The Ethereum mainnet focuses on security and decentralization, delegating the task of performance scaling to Layer 2 solutions.

Once this development approach was established, Ethereum's Layer 2 solutions began to flourish. In the early days, there were certain technical barriers to the development of Layer 2 solutions, but later, both OP Rollup and ZK Rollup teams released mature development kits, significantly lowering the development threshold for Layer 2 solutions.

According to the latest data from l2beat.com, there are now dozens of Layer 2 solutions in the Ethereum ecosystem, with new ones continuously emerging.

How is the ecological progress on these Layer 2 solutions?

For a considerable period in the early days, Arbitrum's TVL consistently ranked first among Layer 2 ecosystems. Last year, with the rise of the AI agent sector, Base's TVL began to catch up and eventually surpassed Arbitrum. Now, with the significant drop in AI agent token prices, Arbitrum's TVL has once again returned to the top position.

The constant changes in TVL rankings indicate that, for now, no project has been able to gain a significant advantage in this sector. Everyone is competing to attract a limited number of ecological projects.

As the technical barriers for Layer 2 solutions continue to decrease and TVL rankings can change at any time, one cannot help but wonder whether there are any moats between Layer 2 solutions. Is there any service or value that one Layer 2 solution can provide that others cannot?

Initially, I was quite optimistic about ZK-based Layer 2 solutions because, theoretically, they can offer better security. However, developments over the years suggest that this characteristic has not clearly distinguished ZK systems from OP systems.

I wonder if this is because, regardless of whether it is ZK or OP, Ethereum ultimately provides security guarantees, so the advantage of ZK in terms of security is not as pressing? Additionally, many projects in the crypto ecosystem that currently have high security requirements originally operated on the mainnet, and even if some are on Layer 2, their importance is not as pronounced.

Moreover, in the early days, many Layer 2 solutions competed on who could offer lower fees and faster transaction speeds.

But can this really be considered a barrier?

Since security can be guaranteed by Ethereum, to reduce costs and increase speed, in the most extreme cases, Layer 2 solutions could even operate in a completely centralized manner to minimize costs and maximize speed.

Even without such extreme measures, with continuous technological advancements, it seems difficult to form a barrier. For example, recently, Base claimed it could improve transaction efficiency to under 200 ms. Another example is the recently popular MegaETH, which claims to achieve transaction speeds in the millions.

If these factors are unlikely to create differentiation among Layer 2 solutions, what can?

I believe Tencent's approach to establishing ecological interconnections might be a path forward, and Base's efforts over the past two years seem to be focused on building connections between ecological projects.

A noteworthy phenomenon is that some well-known projects or trendy tokens on Base in recent years have been initiated within certain ecological projects (like Farcaster) and then spread to other projects in the ecosystem. This has been the case from earlier meme coins to later Layer 3 solutions and most recently Clanker.

If this ecological interconnection can be established, perhaps Base can create its own differentiation in the competition among Layer 2 solutions.

However, Base's biggest problem is that it lacks a token, making it impossible to empower the value of the ecosystem into a token, and it cannot pass on these benefits to others. This is akin to a company that is excellent but not publicly listed; to outsiders, it can only be observed without any investment opportunity.

But if this ecological interconnection cannot be established, how will differentiation in Layer 2 solutions manifest? If such differentiation cannot be realized, could Layer 2 solutions themselves represent a business model that is fundamentally poor and not worth investing in?

As Duan Yongping wrote in his book: Certain industries (like the aviation industry) find it difficult to have good business models and establish differentiated competition, making those industries not worth investing in. He would hardly even consider those industries.

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