Once called for becoming the world's computer! Ethereum is facing a crisis of fragmentation, how to break through the predicament?

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The Depth of this article is comparable to "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind", and it coincidentally comes at a time when Ethereum needs such insights.

Why do you say that?

As Yuval Noah Harari explains in "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind," humans differentiate themselves from other species through the coordination achieved by shared ideas. While most people can maintain about 120 intimate relationships, we surpass this limitation by organizing around abstract and transcendent concepts: religion, corporations, and nations.

The larger the community, the more important these concepts become. They can keep people together, move in the same direction, and attract new participants.

Block鏈同樣如此。

Blockchain needs a 'why' - a grand, clear idea to inspire builders and users, drive collaborative efforts, and promote growth.

The scale of Ethereum is its scale.

1. Advantages of Ethereum

So far, there are several reasons why Ethereum has been able to maintain a relatively consistent direction:

First-mover advantage: Ethereum has been the only smart contract platform for a long time.

Smaller ecosystem: As @parithosh_j pointed out in a recent podcast, in 2018, there were less than 10 teams actively developing Ethereum, resulting in faster development and smoother progress.

Short-term goals: Ethereum has some smaller milestone goals, such as the Merge, which bring the community together.

But today, Ethereum has become a $450 billion asset, with an ecosystem expanding to hundreds of teams, each with their own incentive mechanisms. Without a unified vision, these teams will inevitably develop in different directions, prioritizing different upgrades, leading to fragmentation at the social and technical levels.

This not only slows down innovation, but also weakens Ethereum's ability to attract users and maintain influence.

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2. Challenges centered around Rollup

Since switching to a Rollup-centric roadmap, Ethereum finds itself in a strange middle ground: On the positive side: this transition has attracted a large number of developers to enter the ecosystem, building applications on Rollup or developing Rollup itself. There is reason to believe that if Ethereum did not shift to a Rollup-centric roadmap, these teams might consider creating an independent Layer1, which would lead to the fragmentation of Ethereum's influence. On the negative side: Rollup will siphon MEV and revenue from Ethereum's base layer. In the long run, value will flow to the base layer in three ways:

Cross-Chain Interaction MEV (cross-application, cross Rollup, etc.),

Congestion fee for hotspots,

Monetary.

Under the roadmap centered around Rollup, Ethereum is currently in a dilemma:

If all applications are migrated to Layer2, the congestion fee will disappear.

Cross-Chain Interaction MEV currently flows to external Cross-Chain Interaction and shared Liquidity Providers, instead of Ethereum.

The narrative of monetary nature is unsustainable - BTC has dominated the industry and is now attracting institutions and countries to follow.

3. The Argument of 'World Computer'

@jon_charb One language: Ethereum needs a grand idea to consolidate Consensus, and "world computer" is the perfect guiding target.

Unlike the route centered around Rollup, the 'World Computer' positions Ethereum Layer1 as the best platform for both Layer1 native applications and Rollup. This vision does not drive applications out of Layer1, but makes Layer1 an equally attractive development choice, attracting developers and maintaining ecosystem cohesion:

Congestion fee for hotspots: The applications on Layer1 reserve value for Ethereum.

Cross-Chain Interaction MEV: Captured by Ethereum, not external Cross-Chain Interaction.

Coin性：Ethercoin as the core asset, continues to appreciate by being used as gas fees in applications and Layer2.

This approach not only ensures the flow of value into the Ethereum ecosystem, but also directly empowers Ethercoin. We need to embrace this direction and move towards the goal of making Ethereum the 'world computer' in every upgrade and priority decision. This is a unified vision that can accelerate innovation, maintain influence, and consolidate its position in the long term.

It's time to choose a clear direction, it's time to make sure that the symbol representing Ethereum is always $ETH!

[Disclaimer] The market is risky, and investment should be cautious. This article does not constitute investment advice. Users should consider whether any opinions, perspectives, or conclusions in this article are appropriate for their specific circumstances. Responsibility is assumed for investing based on this information.

This article is authorized for reprint from: 'Foresight News'

Original author: @ShivanshuMadan

"'Once shouted to be the world's computer! Ethereum is facing a crisis of fragmentation, how to break through the dilemma?' This article was first published in 'encryption city'"