A closer look at how Tezos supports both careful builders and fast movers.
The elevator’s been waiting in the corner. Now the button’s lit.
There’s an elevator in the library that most people ignore. It’s quiet, tucked in the corner, past the card catalog and the community bulletin board. For years, it was just there. Most assumed it didn’t work. It could be for staff only. Perhaps it went nowhere.
But then someone pressed the button. The doors opened. What people once ignored or misunderstood turned out to be real. Upstairs wasn’t for storage. It had been a maker space all along.
Laptops. Printers. Soldering stations. People are moving fast, testing ideas, and building without waiting for approval. It’s a different kind of room. It’s louder and looser but still part of the same structure. It draws power from the same circuits. It stands on the same foundation.
That’s Etherlink. Tezos Layer 1 hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s still the quiet reading wing. It’s careful, steady, and grounded in structure and trust. Etherlink sits upstairs now. It’s where people can experiment, use familiar tools, and build without starting from zero.
The elevator was always there. People just hadn’t noticed where it could go.
Two Floors, One Foundation
Etherlink isn’t a separate building. It’s the floor above. Structurally different but still part of the same framework. Power, plumbing, and permits all run through the same base: Tezos Layer 1. That distinction matters.
Builders didn’t create Etherlink as a separate tower. They added it to the same foundation Tezos already runs on.
Some Layer 2s float beside their base layers, loosely connected and syncing only when necessary. Etherlink is different. It’s an optimistic enshrined smart rollup that lives inside the Tezos protocol. That means every transaction, every confirmation, and every upgrade benefits from the same governance, finality, and security that define Tezos.
The experience might feel different. You get faster speeds, Ethereum-style tools, and a new interface. But what’s beneath the surface hasn’t changed. The core structure still runs on the Tezos mainnet. Etherlink doesn’t bypass the base layer. It leans on it.
Builder Needs Are Different Upstairs
Walk into the main wing of a library, and you’ll see people heads-down, reading, researching, and working on papers that might take weeks to finish. It’s quiet by design. That’s Tezos Layer 1: a place for steady, deliberate building.
Upstairs in the maker space, things are louder. People are prototyping, testing, hitting roadblocks, and trying again. That’s Etherlink. It’s the same building, just a different pace.
Upstairs in the maker space, builders move fast. They test, adjust, and deploy as they go.
Developers coming from Ethereum expect to move fast. They’re used to MetaMask, Solidity, and quick feedback loops. On Tezos Layer 1, the rhythm is different. Tools like Michelson or SmartPy take longer to learn, and the chain’s design encourages long-term thinking. That’s a strength, but not every project can begin there.
Etherlink lowers the barrier to entry. Developers can use the tools they already know and start building right away. There’s no need to relearn how the system works or adopt a brand-new stack. That flexibility makes testing ideas, moving fast, and staying connected to Tezos for finality and governance easier.
What’s Already Happening in the Maker Space
People aren’t just talking about the maker space. They’re already upstairs, building, testing, and shipping.
The tools are real, and so are the builders. Hanji, Iguana DEX, and Superlend are already live on Etherlink, and development is picking up.
Hanji Protocol is a decentralized spot exchange with a fully on-chain order book. Traders looking for tight spreads, quick trades, and a familiar workflow will feel right at home. Running on Etherlink, Hanji connects directly to Tezos for governance and finality. At the same time, it benefits from sub-second confirmation times and native MetaMask integration. It’s a clear example of how Etherlink can offer speed without breaking ties to the base layer.
Iguana DEX offers a simplified trading experience, using a Uniswap-style interface that makes asset swaps quick and intuitive. It’s built for ease of use and will feel familiar to anyone interacting with a DEX. The design takes full advantage of Etherlink’s speed while each trade still settles on the Tezos base layer. That’s the same infrastructure responsible for securing the network and handling on-chain upgrades.
Superlend connects liquidity across blockchains, giving lenders and borrowers more reach. It runs on Etherlink and uses bridges like LayerZero to move assets between networks, including Arbitrum and BNB Chain. While it doesn’t operate solely within Tezos, it highlights how Etherlink can serve as a coordination layer, connecting Tezos-native assets with broader cross-chain liquidity.
Each project solves a different problem: trading, swapping, or lending. Whether trading, swapping, or lending, these platforms lean on Etherlink to move fast and Tezos to settle securely.
The Foundation Holds
Things are louder upstairs now, and some have started to question what’s going on below. But the base of the building hasn’t moved.
Builders upstairs can move quickly because the foundation below is solid.
Etherlink doesn’t replace Tezos Layer 1. It builds on it. That’s where blocks finalize, where governance decisions are made, and where upgrades begin. It’s still the place where people are running bakers, voting on proposals, testing smart rollups, and developing the protocol itself.
When everything depends on what’s underneath, the foundation isn’t optional.
You can’t add floors to a building with cracks underneath. The L1 has to hold, and on Tezos, it does. That isn’t only a technical requirement. The rest only works because the foundation carries the weight. People built it that way, knowing what would come next.
Two Ways In, One Network
Some builders always prefer a quiet floor with reference books and deep archives. Others head straight to the maker space, building fast, testing constantly, and shipping without delay. Tezos now offers both.
The elevator goes both ways. You don’t have to pick a side. You just have to build.
Crucially, they’re not separate. There’s no wall between them. The tools used upstairs connect to the same infrastructure below. The books in the study wing and the workshop parts are also funded, governed, and secured by the same system.
That kind of flexibility isn’t common. You don’t have to choose one path. Start on Etherlink and move to Layer 1 when it makes sense. Or begin on the base chain and launch a version upstairs. The elevator goes both ways.
What matters isn’t which floor you start on. It’s that you’re in the building and building something that lasts.
Reading Rooms and Maker Spaces: What Tezos Gets Right About Building was originally published in Tezos Commons on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.