Where is the road ahead? A brief analysis of the three major abstract problems currently facing the Ethereum ecosystem

“Given that all the eggs are in the L2 basket, one thing I worry about is the alignment of L2, both in the short and long term. There are two main concerns — (1) L2 is parasitic and will eventually fork into L1, and (2) L2 is the Ethereum standard where users interact but do not believe in Ethereum’s values ​​— decentralization, censorship resistance, support for public goods, radical cooperation, etc. The former is more of an existential question — is there actually value in being anchored to the Ethereum security enclave? This is essentially the argument for the L2 roadmap — these scalable environments that inherit Ethereum’s security and native bridges are valuable to users and therefore valuable to the developers, companies, and communities that build and maintain them.I believe the thesis - achieving sufficient cryptoeconomic security is hard, and in an increasingly competitive environment, most blockchains will inevitably fail to achieve sufficient levels. Cryptoeconomic security is a limited resource that is a function of the ongoing economic demands of these systems. So while I do expect some L2s to "abandon" Ethereum and attempt to leave - some may succeed, others fail - I do not believe this will happen on a large scale, and a few L2s leaving does not break the thesis of cryptoeconomic security as a service.As for (2), I have more concerns. L2 will inevitably become the primary touchpoint for the vast majority of users. In most cases, they will exist in L2, interact with L2, and build bridges between L2s because these L2s are both secure and affordable. Therefore, L2 becomes the facade of Ethereum. This approach may be secure, but is it decentralized, censorship-resistant, and upholds the values ​​of Ethereum, inspiring the world to constantly reimagine itself? At this point, the answer to these questions is clearly not yes.VCs are entering the L2 space, tokens are being arbitrarily allocated to insiders everywhere, and most governance models are plutocracy and upgrade without notice. Not to mention that most L2s make sacrifices in their security models to go to market in the hopes of iterating on decentralization (e.g. no fraud proofs, single sequencer, unclear emergency exit mechanisms, etc.). There is an interesting balance here. L2s can and want to put more effort into advertising and business development to compete with alt-L1s who are very aggressive in this space. This makes Ethereum L1 neutral in this regard while the layers above try numerous user acquisition and onboarding technologies. But it is not obvious whether L2 will retain the brand, values, and soul of Ethereum by default. Management of a healthy L2 ecosystem is critical and requires a multi-faceted effort to do so - researching and promoting secure structures, realizing the value of L2 (letting it show what it is, not what it is portrayed to be), and discussing L2 governance risks, security tradeoffs, poor token allocations, value alignment, and other emerging issues when possible. And we can't just focus on the negative, but celebrate the positive, secure, and consistent parts. The Ethereum community today has tremendous power to set the specifications that will define how the L2 movement evolves over the next few decades. We must ensure that L2 inherits not only the security of Ethereum, but also its legitimacy.”