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

Fri Feb 21 2025

Vitalik Buterin expressed his concerns about the direction of Ethereum, highlighting issues with community values and the need for scaling solutions through Layer-2 technologies. Despite challenges, he remains committed to the network's mission, emphasizing the importance of scaling Ethereum, improving interoperability between Layer-2 networks, and ensuring the long-term sustainability of ETH as a core asset within the ecosystem.

😕 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.