Executive Summary
The Story So Far
Why This Matters
Who Thinks What?
The Ethereum ecosystem is currently navigating a pivotal ‘loyalty test’ within its Layer-2 scaling solutions, marked by a recent $654 million ETH transfer from the Ethereum Foundation. This transfer prompted the public resignation of core developer Péter Szilágyi and intensified scrutiny over governance practices and transparency. These internal turbulences coincide with Polygon’s AggLayer upgrade facing delays and network instability, and Vitalik Buterin’s public endorsement of Coinbase’s Base, collectively fueling a critical debate over L2 alignment, fragmentation, and the ultimate direction of Ethereum’s scaling future.
Mounting Tensions in the Ecosystem
The substantial ETH transfer by the Ethereum Foundation triggered intense scrutiny over developer compensation, transparency, and leadership within the community. This incident, alongside Polygon’s ongoing struggles with its AggLayer upgrade and POL token migration volatility, has added fresh urgency to long-standing disputes regarding Ethereum’s future direction and the sustainable growth of its scaling ecosystem.
The debate around Ethereum’s scaling architecture escalated into a significant political economy issue when Vitalik Buterin publicly praised Coinbase’s Base for “doing things the right way” in September. This endorsement came weeks after Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal assumed the CEO role at the Polygon Foundation in June, issuing warnings about Ethereum’s “existential” Layer-2 direction.
Competing Visions for Layer-2s
The core question emerging from these competing visions is whether Ethereum will standardize how Layer-2s earn and settle value, or if liquidity will fragment into parallel systems that route around, rather than through, the mainnet. Nailwal’s leadership at Polygon initiated a strategy reset, positioning the network as more independent from Ethereum’s rollup-centric orthodoxy. Polygon’s AggLayer v0.3, shipped in June, aims for chain-agnostic interoperability, a goal that experienced delays in its connection with Polygon PoS.
Buterin’s roadmap commentary for 2025 emphasizes simplification, mainnet resilience, privacy improvements, and a Layer-2 user experience heavily reliant on Layer-1 security guarantees. This guidance defines what Ethereum leadership considers “good L2 citizenship,” including canonical fraud or validity proofs, reliance on Ethereum for data availability, and alignment with emerging standards for light clients and shared sequencing. In contrast, Polygon’s AggLayer pursues chain-agnostic shared liquidity, positioning it adjacent to Ethereum’s rollup orthodoxy, and its Proof-of-Stake chain is migrating towards zkEVM validium integration, which utilizes alternative data availability layers.
Market Share and Profitability Dynamics
Data from L2BEAT indicates that Arbitrum and Base command the largest shares of value secured on Ethereum Layer-2s, with OP Mainnet and Linea trailing behind. Polygon zkEVM remains considerably smaller than its Proof-of-Stake chain in terms of both total value locked and transaction activity. Furthermore, Dune sequencer profit dashboards reveal that Base and Arbitrum generate the majority of net sequencer earnings after accounting for Layer-1 data costs, with Base consistently ranking as a top profit generator through late summer 2025.
Future Market Scenarios
The next six to twelve months are expected to test Ethereum’s ability to standardize value flows across its competing Layer-2 architectures. Analysts outline three potential scenarios for fee capture and market structure:
Soft-Alignment Scenario (50-60% Probability)
In this scenario, the Ethereum mainnet captures 25% to 40% of Layer-2 gross fee revenue, driven by improvements in blob compression and data availability. Base and Arbitrum would retain 60% to 70% of Layer-2 net profits, with OP Stack proliferation sustaining Base’s distribution advantage through Coinbase’s on-ramp infrastructure. Polygon’s AggLayer would connect its Proof-of-Stake ecosystem, but Ethereum-native transaction flows would prioritize OP Stack clusters due to canonical settlement guarantees.
Fragmentation Scenario (20-25% Probability)
This outcome sees Ethereum mainnet data-availability revenue underperforming as activity shifts to non-Ethereum data availability layers. Layer-1 would capture only 15% to 25% of Layer-2 gross fees, with competing liquidity centers such as AggLayer, OP Superchain, and application-specific ZK rollups splitting users across incompatible standards. Polygon could gain mindshare with chain-agnostic routing, establishing a parallel liquidity hub partially decoupled from Ethereum’s social consensus mechanisms.
Re-convergence Scenario (20-25% Probability)
This scenario involves a strengthening of Ethereum-first norms, driven by increased Layer-2 minimalism through light clients, fault and validity proofs, and shared sequencing. The mainnet would capture 35% to 50% of Layer-2 gross fees as infrastructure standards tighten. Base and Arbitrum would consolidate over 70% of Layer-2 profit share, with Polygon tightening Ethereum alignment through ZK proofs and Ethereum data-availability lanes for flagship chains.
Economic and Structural Implications
For Ethereum investors, the revenue-capture question is directly tied to Layer-2 architecture choices. A higher reliance on Ethereum’s data availability and canonical proof systems would increase mainnet fee capture. While cross-rollup Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) markets remain nascent, if Ethereum-aligned proposer-builder separation norms extend to Layer-2 sequencers, extractable value could flow back to Ethereum validators. Conversely, MEV concentrating in Layer-2 silos would reduce the mainnet’s economic gravity.
The public praise for Coinbase’s Base from Buterin sharpens debates over corporate influence versus Ethereum’s social fabric, especially as global regulatory frameworks favor KYC-friendly L2s with clear operational entities. Polygon’s chain-agnostic AggLayer vision competes with OP Superchain and ZK rollup hubs in an interoperability arms race, where the Ethereum mainnet is positioned as foundational infrastructure rather than an exclusive settlement layer. Sequencer profit concentration, blob utilization rates, and AggLayer adoption metrics through mid-2026 will clarify which path the ecosystem follows, and whether loyalty to Ethereum becomes a measurable economic parameter rather than a social-layer assumption.
