Ethereum Changes the L2 Roadmap: From Fragmentation to Integrated Native Rollups

The biggest discussion in the Ethereum community lately has centered on a fundamental question: are the L2 strategies adopted over the past five years still relevant? Vitalik Buterin, through his public reflections, provides a provocative yet complex answer. His statement that the Roadmap of Rollup-Centric approach set years ago no longer fully aligns with the realities of modern Ethereum scalability was interpreted by the market as a “rejection of L2.” However, a more accurate interpretation is that Ethereum is undergoing a strategic transformation—not abandoning L2, but redesigning the ecosystem roadmap with clearer role divisions. L1 returns to its position as the world’s most secure settlement layer, while L2 is expected to pursue specialization and deep differentiation. This paradigm shift reflects Ethereum’s maturation as a global platform beyond its initial obsession with throughput alone.

L2 at a Crossroads: Between Historical Mission and Practical Reality

In an era where Ethereum gas fees can reach dozens of dollars, L2 indeed plays a rescue role. The initial Rollup-Centric roadmap was very clear: L1 guarantees security and data availability, while L2 pursues extreme expansion and minimal costs. This strategy successfully addressed throughput crises, but actual developments are far more complex than the original vision.

According to the latest L2BEAT data, over a hundred L2s are now operating, but numerical growth does not correlate with structural maturity. The biggest issue is the very slow decentralization speed. Since 2022, Vitalik has criticized the “Training Wheels” architecture of most Rollups—they still rely on centralized sequencers and human intervention to ensure security. The well-known L2BEAT framework divides Rollups into three decentralization stages: Stage 0 (full centralized control), Stage 1 (limited control), and Stage 2 (fully decentralized). Vitalik’s analysis shows that some L2s may remain stuck in Stage 1 forever due to regulatory or business needs, depending on security councils for upgrade control. In such cases, L2 is no more than a “secondary L1” with cross-chain bridge attributes—not the “native sharding” envisioned.

Another troubling issue is liquidity fragmentation. As L2s and alternative L1s proliferate, the value once concentrated in Ethereum has fragmented into isolated islands. This contradicts the very goal of expansion. From this perspective, it’s clear why Vitalik emphasizes that the next strategic step is not “more chains,” but “deeper integration” and a redefinition of the L2 roadmap within a broader context. This is a timely correction—through protocol-structured expansion and endogenous security mechanisms, strengthening Ethereum L1 as a global trust foundation.

A New Roadmap: Based Rollup and Pre-Confirmation as Solutions

At this moment of reflection, Based Rollup (Layer-1-based rollups) emerges as a concept offering a fundamental solution. If the last five years’ narrative was “Rollup-Centric,” the concrete question now is: “Can rollups grow inside Ethereum, rather than relying outside?”

The biggest difference between Based Rollup and traditional L2s like Arbitrum or Optimism is the elimination of independent, centralized sequencers. Instead, sequencing is handled directly by Ethereum’s L1 nodes. This means the verification logic of the rollup is integrated into the Ethereum protocol itself at the L1 level. With this design, users experience the most direct interaction—rollups become part of Ethereum, inheriting the censorship resistance and activity of L1, while solving the most troubling issues of traditional L2s: cross-layer liquidity synchronization.

In a block of Based Rollup, you can directly call L1 liquidity and achieve atomic cross-layer transactions. However, the technical challenge is real: if it fully follows the L1 pace (12 seconds per slot), user experience feels sluggish. Full finality still takes about 13 minutes (2 epochs), too slow for financial scenarios.

This is where the community’s proposal from earlier this year—combining pre-confirmation with Based Rollup for synchronous composability—becomes relevant. The structure is hybrid: maintaining ordered blocks with low latency, producing blocks at the end of a slot, submitting them to L1, then using pre-confirmation to achieve full synchronization.

In the context of Based Rollup, pre-confirmation means: when a transaction is submitted to L1, a certain role (e.g., L1 proposer) commits that the transaction will be included. This aligns with Ethereum’s official Interop Roadmap Project #4: “L1 Fast Confirmation Rules.” The concrete goal is to provide a “strong and verifiable” L1 confirmation signal within 15-30 seconds, without waiting 13 minutes for full finality.

Mechanically, fast confirmation rules are not new consensus processes but leverage attester voting that occurs in each slot within Ethereum’s PoS system. When a block gathers enough validator votes spread across early slots, even if it hasn’t reached full finality, it is considered “highly unlikely to be reverted in a realistic attack scenario.” This is a strong confirmation recognized by the protocol before full finality. Its significance for Interop is huge: cross-chain systems, Intent Resolvers, and wallets do not need to wait for complete finality but can proceed with subsequent logic within 15-30 seconds based on protocol signals. Through this layered confirmation scheme, Ethereum creates a delicate balance between “security” and “fast experience,” enabling highly refined interoperability.

The Three Pillars of Ethereum’s Emerging Roadmap

Along with the shift from “extreme expansion” to “unity, layering, and endogenous security,” the Ethereum ecosystem is beginning to articulate long-term priorities. A few weeks ago, executives from various Ethereum L2 solutions openly expressed a desire to adopt Native Rollup pathways to improve network consistency. This attitude itself is an important signal: the industry is moving away from “chasing the number of chains” toward “protocol unification.”

However, as this ecosystem simplifies, more fundamental questions arise: when infrastructure becomes solid, what truly limits growth? Not TPS or blob counts, but user entry thresholds and wallet experience. This insight, repeatedly emphasized by imToken over the past year, shifts focus to three much more meaningful structural dimensions:

Native Account Abstraction (Native AA) and Lowering Entry Barriers
Ethereum is pushing for native account abstraction, where smart contract wallets will become the default, fully replacing complex recovery phrases and traditional EOA addresses. For wallet providers like imToken, this means onboarding into crypto will be as easy as signing up for a social account. Democratization is a game-changer for adoption.

Privacy and ZK-EVM in Production
Privacy features are no longer fringe needs. As ZK-EVM matures, Ethereum will offer on-chain privacy protections for commercial applications while maintaining structural transparency. This will be a core competitive advantage in the public blockchain space.

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

Conclusion: Roadmap Reformation as Strengthening, Not Rejection

The initial question—whether Vitalik is truly “rejecting” L2—now has a clearer answer. What he rejects is the narrative of excessive fragmentation, of L2s disconnected from the main network and running independently. This is not an end but a new beginning. From the illusion of “true sharding” back to the refinement of Based Rollup and pre-confirmation, it fundamentally reinforces Ethereum L1’s position as the ultimate global trust foundation.

This transformation also sends a clear message: only innovations rooted in fundamental principles of this new stage and breathing in sync with the mainnet will survive and thrive in the next era of exploration. Ethereum’s new roadmap is a path of consolidation with clearer, more sustainable goals.