Ethereum role as “money” connects deeply with decentralization and AI-driven change.
Corporate L2 solutions face criticism for straying from Ethereum’s principles.
Calls grow for a community-driven L2 prioritizing fairness, governance, and decentralization.
An Ethereum enthusiast reignited debate about ETH’s profound significance, tweeting that it represents the most decentralized and uncensorable form of value. They emphasized the deep connection between Ethereum and humanity’s evolving computational landscape. Linking ETH to artificial intelligence, they highlighted the emergence of “sovereign agents.”
These would be smart autonomous agents, having access to capital and being able to learn, would act independently around the world. The enthusiast insisted that the work of such entities required Ethereum’s blockchain as its basis for making verification of execution programmable and equally governable.
With 2025 called “the year of agents,” Ethereum can provide the backbone that decentralized systems around the world might use to bring new life and vitality into governance. This leverages ETH’s unique value proposition together with sovereign agents, another transformative leap akin to the impact of the Industrial Revolution, promising an entirely new world in which humanity coordinates capital and resources.
Corporate L2s: Misaligned with Ethereum?
While Ethereum innovates, the L2 solutions driven by corporations like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base come into question. Observers have criticized these platforms for not aligning with the core of Ethereum’s principles on decentralization, fairness, and value accrual.
Recent launches such as Soneium, which has very restrictive IP and contract policies, illustrate this well. Some critics go as far as to say this makes corporate L2s prioritize shareholder interests, taking value away from users to benefit their businesses instead of Ethereum Layer 1. Base is probably the perfect example because it’s driven by Coinbase.
The platform itself compounds fears of centralization and corporate overreach through practices like freezing accounts without explanation. With corporate L2s becoming the dominant ones, this begs several interesting speculations on what is likely to end up happening to Ethereum. The advantages of greater adoption from such innovations come at the price of potentially undermining the very vision for a decentralized platform.
Community-Driven L2: A Better Path Forward
At the same time, demands from the community for a community-driven L2 are growing. According to the proponents, this decentralized solution is both needed and could be real in line with Ethereum’s values. Events in open-source technology, such as Op Stack, have lowered the barriers to entry to deploying new L2 solutions.
Proposals that can be considered to be community-oriented L2s include a tightly integrated Ethereum Layer 1-based rollup or a decentralized system to unite multiple L2 technologies. Drawing inspiration from the 2019 launch of wBTC, proponents would hope that the project would see backing from key DeFi figures.
It is also a proposal intended to fund development with transaction fees and introduce a governance token in an effort to decentralize more control to the community. Some critics said it would slow transactions and raise the cost of the fees. However, many supporters feel that such trade-offs will be a small price paid for the integrity of Ethereum.
This push to the community L2 is an expression of a greater wish to see decentralization, governance, and fairness over corporate interest prevail. Sticking to Ethereum’s principles, it is true to itself with the aim that the network will stay a cornerstone for the decentralized future.
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