When the market is arguing over 'who is the best zkEVM', a fundamental question has been overlooked: Why is Consensys, the largest 'software' and 'tools' company in the Ethereum world, investing so heavily in the L2 war with Linea?
If it is only to capture L2 transaction fees, Consensys could completely choose a more 'lightweight' path. For example, like Coinbase treats Base, quickly launching using the ready-made OP Stack, and leveraging the huge traffic of MetaMask to 'achieve great results with minimal effort'. This seems to be the most efficient commercially.
But Consensys has chosen the hardest path: self-developing zkEVM. This is not just software engineering; it goes deep into cryptography, circuit design, and even the deep waters of 'ZK hardware' acceleration.
This unconventional strategic choice reveals Linea's true intentions.
We may have all misread Linea. It is not just a new product in Consensys's arsenal, used to compete with Arbitrum or zkSync for market share.
Linea is Consensys's 'hardware lab', its 'internal Starlink'. Its primary mission is not to 'win' in the L2 wars, but to build and 'extreme validate' a commercially viable, full-stack ZK infrastructure for Consensys.
We can make a cross-industry comparison: SpaceX.
The greatness of SpaceX does not lie in how many satellites it has launched for NASA, but in how it created an almost infinite and predictable launch demand for its 'Falcon 9' rocket through the crazy internal project 'Starlink'. This model of 'self-production and self-marketing' forced SpaceX to iterate the reusability of rockets at an astonishing speed and reduced launch costs by an order of magnitude.
Starlink is SpaceX's 'internal customer' and 'testing ground'.
Linea plays the role of 'Starlink'. And what Consensys is building is that 'Falcon 9'—a full-stack ZK solution.
Let's break down the operational logic of this 'lab'.
The first layer, Linea is the 'chief guinea pig' of Consensys's ZK technology.
For a long time, Consensys's products (such as the Besu client and Infura) have served the 'Ethereum mainnet' and 'other L2s'. They are tools, middleware. But in the ZK era, the complexity of technology shifts from the execution layer (EVM) to the 'proving layer' (Proving).
Consensys has realized that if it cannot master the production and optimization capabilities of this 'new hardware' of ZK, its dominant position in the Web3 infrastructure field will be shaken.
Therefore, Linea must be established. It forces Consensys to solve all problems from start to finish:
How is the performance of the Prover?
Is the circuit design efficient?
Is the integration of the Besu client and ZK components stable?
Can Infura support the high concurrency needs of ZK nodes?
The millions of users and tens of millions of transactions attracted by Linea through The Voyage and The Surge are not operating within an 'operational ecosystem', but are providing real and brutal 'stress tests' for this 'ZK hardware'.
Every time Linea's mainnet upgrades or hits performance bottlenecks, it is a 'failure' for the market, but for Consensys's engineers, it is 'valuable data' for optimizing its ZK engine.
The second layer, Linea's goal is to 'commoditize' the entire ZK stack.
When this 'lab' matures the ZK technology stack, Consensys's true commercial landscape is just beginning to unfold.
What it wants to sell is far more than just the Gas fees on Linea.
What it wants to sell is:
An 'enterprise-level ZK proof service' (Prover-as-a-Service) that allows any project or L3 to purchase ZK computing power on demand, just like purchasing Infura's RPC services today.
A 'ZK-Rollup SDK' deeply integrated with the Besu client, allowing enterprises to launch chains with one click.
A 'ZK infrastructure package' deeply bound to MetaMask, serving all developers who want to enter the ZK field.
The 'success' of Linea is not about how high its TVL is, but whether it can help Consensys forge a 'full suite of AWS services' for the ZK era.
From this perspective, Linea's competitors are not other L2s. Its real competitors are those also trying to define 'ZK industry standards', such as Polygon's CDK or StarkWare's Starknet stack.
Linea is merely the flagship product Consensys uses to 'produce' and 'showcase' its ZK engine. It needs Linea to remain sufficiently competitive in the market to prove the excellence of its 'engine'.
The third layer locks in the ultimate lock-in with 'ecosystem equivalence'.
When all L2's ZK technologies eventually converge (commoditize), the decisive point will return to the 'ecosystem'.
Consensys's layout is at the 'cheating' level. Other L2s can only achieve 'EVM equivalence', meaning code compatibility. But Consensys, with Infura, Truffle, Hardhat, and MetaMask, has achieved 'developer ecosystem equivalence'.
A developer on Infura has almost zero 'learning cost' and 'migration cost' when switching to Linea. This is a kind of 'path dependence' from toolchain to deployment environment.
Consensys is playing a bigger game:
The first step is to use Linea as an 'internal lab', no matter the cost (including early slow TVL growth) to refine a full-stack ZK infrastructure.
The second step is to 'commoditize' this 'extreme validated' ZK infrastructure, package it as a service, sell it to the entire industry, defining the industry standards of the ZK era.
The third step is to leverage the 'developer + user' gravitational field of MetaMask and Infura to make its ZK stack (whether Linea or future L3) the 'default option' for developers and users.
Therefore, we should no longer view Linea through the lens of traditional L2s. Linea's TVL and TPS are merely process indicators.
What we should really observe is: What is the performance improvement curve of Consensys's ZK Prover? When will Infura officially launch the 'ZK proof service'? How many new L3s will start using the ZK stack provided by Consensys?
Linea is not the end point. It is the beginning of a grand plan, a critical 'hardware lab' aimed at ensuring Consensys continues to play the role of 'water seller' and 'arms dealer' in the 'ZK era'.