0xVL

It’s fascinating to see this structural shift in real-time, especially since the "Rollup-centric" roadmap was essentially gospel for years.

You’ve hit the nail on the head regarding the recent pivot: with the Glamsterdam upgrade pushing gas limits toward 200M and L1 fees finally stabilizing under $0.50, the original "L2-as-a-branded-shard" narrative has definitely lost its edge.

It's impressive how the community is maturing enough to admit that many L2s have essentially become "Stage 1" ghost towns or centralized silos rather than true extensions of Ethereum’s security.

However, I can't help but feel a bit skeptical about the L2 token valuations in this new world. If L2s are no longer the only way to scale, most of these governance tokens are just "fancy air" without a clear fee-burn or revenue-capture mechanism.

We’re moving toward a "specialization era" where if an L2 doesn't offer something unique like native privacy or sub-10ms execution it’s basically just a glorified sidechain. I suspect we’re going to see a massive Darwinian wipeout of "generic" L2 tokens by the end of 2026. $ETH