Solana vs. Ethereum: AI Credit Protocol Claw Credit Faces Off Against L2 Strategy Overhaul, Where Will Capital Flow?

In the increasingly competitive public blockchain landscape of 2026, the two giants Solana and Ethereum have made starkly different choices in their scaling strategies, forming a clear strategic contrast. Recently, the Solana ecosystem launched Claw Credit, a credit protocol operated autonomously by AI agents, marking a significant step toward deep financialization and intelligence built upon its high-performance monolithic chain. Almost simultaneously, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin publicly spoke out, re-examining and adjusting Ethereum’s long-standing “rollup-centric” Layer 2 (L2) expansion roadmap. These developments are not merely technical upgrades but represent a watershed in the philosophies and ecological focuses of the two mainstream public chains, likely triggering a new wave of developer and capital flows.

Roadmap Comparison: Deep Innovation in Monolithic Chains vs Layered Architectural Strategy Rebuilding

Solana: Relying on High-Performance Infrastructure to Deepen Native Finance and AI Integration

Solana’s expansion path has always centered on pushing the performance limits of its monolithic chain. Building on its already high throughput, its ecosystem innovation is now delving into vertical domains. The launch of Claw Credit exemplifies this approach—it’s not just about transaction speed but leveraging Solana’s low latency and low cost to create a credit system managed autonomously by AI agents, without human intervention. This innovation pushes DeFi from human-led collateralized lending toward algorithm-driven automatic credit allocation, demonstrating Solana’s aggressive stance on “high-performance infrastructure + frontier application exploration.”

Ethereum: Enhancing L1 Capabilities, Shifting L2 from “General-Purpose Scaling” to “Differentiated Value”

Unlike Solana’s path, Ethereum has long relied on L2 networks for scaling. However, with significant improvements in Ethereum’s mainnet (L1)—such as the Pectra upgrade plan doubling data capacity—and the slow progress of L2 towards a fully decentralized “second phase,” the original expansion logic is being challenged. Vitalik Buterin explicitly stated that the vision of L2 as “branded sharding” is no longer valid; L1 no longer needs L2 as a “performance crutch.” This means Ethereum’s expansion narrative is shifting from “dependence on external L2 scaling” to “strengthening L1 + redefining L2 positioning.”

This adjustment redefines the value of Ethereum’s L2s: they should no longer be merely low-cost transaction layers but should focus on providing privacy, deep optimization for specific applications (such as AI, gaming), and exploring non-financial use cases. Essentially, this is a “supply-side reform” of the L2 ecosystem, requiring it to abandon homogeneous TPS competition and seek irreplaceable ecological niches.

Divergence in Ecosystem Focus: Application Innovation vs Security and Sovereignty Reassertion

The strategic differences directly influence the current focus of each ecosystem:

• Solana Ecosystem: Focused on attracting and incubating native innovative applications, especially those demanding extreme performance, cost-efficiency, and user experience. Experiments like Claw Credit, combining AI and finance, and the thriving Perp DEX (perpetual contracts decentralized exchanges) track exemplify the “application-driven ecosystem growth” logic. Capital and developers are chasing opportunities to deliver disruptive product experiences on high-speed chains.
• Ethereum Ecosystem: Focused on responding to the restructuring caused by L2 strategic adjustments. The core issue is balancing L1’s security sovereignty with L2’s innovation vitality. L2 projects relying solely on multisig bridges and token issuance narratives face survival challenges, while projects deeply engaged in zk (zero-knowledge) technology that can enhance Ethereum’s overall value will be favored. Capital flows may polarize: some seeking safety premiums returning to Ethereum L1, others shifting to ecosystems promising high performance.

Market Data and Future Outlook

The intense ecosystem shifts are reflected in market data. As of February 6, 2026, according to Gate.io:

• Ethereum (ETH) is priced at $1,911.75, down 8.92% in the past 24 hours, with a market cap of approximately $253.2 billion. The market’s short-term reaction to its L2 strategic confusion has been negative. Third-party analysis predicts an average price around $2,088.27 in 2026, with long-term prospects still closely tied to the success of its ecosystem transformation.
• Solana (SOL) is priced at $77.25, down 15.19% in the past 24 hours, with a market cap of about $43.4 billion. Despite short-term volatility, its clear performance roadmap and innovative efforts like Claw Credit continue to attract market attention. Forecasts suggest an average price of around $77.1 in 2026.

Conclusion: Developers and Capital at a Crossroads

The launch of Claw Credit by Solana and Ethereum’s strategic adjustment in L2 jointly sketch a clear picture of current public chain competition: it’s no longer about “who is faster,” but about “where to expand.”

For developers, this presents a choice: to join high-performance chains like Solana and pursue aggressive application-layer innovation within a deterministic technical framework; or to stay within the Ethereum ecosystem, where the redefined L1 and L2 architecture—more complex but potentially more stable—offers opportunities for deep technical or niche-focused startups. Recently, some developers have begun “migrating” due to uncertainties around the L2 narrative.

For capital, this means a shift in evaluation logic. In the Ethereum ecosystem, investments require more careful distinction between “narrative valuation” and “technological value”; in Solana, focus should be on protocols that truly leverage its performance advantages and have disruptive product potential.

In summary, the parallel evolution of these two ecosystems provides different value templates for the entire Web3 world. One clear trend is that the era of broad, unchecked expansion is over, giving way to an era focused on creating genuine, differentiated value. Gate will continue to monitor and provide the latest updates and in-depth analysis of both ecosystems to help you grasp market trends.