Ethereum’s Road to Scaling: Buterin Addresses Community Issues and L2 Strategies

😕 Vitalik Buterin Expresses Disappointment with Ethereum's Direction

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently opened up about his frustrations with the Ethereum ecosystem, citing concerns over community values, scaling challenges, and economic sustainability.

🚨 Buterin's Key Disappointments

1️⃣ Ethereum’s "Reverse Morality" Debate

• Buterin criticized the increasing tendency to compare Ethereum to more permissive networks that allow any type of application—including casino-like gambling dApps.
• He described this trend as "reverse morality", making him feel distanced from the industry.

2️⃣ Declining On-Chain Activity

• Ethereum’s transaction fees dropped 70% from $2.57 to $0.77, which might sound good but actually signals declining demand.
• On-chain transaction volume fell 60%, dipping to $3.56B—a sharp contrast to early December’s peak.

3️⃣ Scaling L1 vs. L2 Debate

• Buterin reaffirmed Ethereum’s focus on Layer-2 (L2) scaling, but still sees value in increasing Layer-1 (L1) capacity.
• Validators recently raised the gas limit from 30M to 36M, expanding Ethereum’s throughput by 20%.
• However, Buterin warned that increasing L1 capacity could lead to centralization risks.

🔧 Why Buterin Supports a Higher Gas Limit

📌 Censorship Resistance – Ensures transactions get included in blocks faster.
📌 Simplified Cross-L2 Transfers – Makes it easier and cheaper to move assets between L2s.
📌 Faster Withdrawals from Broken L2s – Users can quickly exit unreliable L2 networks.
📌 Large-Scale ERC-20 Issuance – Keeps Ethereum L1 viable for token creation.

🚀 Upcoming Ethereum Upgrades

🔹 Dencun Hard Fork (EIP-4844) – Introduces "data blobs", boosting transactions to 210 TPS.
🔹 Pectra Upgrade – Doubles blob capacity, pushing TPS even higher.
🔹 Long-Term Goal – Ethereum aims for 100,000 TPS, with research into BLOB objects and cross-L2 interoperability.

💰 Ethereum’s Economic Future

Buterin wants to solidify ETH’s role as the core asset across both L1 and L2, using strategies like:

🔸 L2s sharing transaction fees with Ethereum.
🔸 Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) revenue from rollups.
🔸 Minimum pricing for BLOB objects to stabilize ETH demand.

🔥 TL;DR

• Vitalik is frustrated with Ethereum’s shifting community values and the trend of comparing it to casino-like chains.
• Ethereum’s transaction fees dropped 70%, and activity fell 60%, signaling lower demand.
• Ethereum will keep scaling through L2s, but Buterin still sees value in expanding L1 capacity for security and usability.
• The Dencun & Pectra upgrades will significantly boost TPS, with a long-term goal of 100,000 TPS.
• ETH must remain the core economic asset, with rollups contributing fees to Ethereum’s sustainability.

💡 Bottom line: Buterin is pushing for scalability, economic sustainability, and better L2-L1 interactions, but he’s worried about Ethereum’s cultural direction.