Opinion by: Dan Hughes, founder of Radix
Crypto has spent years betting on layer-2 (L2) solutions as its magic bullet for fixing issues with scalability. What if they’re the very thing putting us at risk?
Instead of paving the way for mass adoption, this fixation has created a tangled web of rollups, bridges and fragmented liquidity, threatening blockchain’s core principles of decentralization and security. The dream of a seamless, decentralized network is fading, overshadowed by a complex system that echoes the inefficiencies and centralization of the traditional financial world. Are we scaling innovation or just recreating the past?
The blockchain trilemma
L2s were supposed to mitigate the blockchain trilemma. Yet, while they may fill the gaps at the individual level, as a movement, L2 solutions have put crypto at risk of losing all three.
The growing mass of L2s has led to a highly fractured