Discussions surrounding Ethereum's Layer 2 have intensified recently. An SEC commissioner stated on a podcast that any platform relying on a centralized sorter should be considered an "exchange," while Scroll also abruptly announced the suspension of its decentralized DAO governance. Furthermore, several core developers at Optimism have recently departed. Market uncertainty and anxiety regarding Ethereum's Layer 2 have intensified, fueled by the terrifying technical debt of Ethereum.

Talk about my personal subjective opinion:

1) It is obviously inappropriate to discuss the issue of decentralized sequencers now, because most mainstream layer2s such as Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base are centralized sequencers, and this issue

Vitalik Buterin proposed a technical alignment route for stage 0 and stage 2, and also proposed a pragmatic path for advancing withdrawals within one hour. Although Metis has implemented a decentralized sequencer, it is only being used on a small scale within its own ecosystem.

These realities have only one underlying message: Layer 2's decentralization problem remains unresolved. Therefore, discussing whether it will be considered an exchange is meaningless.

2) Scroll suspended its decentralized DAO governance. The impact of this depends on your interpretation. It can be said that Scroll, which was unable to implement the trustless nature of decentralized sequencer technology, could no longer maintain decentralized DAO governance, and its decentralized layer 2 zkEVM "experiment" has failed.

But this isn't necessarily a bad thing. It could also be that DAO governance has become a burden as the team pushes toward commercialization. Since Sequencer can't achieve decentralization, decentralized DAO governance is merely a formality. Why not just abandon it and embrace flexibility and efficiency for a rebirth?

3) The departure of the core developers of the Optimism team are all superficial events that show that Layer 2 has lost its dominance in the market's technical narrative. What we should really think about is why Hyperliquiquit and Stripe (Tempo) have chosen to build independent chains, and which chains currently rely on Layer 2's technical architecture, such as Base, Robinhood, Upbit and other new chains, will one day withdraw from Layer 2?

Oh, and there’s also Megaeth in the L2 camp, waiting for market validation. Does layer 2 really lack the fertile soil for sustained growth?

All signs indicate that general-purpose layer 2 will definitely lose in the competition with high-performance layer 1. Relying solely on Ethereum's security inheritance cannot support the prosperity of layer 2's ecosystem. It must either transform into a specific-layer 2 and compete with other layer 1s, or wait for blood sacrifice.

The process of liquidating Ethereum's technical debt may be more brutal than you imagine.