Vitalik Buterin Urges New Approach as Ethereum Layer 2 Usage Drops by 50%

Vitalik Buterin urged Layer 2 networks to rethink their role after active addresses fell from 58.4 million in mid-2025 to about 30 million, even as Ethereum’s mainnet active addresses rose from 7 million to 15 million. Buterin said the original Layer 2 vision as branded shards is outdated, noting that transaction fees are at record lows and experts expect gas limits to rise through 2026, allowing more activity on the base layer.

He highlighted that many L2s have struggled to reach stage 2 rollup security and that some operators no longer pursue that goal, while the market reacted with skepticism as top L2 tokens fell 15–30% and the sector’s market capitalization was reported at $7.95 billion.

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