Ethereum Economic Zone emerged to reduce fragmentation among layer 2s.

A group of Ethereum projects has announced a new effort to address an increasingly apparent issue within the ecosystem: fragmentation. The project, named Ethereum Economic Zone (EEZ), was introduced at EthCC in Cannes with the goal of helping Ethereum’s layer 2s operate more like a unified system.

EEZ is being developed by Gnosis, Zisk, and the Ethereum Foundation. Gnosis is one of the long-standing infrastructure builders of Ethereum, while Zisk focuses on zero-knowledge proving technology. Their idea is to make Ethereum’s scaling networks interact more smoothly, reducing reliance on bridges and alleviating the fragmented user experience.

For many years, Ethereum has relied on layer 2 for scaling, but the cost has been fragmentation: assets are split between networks, tools must be rebuilt in various places, and users often have to transfer assets back and forth using bridges that are slow, costly, and risky.

EEZ aims to reverse this by creating the feeling that all networks within the Ethereum ecosystem are operating as one system. Applications and transactions on different networks can interact almost instantly, while still relying on Ethereum’s security. At the same time, this project continues to use ETH as the main token for fees, rather than creating additional new tokens.

This move also comes at a time when the debate over Ethereum’s layer 2 strategy is heating up. Vitalik Buterin recently emphasized that the ecosystem needs to rethink its roadmap that is overly reliant on L2, especially as fragmentation and user experience issues persist. EEZ is therefore seen as a direct effort to address this bottleneck.

If this framework is embraced by the community, it could represent a significant step forward for Ethereum in turning multiple discrete scaling layers into a more unified experience for both developers and users.