Vitalik recently issued a sharp critique of the Ethereum L2 ecosystem, which he believes has fallen into a boring pattern. He said many layer-2s now are just copying existing EVM designs, adding standard bridges, and calling it a day. He refers to this as 'copypasta infrastructure'—basically a blockchain version of Compound governance forks.

What’s interesting about his critique is that he doesn’t outright reject L2s altogether. But he is definitely annoyed with projects that market themselves as super connected to Ethereum when they are mostly standalone networks. Having a bridge alone doesn’t automatically make you part of the core Ethereum architecture, he said.

According to Vitalik, there are two still worthwhile directions to pursue. First, application-specific systems that are tightly integrated, where Ethereum remains a key component for settlement or verification. Second, chains driven by institutions or applications that issue cryptographic proofs or state commitments back to Ethereum. This isn’t Ethereum per se, but it can still push similar goals regarding transparency and verifiability.

Reactions from the L2 ecosystem are quite varied. Arbitrum’s Steven Goldfeder said their network should be viewed as a close ally of Ethereum, not Ethereum itself. Meanwhile, Base’s Jesse Pollak argued that rollups need to offer more than just cheaper fees, especially now that the Ethereum base layer is more efficient. Polygon leadership interprets this critique more as a push for clarity rather than an existential threat.

The role of copying in this ecosystem is becoming clearer—Vitalik is basically saying the industry needs to stop with lazy copy-paste approaches and start thinking about truly unique value propositions. With Ethereum’s throughput continuously increasing and fees decreasing, the old justification of L2s as ‘Ethereum but cheaper’ is becoming weaker.

Oh, and speaking of market movements, XRP yesterday dropped from $1.36 to $1.33 with high volume, indicating aggressive selling. The price is now stuck below the $1.35 level with a resistance zone at $1.40–$1.41 that repeatedly limits upside movement. Interesting timing with all this technical discussion—markets are digesting multiple factors at once.