Ye Zhang, co-founder of the Ethereum layer-2 scaling platform Scroll, has strongly criticized proposals to impose fees on rollups, calling it a dangerous move that could undermine Ethereum’s long-term growth for the sake of short-term revenue.
In a series of posts on X, Zhang labeled the idea as “one of the most toxic” for Ethereum’s future, arguing that it misrepresents the blockchain’s true value. He pushed back against the notion that Ethereum’s success should be measured by its revenue, emphasizing instead that its strength lies in being the primary asset across numerous rollup ecosystems.
Citing data from DeFiLlama, Zhang pointed out that after the implementation of Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 4488, which enhanced layer-2 scalability, Ethereum’s daily fees plunged from tens of millions of dollars to around $570,000 by late March. He contrasted Ethereum’s decentralized rollup ecosystem with Solana’s vertically integrated approach, where the SOL token remains central to its network. Despite ETH not always serving as the gas token—such as on StarkNet—Zhang maintained that it remains dominant across major rollups, including Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync, and Scroll.
The Scroll co-founder also warned that charging rollups could drive them toward alternative data availability solutions, potentially weakening Ethereum’s influence. If Ethereum “gets greedy” by taxing layer-2 networks, Zhang argued, it risks losing relevance while still struggling to scale.
Rather than extracting fees from rollups, he urged Ethereum to prioritize network scaling and accelerate key upgrades. His concerns echo those of former Ethereum Foundation Solidity expert Harikrishnan Mulackal, who previously suggested that internal conflicts and frequent disagreements have caused repeated delays in Ethereum’s development.
In 2023, OKX Ventures, the investment arm of OKX, made a strategic investment in Scroll. The move aligned with OKX Ventures’ mission to support projects enhancing Ethereum’s scalability. Scroll, a fully open-source rollup platform based on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), was designed for seamless compatibility with Ethereum’s existing tools and applications.
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