After Vitalik’s Critique, L2s Are Leaving the “Cheap” Era Behind

Feb 9, 2026

After Vitalik’s Critique, L2s Are Leaving the “Cheap” Era Behind

For the past two years, Ethereum Layer 2 rollups have competed on a simple slogan: faster and cheaper than mainnet. But once fees fell from “expensive” to “almost free,” the story stopped being about price—and started being about what kind of security users are actually getting.

That shift accelerated when Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin began drawing a sharper line between “real rollups” and “glorified multisigs,” publicly pressuring L2s to graduate from training wheels and prove they can deliver cryptographic trust at scale (see: CoinDesk’s coverage of the “training wheels” stages). In other words: low fees are no longer a differentiator—trust minimization is.

In 2025 and early 2026, Ethereum’s protocol upgrades also changed the economics underneath rollups. The Dencun upgrade introduced blobs and pushed posting costs down dramatically (Dencun Mainnet Announcement). Then Pectra expanded blob capacity further (Pectra Mainnet Announcement), and Fusaka brought PeerDAS plus scheduled “Blob Parameter Only” forks that raised blob throughput again (Fusaka Mainnet Announcement). When data gets cheaper by design, being cheap stops being a brand.

So what happens next? L2s are entering a reconstruction phase—one where decentralization, interoperability, and sequencing become the new battlegrounds.

1) Vitalik’s real challenge: “Are you an L2, or just an appchain with a bridge?”

Vitalik’s critique isn’t about whether an L2 has a token, a popular DeFi ecosystem, or strong growth metrics. It’s about whether the system’s security model actually inherits Ethereum’s guarantees—or depends on a small group that can pause, upgrade, or override the chain.

To make that legible, the ecosystem increasingly references the “Stages Framework” maintained by L2BEAT, originally inspired by Vitalik’s “training wheels” concept and later formalized into clear criteria (L2BEAT Stages Framework).

The uncomfortable implication is simple:

If upgrades can be pushed quickly without meaningful user exit windows,
if proofs are not fully live and enforceable,
if a small committee can rewrite outcomes,

then the chain may be useful—but it’s hard to argue it’s a trust-minimized extension of Ethereum.

This is the identity crisis many rollups face: the market wants Ethereum-grade security, but “shipping fast” historically meant centralized controls.

2) The end of “cheap” isn’t just marketing—it’s economics

Dencun made L2 fees collapse, but it also commoditized “low cost”

Dencun’s EIP-4844 (proto-danksharding) introduced blob-carrying transactions designed specifically for rollups to publish data more efficiently (Ethereum Foundation Dencun announcement). That dramatically reduced the cost basis for L2s—especially for high-throughput rollups posting lots of data.

But once everyone has access to the same baseline advantage, “we are cheaper” becomes like “we have an app.” It’s table stakes.

Pectra and Fusaka pushed the network toward higher blob throughput

In 2025, Pectra increased blob capacity again (Pectra Mainnet Announcement). Later that year, Fusaka introduced PeerDAS and a planned schedule of blob parameter increases via BPO forks (Fusaka Mainnet Announcement). By early 2026, those parameter bumps were already in motion, expanding the data lane rollups rely on.

The practical effect: L2s can keep fees low without heroic compression tricks—but they still need sustainable business models.

Why this ends the “cheap era” mindset

Ultra-low fees can drive adoption, but they also create second-order problems:

Fee floors disappear → spam resistance and resource pricing become more subtle.
Competition shifts → from price to execution quality, reliability, and security guarantees.
User expectations rise → “cheap” is assumed; outages and centralized controls are not.

As the data market matures, rollups will be judged on whether they can be cheap and credibly neutral, not cheap at any cost.

3) The new KPI: decentralization progress you can verify

If you’re evaluating an L2 in 2026, the most important question is no longer “What does a swap cost today?” It’s:

“What happens if the operator disappears—or turns malicious?”

That’s why Vitalik’s push toward Stage 1+ matters. The framework makes decentralization measurable in a way normal users can understand: how many trust assumptions remain, and which ones are still social rather than cryptographic (L2BEAT Stages).

