When the roadmap changes, the price of coins is just noise.
According to a report by The Block, Vitalik Buterin stated in an article on February 3 that Ethereum's past 'rollup-centric' roadmap needs to be re-evaluated—L2 decentralization is progressing slower than expected, while Ethereum L1 itself is directly scaling through higher gas limits and lower fees.
The impact of this statement lies not in the technology but in the narrative: if L1 continues to strengthen, will the reason for L2's existence be diluted?
The logic of the bull market is straightforward: let L1 take on more throughput, reduce complexity, and minimize cross-layer friction; users do not need to understand dozens of L2s to enjoy a low-fee experience.
The logic of shorting is also very hard: L2 is not for 'cheapness', but for 'customization'. Sorters, execution environments, privacy, compliance, application-specific chains—these cannot be replaced by L1 expansion.
More critically: the slow decentralization of L2 does not mean it won't happen; it is more like a difficult but necessary project.
Thus you see the industry is also breaking down this misunderstanding: Bitget cites Arbitrum co-founder Steven Goldfeder's response that 'expanding L1 does not conflict with the L2 route,' and Offchain Labs is also supporting L1 infrastructure such as Ethereum clients (like Prysm).
This is dual-sided: one side is 'making L1 stronger', while the other side is 'making L2 more like a real layer two.'
