Wang told CoinDesk. “It is important for Ethereum to stay true to these base layer values to give L2s the flexibility to adapt.”
Taken together, the reactions suggest that while Buterin’s post has raised questions about the role of layer-2, leaders across the ecosystem see it less as a threat than as a transition, one that forces rollups to reconcile how they’ve branded themselves with what they’re now trying to become.
Read more: ‘You don’t scale Ethereum’: Vitalik Buterin issues a blunt reality check to the biggest crypto networks
