Evolution of Ethereum Strategy: From Rollup-Centric to Based Rollup—How to Measure and Navigate Future Scalability

The Ethereum community has recently been discussing a fundamental shift in the network’s scalability philosophy. This turning point began with Vitalik Buterin’s deep reflection on the five-year roadmap, which positioned Layer 2 (L2) as the primary scalability solution. To understand this transition thoroughly, we need a systematic approach to analyze and measure Ethereum’s evolution—not just from the perspective of network count, but in terms of security, decentralization, and broader protocol integration.

At first glance, Vitalik’s statement may seem to carry a pessimistic message about L2. However, a more accurate interpretation reveals something different: this is not rejection, but a strategic “reorganization.” Ethereum is not abandoning L2; instead, it is redefining roles—L1 remains the most secure settlement layer, while L2 pursues meaningful differentiation and specialization.

Evaluating L2: From High Expectations to Decentralization Reality

Historically, L2 has been Ethereum’s savior. During times when gas fees soared into tens of dollars, L2 offered an almost sole expansion solution. But reality has proven far more complex than initial scenarios.

Recent data from L2BEAT shows that although the number of L2 solutions has exceeded hundreds, growth in quantity does not equate to progress in decentralization quality. Since 2022, Vitalik has explicitly criticized the architecture of most Rollups, which still rely on centralized operations and human intervention to ensure security. The evaluation framework presented by L2BEAT—dividing Rollups into three decentralization stages (Stage 0, 1, and 2)—serves as a key indicator of how far L2 has advanced toward protocol independence.

The biggest structural issue facing the L2 ecosystem today is liquidity fragmentation. Trading flows that once concentrated on Ethereum have split into separate value islands, creating fragmented user experiences and reducing overall capital efficiency. Some L2s, perhaps due to regulatory or business considerations, risk becoming permanently stuck at Stage 1, relying on security councils to control upgrade capabilities—conditions that essentially make them more like “secondary L1s” with cross-chain bridge attributes, rather than pure scalability solutions.

This is why Vitalik emphasizes that the next step is not more chains, but deeper convergence. By measuring scale through decentralization metrics and protocol integration—rather than just throughput—Ethereum repositions its strategic direction: security, neutrality, and predictability return as core assets, while the future of L2 lies in stronger integration with the mainnet.

Composability in Sync: How Based Rollup and Pre-Confirmation Are Changing the Game

Amid reflections on the overly optimistic L2 narrative, the concept of Based Rollup is expected to reach enlightenment by 2026. If the last decade has been defined by a “Rollup-Centric” approach, the concrete question now becomes: can Rollups “grow within Ethereum” rather than “depend outside Ethereum”?

Discussion of Native Rollup can be seen as an extension of the Based Rollup concept—if Native Rollup is the ultimate vision, then Based Rollup is the most realistic path toward that goal. The fundamental difference between Based Rollup and traditional L2s like Arbitrum or Optimism is the removal of a centralized, independent sequencer layer. Instead, transaction ordering is handled directly by Ethereum L1 nodes.

This design combines Rollup-like verification logic with Ethereum’s own protocol at the L1 level, consolidating extreme performance optimization with protocol-level security previously handled separately. The result is the most seamless user experience—Rollups integrated directly into Ethereum, inheriting resistance to censorship and L1 activity. More importantly, it addresses one of L2’s most painful issues: cross-layer composability.

Within a single Based Rollup block, users can call L1 liquidity directly, enabling atomic cross-layer transactions within one slot. However, a real challenge arises: if the system fully follows L1’s pace (12 seconds per slot), user experience may feel sluggish, as the system still needs about 13 minutes to reach Finality—too slow for financial scenarios.

The solution comes from a community proposal in January, recommended by Vitalik: combining pre-confirmation with Based Rollup to achieve synchronous composability. This hybrid structure maintains ordered blocks with low latency while producing blocks at the end of each slot, then submitting these blocks to L1, ultimately integrating pre-confirmation mechanisms for synchronized synergy.

In the context of Based Rollup, pre-confirmation is when transactions are officially submitted to L1, with certain roles (e.g., proposer) committing that the transaction will be included. This aligns with Ethereum Roadmap Interop #4: Fast Confirmation Rules for L1, which aims to enable cross-chain applications to receive “strong and verifiable” L1 confirmation signals within 15–30 seconds, without waiting 13 minutes for full Finality.

Mechanically, fast confirmation rules do not introduce new consensus; rather, they reuse the voting of attesters that occurs each slot in Ethereum’s PoS system. When a block gathers enough validator votes spread across early slots, even before reaching Finality, it can be considered “highly unlikely to be reverted” under normal attack models. This confirmation level does not replace Finality but provides a strong guarantee before reaching it—an essential step for Interop.

Three Pillars of the Future: Account Abstraction, Privacy, and AI Sovereignty

From a 2026 perspective, Ethereum’s main trajectory is gradually shifting from “extreme expansion” to “unity, stratification, and endogenous security.” Some L2 solution leaders have expressed a desire to adopt Native Rollup paths to improve ecosystem consistency and synergy. This stance itself is a significant signal: the ecosystem is undergoing a painful but necessary simplification, moving from chasing “number of chains” back to “protocol unity.”

However, as L1 advances and Based Rollup and pre-confirmation mature, new issues emerge—the biggest constraints are no longer blockchain infrastructure but wallets and access thresholds. This validates the insights from imToken last year: as infrastructure becomes transparent, the real determinant of scalability is the user experience at the entry point.

The future of the Ethereum ecosystem will focus on three meaningful structural directions:

Native Account Abstraction and Lowering Entry Barriers. Ethereum is pushing for Native AA, where smart contract wallets will become the default, fully replacing complex recovery phrases and EOA addresses. For wallet services, this means entry into crypto will be as simple as signing up for a social media account.

Privacy and ZK-EVM. Privacy features are no longer fringe needs. With mature ZK-EVM technology, Ethereum will provide on-chain privacy protections for commercial applications while maintaining transparency—an essential competitive edge in the public blockchain space.

On-Chain AI Agents and Sovereignty. By 2026, transaction initiators may no longer be humans but AI agents. The challenge is to establish trustless interaction standards: how to ensure AI agents act according to user intent and are not controlled by third parties? Ethereum L1 as a decentralized settlement layer will serve as the most reliable arbiter in the AI economy.

Returning to the initial question: is Vitalik truly “rejecting” L2? An accurate understanding is that he rejects the narrative of excessive fragmentation disconnected from the main network, where each chain runs in isolation. This is not an end but a new beginning. From the illusion of “shard chains” to refining Based Rollup and pre-confirmation, it actually reinforces Ethereum L1’s position as the ultimate foundation of global trust.

However, this also means that only innovations rooted in core principles of the new Ethereum phase and breathing with the main protocol can survive and thrive in the next era of exploration.