Uniswap CEO: Stop Waffling. Scale Ethereum on L2 or Get Left Behind

🧨 Uniswap’s Hayden Adams to Ethereum: Pick a Lane and Stay in It

In a spicy conversation with Bankless co-founder David Hoffman, Uniswap CEO Hayden Adams laid it out: Ethereum can’t afford indecision anymore.

Solana is sprinting ahead. Ethereum’s only shot at winning the DeFi race? Commit to Layer 2 scaling — and stop second-guessing it every few months.

🔻 L1 Is the Bottleneck

Hayden didn’t mince words:

“If you’re trying to scale DeFi on Ethereum Layer 1 — Solana is the better bet.”

Why? Because Ethereum L1 is expensive, slow, and congested. Meanwhile, Solana is doing laps with cheap, fast transactions and an ecosystem growing like weeds.

Ethereum’s been investing in L2 scaling for over five years, and now that it’s working, some devs want to pivot back to L1?

“That’s not strategy — that’s chaos,” says Adams.

🧠 Pick a Narrative and Stick to It

The core problem, according to Adams, is narrative flip-flopping. One week it’s L2. The next, L1 supremacy. The next, appchains. No one knows what to build for — or how to plan.

“Waffling between every possible option is worse than choosing the wrong one.”

Adams’ message: stop hedging. Double down on L2, where actual traction is happening.

🆚 Hoffman: Don’t Sleep on Layer 1

David Hoffman pushed back — a bit.

He agreed the roadmap should be rollup-centric, but argued that L1 still matters. For Hoffman, L2s are the future, but L1 is the secure, composable foundation that should never be neglected.

Call it “both/and” — but Adams says it’s time for “go hard or go home.”

👨‍💻 Vitalik: L2s Are the Future (With Caveats)

Back in January, Vitalik Buterin reaffirmed Ethereum’s future is “L2-first.” But he didn’t ignore the growing pains:

• Limited space for BLOBs (data availability)
• Interoperability issues between L2s
• UX still clunky across rollups

So even Vitalik admits: L2 is the future, but not fully ready.

🛣️ Ethereum’s 2025 Roadmap

In April 2025, Ethereum dropped a simplified roadmap:

• ✅ Scaling L2s with better UX + data layers
• ✅ Upgrades to L1 for long-term resilience
• ✅ Focus on L2 <> L2 interoperability
• ✅ Application-layer improvements

TL;DR: L2 is the focus, but L1 isn’t going away. Still, the signal is clear: Ethereum wants to go up the stack — and fast.

📣 What the Community Thinks

Most devs and DeFi leaders back the L2-first approach — but warn that unless Ethereum tightens its messaging and execution, Solana might run away with the market.

And with Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, and ZK tech all moving quickly, the window to own Ethereum DeFi at scale is closing fast.

✅ TL;DR

• 🧠 Hayden Adams says Ethereum needs to commit to L2 scaling — not waffle between options
• ⚔️ David Hoffman wants to support both L1 and L2 — but Adams calls that a recipe for chaos
• 🧱 Vitalik is L2-pilled, but sees serious technical gaps still to fix
• 🗺️ Ethereum’s 2025 roadmap centers on L2, UX, and interop — not L1 dreams
• 🧨 The message? Get focused. Build where the traction is. And don’t let Solana steal the show

L2 or bust. The time for hedging is over.