A ‘Toxic’ Shift in Strategy?
Ye Zhang, co-founder of Layer-2 scaling solution Scroll, came out against plans to impose fees on Ethereum rollups in public. In a series of X tweets, Zhang called the proposal “one of the most toxic” for the long-term well-being of Ethereum, arguing it prioritizes short-term gain over ecosystem growth.
Ethereum’s True Strength
Zhang supplemented that the value of Ethereum is that it is a general-purpose asset on all Layer-2 solutions like Arbitrum, Optimism, and zkSync, not as a way to extract fees from them. He cited figures supplied by DefiLlama that show that Ethereum revenue in fees per day has already dropped to $570,000 since the EIP-4488 upgrade improved Layer-2 scalability.
Comparing Ecosystems
Contrary to Solana’s vertically integrated strategy, Zhang noticed Ethereum has become the default asset even in networks in which it’s not the native gas token. Such extensive integration, he warned, would be compromised if Ethereum shifts towards taxing rollups.
Potential Backlash and Lost Ground
Zhang warned that Layer-2s will seek alternative solutions for data availability if they get taxed, which can then undermine Ethereum’s market dominance. “If Ethereum gets greedy, it becomes obsolete while still not scaling,” he said.
A Call for Quick Scaling
Rather than advocating for tariffs, Zhang urged the Ethereum community to accelerate development and provide scaling upgrades sooner. His comments were a repeat of previous criticism from former Ethereum engineer Harikrishnan Mulackal, who blamed delays and in-fighting as hurdles to making headway.
