Vitalik: For an L2-centric ecosystem to succeed, it is essential to understand and address challenges such as coordination

ChainCatcher message, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated that Layer 2 and sharding are often described as two opposing strategies for blockchain scalability in public discussions. However, when you delve into the underlying technology, a puzzle emerges: the actual scaling methods are completely the same. Both have some form of data sharding, both have fraud proofs or ZK-SNARK proofs, and both have methods to solve cross {rollup, shard} communication. The main difference lies in who is responsible for building and updating these components, and how much autonomy they possess.

A Layer 2-centric ecosystem technically realizes sharding very effectively, but it is a sharding that can create its own rules. This is very powerful and can inspire a great deal of creativity and independent innovation. However, it also presents key challenges, especially in terms of coordination. For a Layer 2-centric ecosystem like Ethereum to succeed, it needs to understand these challenges and address them head-on to gain as many advantages as possible from a Layer 1-centric ecosystem while getting as close as possible to having the best features of both.