Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum (ETH), has announced that starting next year, he will only publicly endorse layer-2 projects that he believes are progressing toward true decentralization.
In a message to his 5.4 million followers on the social media platform X, Buterin states that beginning in 2025, he will only name L2s that have reached “stage 1” or higher, referencing a prior blog post that outlines various stages of decentralization.
In a blog post from November 2022 titled “Proposed milestones for rollups taking off training wheels,” Buterin indicated that L2s fall into stage 0, 1, or 2 with respect to decentralization.
He elaborates that “stage 1” signifies that the project should have a functioning fraud-proof or validity-proof mechanism, along with specific upgrade prerequisites and multi-sig controls.
Nearly two years on, Buterin asserts that he will only advocate for L2s at stage 1, independent of his investments or collaborations with industry colleagues.
“It doesn’t matter if I invested, or if you’re my friend; stage 1 or bust.”
“Various ZK-rollup teams have informed me they are on track to meet stage 1 by the end of the year. I’m eager to see that come to fruition!”
“Of course, we should not abandon training wheels until we are genuinely confident that the proof systems are secure; that would be irresponsible. However, achieving stage 1 (where there is a 75% threshold on the council to override the proof system and at least 26% of the council must come from outside the rollup team) is a sensible and moderate goal. The multisigs I’m involved in have not encountered a single failure in years, let alone 26%.”
“The time of rollups being merely sophisticated multisigs is ending. We are entering an era of cryptographic trust.”
The Ethereum co-founder has yet to identify any specific L2s that meet his standards of adequate decentralization.
The leading L2 at present is Polygon (POL), boasting a market cap of $2.67 billion.
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