I have been following Linea for quite a while. In a space where people are constantly shouting about 'disrupting Ethereum' and 'rebuilding the world computer,' Linea feels surprisingly restrained. There are no flashy modular declarations, no empty promises of 100,000 TPS tomorrow, and no constant memes about killing Ethereum. It simply and somewhat stubbornly focuses on one thing: making Layer 2 exactly like Ethereum, just cheaper and faster.
In a word, this is the entire selling point of Linea.
As the Type-2 zkEVM (bytecode-level fully equivalent) crafted by ConsenSys, you can almost directly switch the RPC of any contract running on the mainnet to Linea, and it will run immediately. No need for re-auditing, no need to change a line of code, and no 'migration tax.' For those teams that have already locked hundreds of millions of dollars in mature code, this is not just a nice-to-have, but a lifesaving necessity.
On the first day of the mainnet launch in July 2023, it didn't skyrocket and then crash like some projects; instead, it steadily rose like a decent person. The speed at which TVL broke 1 billion USD was faster than most similar zkEVMs, wallets were connected early, bridges were in place, the block explorer was useful, the documentation was clear, and there were indeed people in Discord. These all sound like small things until you remember how many chains have died precisely because of these 'small things.'
Then, at the moment in 2025 when it was officially announced that there would be tokens, the entire narrative changed completely. From 'the technology is quite interesting' to 'how much can this airdrop yield?' This is the norm in the crypto world. But it also means Linea has officially graduated from being an internal experimental project of ConsenSys and must swim naked in the public market for survival like other chains.
The real test is not how high the K-line can rise on TGE day, but rather six months later, when various farm yields have dropped to dust, will liquidity still be there? Those large DeFi teams that came over because of low migration costs, will they really stay to continue developing new things, or will they just run off with the money? The governance structure that is slowly taking shape in the future, will it be determined by the community, or will ConsenSys just change its name and continue to call the shots?
From an engineering perspective, I have to say it's really hardcore. The frequency of prover iterations is high, and whenever there are issues, detailed post-mortem analysis reports are released (issues will definitely arise; it's impossible to build infrastructure without setbacks), and to this day, they resolutely refuse to cut corners on EVM equivalency for the sake of better performance. In an era where half of the L2s are quietly behaving inconsistently with Ethereum, only to be exposed when there are crashes, this kind of restraint is itself valuable.
Of course, the risks are also apparent. zk technology is still really difficult; proving time, hardware thresholds, and decentralizing the sequencer are not easy problems to solve. Complete EVM equivalence is a very sharp knife; if used well, it can cut through iron like mud, but if not, a misstep can lead to eternal regret. Currently, the chain is still basically controlled by ConsenSys, and all common centralized red flags are present. Everyone is watching when and how it will be handed over properly.
My real opinion is: Linea now belongs to the category of 'looks boring but most likely can survive' Layer 2. It doesn't steal the cultural spotlight, doesn’t start a new virtual machine, and doesn’t break liquidity into thousands of application chains. It just wants to be the cheapest and smoothest 'Ethereum cohabitation version.'
In the future, when most users do not leave the Ethereum ecosystem and just want something fast and cheap, this positioning may be enough.
It won't have the craziest narrative, nor the most exaggerated short-term returns, and it will almost certainly not leave Arbitrum or Base behind in this cycle. But it is highly likely to still be around in five years, quietly capturing a large portion of Ethereum's economic activity, while those sexier projects have come and gone.
It feels a bit undervalued right now.
Focus on three indicators: whether the decentralization milestones have been fulfilled; where the tokens have actually gone (treasury, liquidity incentives, ecological grants, or all into the pockets of early circles); whether there are truly applications that can only run on Linea, making it unprofitable to go elsewhere, rather than always just being 'a cheaper Ethereum.'
If all three of these things go in a good direction, Linea may become the most undervalued sleeping giant of this cycle. If not, then it will just be another high-quality student with excellent engineering but ultimately indistinguishable from the crowd.
Anyway, right now, it's the only L2 I don't feel embarrassed to check TVL every week. Looking around, there are really not many that can do this.
