Did Vitalik just pick a side? Inside Ethereum’s layer-2 loyalty test

This week, the Ethereum ecosystem was rocked by a $654 million ETH switch from the Ethereum Basis. This led to intense scrutiny of developer pay, transparency and management, culminating within the public resignation of core developer Péter Szilágyi and renewed criticism of governance practices.

On the identical time, Polygon’s AggLayer improve has suffered launch delays and community instability, intensifying the controversy over Layer-2 alignment, fragmentation, and the Basis’s help for exterior L2s.

These developments, along with the volatility of POL token migration, the continued wrestle to steadiness mainnet centralization with L2 sovereignty, and the response to the Basis’s earlier governance restructuring, have added new urgency to the disputes over Ethereum’s future route and the sustainable development of its scaling ecosystem.

Ethereum household feud

Ethereum’s scaling structure underwent a change from a technical sidebar to a political financial system when Vitalik Buterin praised Coinbase’s Base for “doing issues the appropriate method,” weeks after Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal took on the position of CEO on the Polygon Basis and issued warnings about Ethereum’s “existential” layer-2 (L2) route.

The query rising from competing views is whether or not Ethereum will standardize how L2s earn and settle worth, or see liquidity fragmented into parallel methods that route as an alternative of by way of the mainnet.

In mid-2025, the strain crystallized into three developments. Nailwal took management of the Polygon Basis on June 11, amid a method reset, making the community extra unbiased from Ethereum’s rollup-oriented orthodoxy.

Polygon shipped AggLayer v0.3 on June 23, furthering chain-agnostic interoperability with Polygon PoS, which was anticipated to attach by the tip of Q3 however didn’t on the time of writing.

Buterin’s public endorsement of Base in September reignited debates over whether or not Ethereum’s management favors particular L2s, reinforcing earlier friction when Nailwal questioned the low recognition of Ethereum’s core builders and warned that anti-L2 sentiment might injury the ecosystem’s social material.

Information from L2BEAT exhibits the Arbitrum and Base command the largest value share secured on Ethereum layer-2s, with OP Mainnet and Linea on the again.

The Polygon zkEVM stays considerably smaller than its Proof-of-Stake chain, each when it comes to whole worth seize and transaction exercise.

Dune sequencer’s revenue dashboards present that Base and Arbitrum generate the majority of net sequencer revenue after deducting tier 1 knowledge prices, with Base constantly rating as the biggest revenue generator by way of late summer time 2025.

Buterin’s 2025 roadmap commentary focuses on simplification, mainnet resilience, together with privateness enhancements, and a layer 2 person expertise that depends extra closely on layer 1 safety ensures.

These pointers set up what Ethereum management considers “good L2 citizenship”: canonical fraud or validity proofs, dependence on Ethereum for knowledge availability, and alignment with rising requirements for light-weight shoppers and shared sequencing.

Polygon’s AggLayer pursues chain-agnostic shared liquidity, positioning the community alongside, somewhat than inside, Ethereum’s rollup orthodoxy.

The Proof-of-Stake chain migrates to zkEVM validium integration, utilizing different knowledge availability layers.

Three paths for capturing charges and market construction

The following six to 12 months will check whether or not Ethereum can standardize worth streams throughout competing layer 2 architectures.

In a tender alignment state of affairs with a 50% to 60% likelihood, the Ethereum mainnet captures 25% to 40% of gross income from layer 2 as enhancements in blob compression and knowledge availability stabilize prices.

Base and Arbitrum retain 60% to 70% of Tier 2 internet earnings, with OP Stack’s proliferation supporting Base’s distribution benefit by way of Coinbase’s on-ramp infrastructure.

Polygon’s AggLayer connects its Proof-of-Stake ecosystem and CDK chains to drive cross-chain liquidity development. Nonetheless, Ethereum native transaction flows prioritize OP Stack clusters because of canonical settlement ensures.

The efficiency of POL tokens on this state of affairs is dependent upon the breadth of the ecosystem and never on the orthodoxy credentials.

A fragmentation state of affairs with a 20% to 25% likelihood will trigger Ethereum mainnet knowledge availability revenues to underperform as exercise shifts to non-Ethereum DA layers, together with validiums and different availability providers.

Tier 1 solely contains 15% to 25% of tier 2 gross charges as a result of competing liquidity facilities, comparable to AggLayer, OP Superchain, and application-specific ZK rollups, divide customers throughout incompatible requirements.

