This week, ZKsync founder Alex Glukhovsky made a loud statement:
Ethereum is not just a blockchain, it is the foundation of the value internet, and the network itself is a 'ditch' around the digital economy of the future.
Wait. A ditch? A value internet? Are we being sold the dream of a new utopia again?
Let's break it down by the facts.
Fact 1: Ethereum really holds the market.
At the time of writing, Ethereum processes over 1.2 million transactions per day. According to L2Beat, the L2 ecosystem based on Ethereum (like Optimism, Arbitrum, and ZKsync) even surpasses L1 in activity.
The growth of TVL (Total Value Locked) in Layer 2 networks since the beginning of the year has been almost 40%.
What does this mean? People are building on top of Ethereum. They trust it. At least for now.
Fact 2: The world computer will not be one.
Glukhovsky is right: the internet is not one server, and the blockchain internet is also not one network.
Ethereum is already surrounded by competitors: Solana, Avalanche, even the old good Bitcoin with its experiments like Ordinals.
And now guess: over the past year, Ethereum's share of the total DeFi volume has decreased from 62% to 54%.
Slowly but surely, others are also taking a bite out of the pie.
Fact 3: 'Value will flow into ETH.' Really?
Theoretically yes. More applications → more activity → more gas burning → higher ETH scarcity → higher price.
In practice? The price of ETH has only increased by 36% over the year, while the same SOL has increased by 200%.
Question: Perhaps value is already flowing… but not where expected?
What does this actually mean?
Ethereum is not a cult, it is a technological infrastructure.
Yes, today it is the safest and most neutral base layer for the decentralized world.
But like in any story about technological revolutions, there is one problem: competitors are faster, cheaper, and sometimes bolder.
Ethereum may remain the foundation. It can become a 'hive of servers' united in a huge decentralized system.
Or it may turn into an elite 'museum of technology' that will be looked at with respect… and built on something new.
