🚀 Vitalik Buterin Puts Speed First in Ethereum’s L2 Game Plan
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is shaking up priorities in the Layer 2 world — and it’s all about speed.
Speaking via PANews, Buterin made it clear: fast withdrawals (within one hour) now matter more than hitting the much-discussed Stage 2 of decentralization for L2 rollups. Why? Because the current one-week withdrawal delay is killing user experience and driving up costs across chains.
Take intent-based bridging protocols like ERC-7683 — liquidity providers have to lock up capital for a whole week. That ties up funds, spikes fees, and pushes users toward less secure multi-sig bridges — the exact opposite of what L2 was meant to achieve.
🔧 Vitalik’s Fix: A Hybrid 2-of-3 Proof System
Buterin’s proposal blends Zero-Knowledge proofs (ZK), Optimistic proofs (OP), and Trusted Execution Environments (TEE). The idea:
Any two systems working together can guarantee security.
Users get near-instant withdrawals without waiting for ZK tech to fully mature.
This marks a pragmatic pivot from Vitalik’s earlier idealism around decentralization and censorship resistance. The new north star? User experience + efficiency — including a future goal of 12-second finality.
🌐 Rollup-Centric Future
The vision is clear: make Ethereum Layer 1 the ultimate settlement layer and liquidity hub. If successful, it will be much harder for rival blockchains to compete with Ethereum’s network effect.
⚡ The Tech Bottleneck
ZK technology is improving fast, but there’s a catch — cost. Current ZK proofs eat up 500k+ gas, making frequent submissions expensive. Submitting proofs every 12 seconds is only possible if aggregation tech advances, letting multiple rollups share a single proof and split costs.
This opens a new battlefield in the L2 race:
ZK optimization leaders could dominate.
L2s sticking only to optimistic proofs might lose momentum.
Bottom line — Vitalik is steering Ethereum toward a results-first, competition-ready future where speed and usability trump ideological purity.