Smoothing the utmost extractable worth (MEV) throughout layer 2s lags behind the technical implementation, degrading the person expertise throughout cross-rollup operations.

Polygon positive factors market share with chain-agnostic routing on this state of affairs, as a result of Proof-of-Stake migration to AggLayer establishes a parallel liquidity hub that’s partially decoupled from Ethereum’s social consensus mechanisms.

Reconvergence underneath Ethereum-first requirements has a 20% to 25% likelihood, pushed by stronger layer-2 minimalism by way of using gentle shoppers, error and validity proofs, and shared sequencing or proposer-builder separation, which additionally extends to rollups.

Mainnet captures 35% to 50% of tier 2 gross charges as infrastructure requirements develop into extra stringent. Consolidate Foundation and Arbitrum more than 70% of the layer 2 profit sharethe place OP Stack standardization and cross-rollup bridging cut back friction for customers transferring property between chains.

Polygon tightens Ethereum alignment by way of ZK proofs and Ethereum knowledge availability traces for flagship chains, whereas positioning AggLayer as a person expertise differentiator somewhat than a sovereignty play that competes with mainnet settlement.

Worth seize and distribution dynamics

Ethereum traders are confronted with a monetization query that’s straight associated to layer 2 structure selections.

Larger reliance on Ethereum’s knowledge availability (DA) and canonical proof methods will increase mainnet price receipts, with blob utilization developments relative to layer 2 compression progress figuring out whether or not Ethereum’s toll highway financial system expands or erodes.

Cross-rollup MEV markets proceed to emerge, however as Ethereum-aligned proposer-builder separation requirements prolong to layer 2 sequencers, extractable worth flows again to Ethereum validators. Various eventualities by which MEV is concentrated in layer 2 silos cut back the financial gravity of the primary grid.

Layer-2 tokens, together with ARB, OP, and POL, derive their tales from internet sequencer profitability, creating sensitivity to month-to-month earnings rankings that present Base working with no native token, and setting person expertise requirements that strain tokenized rollups to justify their worth by way of income sharing, subsidies, or governance energy.

Polygon’s funding case improves as AggLayer drives composability that converts to retained liquidity somewhat than short-term bridge quantity, no matter rating as the biggest pure rollup by orthodox definitions.

Monitoring the AggLayer connection milestones and Proof-of-Stake migration progress present main indicators for this state of affairs.

Builders optimizing for distribution face a practical calculus the place OP Stack and Base infrastructure win near-term person acquisition by way of streamlined on-ramps and L2 to L2 liquidity routing.

Groups that prioritize person expertise and cross-chain operability can outperform groups that concentrate on doctrinal alignment debates, particularly as multi-chain person experiences stay a problem and community results favor the biggest distribution facilities.

Centralization and interoperability as structural forces

Coinbase’s Base, which is drawing public reward from Buterin, is exacerbating debates over company affect versus Ethereum’s social material, particularly as world regulatory frameworks, together with MiCA and FATF pointers, favor KYC-friendly L2s with clear working entities.

Polygon’s chain-agnostic AggLayer imaginative and prescient competes with OP Superchain and ZK rollup hubs in an interoperability arms race analogous to competitors on cellular platforms, contrasting walled gardens with open liquidity networks.

The Ethereum mainnet is positioned as foundational infrastructure somewhat than an unique settlement layer.

Consumer gravity is concentrated in networks that remedy multi-chain ache factors, with core researchers at Vitalik and Ethereum pushing for a simplified, layer-1 safe L2 person expertise.

As person expertise requirements coalesce round frequent light-client implementations and proof verification, community results can enhance advantages for the biggest distribution hubs, together with Base and Arbitrum.

Polygon’s different path is dependent upon AggLayer creating sufficient cross-chain liquidity, permitting builders and customers to decide on composability over canonical Ethereum settlement.

The end result will decide whether or not Ethereum capabilities as a standardized settlement layer that captures predictable charges from aligned rollups, or as an possibility underneath competing architectures the place liquidity and customers are distributed throughout networks with various levels of dependency on the mainnet.

The sequencer revenue focus, blob utilization charge, and AggLayer adoption metrics by way of mid-2026 will reveal the trail the ecosystem takes, and whether or not loyalty to Ethereum turns into a measurable financial parameter somewhat than a social layer assumption.