On June 20, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin commented on a tweet by ConsenSys founder Joseph Lubin, stating that 'Ethereum Layer 1 (Ethereum L1) is the world ledger.'
This is also a rare statement from Vitalik regarding the recent discussions on Ethereum's macro narrative.
As is well known, in the blockchain world, every public chain basically has a design positioning, which often lays the foundation for its technical architecture and ecological style.
For example, since its inception, Ethereum's ultimate vision has been to build a 'world computer': an open platform that can run any smart contract and carry various Web3 application logics. Vitalik has also clearly pointed out that Ethereum is not just a payment network; it is a general-purpose decentralized computing layer.
So now, from 'world computer' to 'world ledger', what kind of narrative transformations have actually occurred?
01. Ethereum: The Original Intention of the World Computer
In fact, not only Ethereum, even Bitcoin, which was the first to explicitly propose the vision of 'Electronic Cash,' has seen its payment positioning gradually fade as its scale grows and the market evolves, shifting towards being a 'digital gold' centered on value storage.
Objectively speaking, this transformation itself is a pragmatic choice. After all, BTC, as a representative of crypto assets breaking into mainstream finance, has been substantially incorporated into the balance sheets of mainstream financial institutions, gradually becoming one of the core assets in TradFi configurations.
Looking back at Ethereum's development path, we will find that although the main line has not undergone drastic changes in grand narratives, it has long been in continuous dynamic evolution:
Since 2016, Ethereum has been the leader among all smart contract platforms through cycles of market evolution, leading to the emergence of numerous on-chain use cases, from ERC20 to DeFi, to NFTs and blockchain games. Each round of hotspots has confirmed the allure of 'on-chain computing power.'
It can be said that smart contracts have always been its core, which is why Vitalik has repeatedly emphasized that Ethereum is a decentralized application platform, aiming to carry various Web3 native logics, rather than just asset transfers. However, at the same time, we also see contradictions in reality.
The most criticized issues have naturally been the previously high gas fees, low TPS, and other performance problems, which limited the large-scale landing of truly complex computational logic. It was against this backdrop that Rollup technology began to gain traction starting in 2020, and after five years of development, Ethereum has gradually established a 'L1 + L2' layered structure.
Under this architecture, especially in the past two years, more and more signs indicate that Ethereum is showing signs of becoming a trusted, stable, sovereign-level 'world ledger.'
02. Narrative Reconstruction Under the Division of L1 + L2
If we were to summarize this division of labor in one sentence, 'The Ethereum mainnet is responsible for security and settlement, while L2 handles high-frequency interactions' would be quite apt.
In short, the Ethereum ecosystem has now formed a clear division of labor model, in which the mainnet is responsible for providing security and foundational infrastructure for final settlement, while L2s (such as Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, etc.) bear most of the high-frequency trading and user operations.
This both improves scalability and further strengthens the value capture logic of ETH, naturally pushing the Ethereum mainnet towards a positioning of 'global decentralized ledger.' The more successful L2s there are, the more prosperous the ecosystem becomes, and the higher the value of the Ethereum mainnet as a unified ledger.
After all, all L2 networks rely on it as a 'central bank' level settlement layer.
As Web3 researcher Haotian stated, EIP-1559 is undoubtedly a key turning point in Ethereum's narrative, as it not only introduced the Base Fee and burning mechanism, but also fundamentally reshaped Ethereum's value capture method, shifting it away from relying on the gas income generated by a large volume of transactions on the mainnet to relying on L2 for continuous 'taxation.'
In other words, past users were direct customers of the mainnet; now they have become the respective operating agents of L2, responsible for providing services to users, collecting fees, and ultimately 'remitting' fees to the mainnet in exchange for settlement rights. This mechanism design is very similar to the historical 'tax farmer system':
The mainnet has become the ultimate trusted ledger for transaction clearing and settlement, similar to a central bank;
L2 acts like a commercial bank, responsible for high-frequency services directed at users;
And every L2 transaction that returns to the mainnet for verification will burn ETH, paying for the security of the ledger;
It can be said that Ethereum has not abandoned the vision of 'world computer'; it is just that the division of labor structure and development path of L1 + L2 are guiding it to first become a 'world ledger.'
03. The Realistic Landing of the 'World Ledger'
Another interesting observation is that each round of ETH's value explosion actually originates from the mainnet's role as a ledger being 'utilized.'
For instance, the 2017 ERC20 wave served as the clearing and settlement layer for issuing tokens, the 2020 DeFi Summer was a funding settlement platform under smart contract combinations, and recently, if this wave explodes again due to the tokenization of US stocks, RWA, and other financial assets on-chain, Ethereum remains that trusted ledger.
Because for TradFi, computational power is indeed important, but what truly decides whether to migrate on-chain is the ledger's 'trust, finality, and security' — this is the core landing point for compliant assets.
This is also why platforms like Robinhood are choosing to launch US stock token trading services based on L2s like Arbitrum; the recognition of Rollup architecture's performance is not the only factor; more importantly, these trades will ultimately return to the Ethereum mainnet for settlement.
This also indicates that the existing L2 solutions' performance, security, and compliance capabilities are already sufficient to meet the trading needs of traditional financial core assets. In a sense, this wave of 'US stocks on-chain' has actually reinforced Ethereum's positioning as a global financial clearing and settlement infrastructure, further validating its feasibility and real demand as a 'world ledger.'
This is the realistic evolution path of Ethereum from 'world computer' to 'world ledger' — it no longer simply promises future on-chain application scenarios, but is increasingly chosen as the settlement endpoint by mainstream assets in the real world.
From this perspective, this trend is not only a confirmation of the value of Ethereum L1, but will also profoundly reconstruct the value capture logic of L2, promoting the entire Ethereum ecosystem to truly connect between technology and financial infrastructure.
In short, the narratives that can truly drive this chain toward hundreds of millions of users are not just about what Ethereum can do, but more about:
What the real world is willing to use Ethereum for.
