Author: haotian

Recently, the Solana Foundation has also sounded the horn of "network extension", interestingly, it banned the term "layer2" and named its network extension solution as Network Extension. It is worth asking, has Ethereum layer2 really become the target of public criticism? According to Solana's idea, can the transformation of universal layer2 into specific-purpose chains solve the problem of layer2? Next, I will share my thoughts:

1) Layer2 has been one of the hottest narratives in the past two years. It should have taken over the expectations of this bull market and become another summer of Ethereum beyond DeFi Summer. However, the bleak reality of the coin price cannot support this expectation, causing the entire track to encounter emotional backlash and strong negative sentiment.

But putting aside the influence of emotions, I have always believed that layer2 is relatively successful. The apparent success of layer2 is that it has diverted some of the mainnet traffic, relieving the mainnet from high gas congestion pressure, which is consistent with the original vision of layer2 (although criticized for being parasitic, bloodsucking, etc.);

But fundamentally, I think the biggest success of layer2 is to eliminate the narrative of Ethereum Killer based on Alt-layer1. At least for now, Ethereum is still the undisputed choice in the blockchain world outside of Bitcoin. Other high-performance layer1, parallel EVM, modularization, and chain abstraction narrative all supplement Ethereum as the "central" position. Apart from the coin price, this is the success of the Rollup-Centric strategy.

2) Whether it is layer2 or Network Extension, they are both capabilities extension based on the mainnet. Ethereum's layer2 has built a more densely computing, high-low gas, and faster transaction rate off-chain state network, focusing on "functional" scalability; Solana's network extension emphasizes more specific problem-solving solutions, including various solutions such as State Compression, Neon compatible with the EVM environment, large-scale processing of cNFT, privacy transactions, and so on.

I don't think there is much difference between the two, and if we must say differentiation, we can roughly summarize it in two points:

1. Ethereum is inherently limited in performance and can only "passively" seek expansion, while Solana's chain itself is designed for high performance, so its expansion is actively embracing other compatible solutions to expand the battlefield.

2. The Ethereum layer2 infrastructure track is already very mature, and even the infrastructure has developed far ahead of the application market. The recent criticism of the underutilization of Blobs space is evidence of this. In contrast, Solana's expansion plan is still a blue ocean. The recent launch of the SOON OP Stack commercial stacking paradigm by Solana, as well as the proposal for Network Extension, are all aimed at promoting the prosperity of business narratives in the B-end.

Ultimately, it's just a matter of who was first, and this doesn't mean one should be favored over the other. After all, if you don't think Ethereum's layer2 strategy is successful, how should you view Solana's vigorous replication of Ethereum's business success stories?

3) As for the controversy between General-Purpose chains and Specific-Purpose chains. There is a saying that Ethereum's general-purpose chain is like a vampire that drains liquidity from the mainnet, and that some more targeted Specific chains that can compensate for the shortcomings of the mainnet are the ones worth advocating. At first glance, it seems reasonable, making one feel like Ethereum's 'general-purpose chain' has become a original sin, as if the layer2 strategy has gone wrong.

But in fact, Ethereum's early layer2 solutions, including projects like @loopringorg, StarkEX, @DeGateDex, etc., were all in the Specific use case category. Ethereum layer2 has always developed with both General and Specific aspects, in addition to various layer2 categories like Validium, Plasma, Parallel, and others.

So, the issue is not that the general-purpose chain has become the original sin, but essentially that the Specific chains have not been effectively developed.

And, there is no clear boundary between Specific chains and General chains. For example, at first, Starknet could be seen as a Specific chain with its Cario programming language, parallel execution capabilities, and STARKs algorithm-intensive computing. However, as it further developed, Starknet inadvertently became the expected general-purpose chain after taking a seat among the top four. Therefore, whether it's a specific chain or a general-purpose chain is entirely a matter of market expectations and application scenario implementations, and not the key to distinguishing the superiority or inferiority of layer2 strategies.

However, after further development, Starknet, once seated among the top four, inevitably became the anticipated general-purpose chain. Therefore, whether it's a specific chain or a general-purpose chain is entirely a matter of market expectations and application scenario implementations, and not the key to distinguishing the superiority or inferiority of layer2 strategies.