Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko questioned the decentralization and security of Ethereum’s second-layer solutions (L2) during a heated discussion on Sunday.
According to him, such networks have too large an attack surface, and their codebase is so extensive that a full audit is practically impossible. In addition, Yakovenko noted that due to reliance on multisigs, users’ funds on L2 can be moved without their consent.
‘Five years since the launch of the L2 roadmap, and in the worst-case scenario, wormhole-ETH on the Solana network carries the same risks as ETH on the Basenetwork, while bringing the same revenue to first-layer Ethereumvalidators. No matter how you look at it — it’s wrong,’ Yakovenko said.
Debates about whether second-layer solutions strengthen the Ethereum ecosystem or, on the contrary, dilute it, continue among developers, investors, and market players.
Are there too many second-layer networks on Ethereum?
According to L2Beat, there are currently 129 confirmed L2 networks operating in the Ethereum ecosystem, and another 29 are under review.
Adrian Brink, co-founder of the first-layer blockchain Anoma, believes that there are already ten times more such projects than necessary. According to him, the market is overloaded with similar solutions, which could slow down the development of the entire industry.
Overview of the L2 ecosystem. Source: L2Beat
However, Igor Mandrigin, co-founder of the infrastructure platform Gateway.fm, disagrees. He believes that there can never be too many second-layer networks.
According to Igor Mandrigin, the sharp increase in the number of L2 networks is a good sign for Ethereum. He talks about the development of the network and the increase in technological diversity in the ecosystem.
A similar opinion is held by Anurag Arjun, co-founder of the Avail project associated with Polygon. He believes that each L2 network is an independent high-performance blockchain that strengthens the Ethereum infrastructure.
Instead of a single universal approach, users get access to dozens of different solutions optimized for specific tasks: from cheap transactions to high throughput and fast finality.
Read also: Sharplink Gaming invested $80 million in Ethereum after a month-long break
However, not everyone sees this as a positive. A study by Binance Research emphasizes that the rapid proliferation of L2 platforms does not go unnoticed for the main Ethereum layer.
It’s not just about technical fragmentation, but also about financial losses: each new network takes away part of the transactional activity, reducing fees and, as a result, lowering the income of validators and stakers on the first layer.
Analysts explain that the more transactions move to L2, the less load there is on the main layer, which means — fewer fees, less activity, and lower attractiveness for those who provide network security.
At the same time, liquidity also starts to spread between different solutions, which can hurt the efficiency of the DeFi sector and make it less interconnected.