What users should look for (without needing to read every audit)

A few practical signals:

Are fraud proofs / validity proofs actually live?
Marketing language is cheap; enforcement is what matters.
How are upgrades handled?
Longer delays and real escape hatches reduce governance risk.
Who controls emergency powers?
A “security council” can be a pragmatic safeguard, but the scope and constraints matter.
Is data availability anchored to Ethereum?
If an L2 posts critical data elsewhere, users should understand what security trade-offs they’re accepting.

These are not abstract debates. They define whether your assets are protected by Ethereum’s settlement layer—or by a small group’s operational integrity.

4) Interoperability: the next big rebuild (and why it’s harder than it sounds)

As rollups multiplied, Ethereum started to feel less like one network and more like dozens of semi-connected environments. Vitalik has repeatedly pointed out that fragmentation is now a core UX and security problem, not a side effect.

In his 2025 writing on the future of Ethereum scaling, he argued that cross-L2 interactions should feel like using different parts of the same system—and that relying on trusted multisig bridges is not acceptable (“Scaling Ethereum L1 and L2s in 2025 and beyond”).

What “interoperability” really means in practice

To move beyond today’s patchwork, the ecosystem needs progress on:

Standards for cross-L2 messaging that minimize extra trust assumptions
Safer bridging designs where verification rests on proof systems, not committees
Unified addressing and wallet UX so users don’t lose funds by choosing the wrong network

This is where L2s will increasingly compete: not just on how well their own island works, but on how seamlessly they connect to the rest of Ethereum.

5) Sequencing becomes a power question, not just an engineering choice

Even if proofs and DA are solid, many rollups still have a central chokepoint: the sequencer.

Sequencing determines transaction ordering, censorship resistance, and often MEV dynamics. As fees compress, control over ordering and flow becomes a bigger part of where value accrues—meaning the debate over decentralized sequencing, shared sequencing, and “based” designs will only intensify.

For users, the takeaway is straightforward:

A rollup can be cheap and fast, yet still expose you to censorship or liveness risk.
Roadmaps that reduce sequencer centralization are not “nice to have”—they directly impact Ethereum-aligned security.

6) What this reconstruction means for everyday users

If you’re a trader, builder, or long-term holder using rollups for real activity, here’s a practical way to adapt to the post-“cheap” era:

A simple L2 due diligence checklist

Before moving meaningful value:

Check decentralization status on a neutral dashboard
Start with L2BEAT’s Stages page and read the listed trust assumptions.
Understand the upgrade model
Look for transparent timelocks, clearly documented governance, and explicit emergency policies.
Treat bridges as part of your security surface
Many losses come from bridge assumptions, not the rollup VM.
Expect blob economics to fluctuate
Even with higher throughput, short-term congestion events can happen; don’t build habits around one week of unusually low fees.

Self-custody matters more when the ecosystem is multi-rollup

As interoperability improves, users will move assets across more environments, sign more messages, and interact with more contracts. That increases phishing and signature-risk exposure—even for experienced users.

A hardware wallet helps because private keys stay isolated from a potentially compromised computer, and you can verify critical transaction details on a secure device screen. If you’re actively using multiple Ethereum L2s, OneKey can be a strong fit for this phase of the market: it’s designed for secure self-custody while you navigate a growing set of chains and applications.

Conclusion: L2s are no longer fighting to be the cheapest—they’re fighting to be the most Ethereum

Vitalik’s pressure campaign, combined with Ethereum’s rapid progress on blob throughput (from Dencun to Pectra to Fusaka and beyond), has pushed rollups into a new era:

Low fees are assumed.
Trust assumptions are scrutinized.
Interoperability and sequencing shape who controls the future UX of Ethereum.

In this environment, “the best L2” is less about today’s gas screenshot and more about verifiable properties: proof enforcement, constrained governance, credible neutrality, and a path toward deeper decentralization.

And for users, the winning strategy is equally clear: prioritize transparent security models, minimize bridge risk, and keep long-term assets in self-custody—especially as the rollup ecosystem rebuilds itself around something more durable than “cheap.”