Ethereum Scalability From a Systems View

The EVM is a single-threaded CPU, processing transactions sequentially. This creates a hard cap on throughput (~15-30 TPS) and drives up gas fees during congestion.

• Monolithic Blockchains like Ethereum L1 cannot scale execution without sacrificing decentralization.
• High Latency for finality (~12-15 minutes) is unacceptable for many applications.
• Cost Volatility makes user experience unpredictable and dApp economics unstable.

Offload computation. Rollups (Optimistic like Arbitrum, Base; ZK like zkSync, Starknet) execute transactions in batches and post compressed proofs to L1.

• Throughput: Achieves 1000-4000+ TPS by batching.
• Cost: Reduces fees by 10-100x versus L1.
• Security: Inherits Ethereum's consensus and data availability, making them cryptoeconomically secure.

Even compressed, posting all transaction data to L1 is expensive and limits scalability. This is the core constraint for high-throughput rollups.

• Blob Space (EIP-4844) provided temporary relief but is now becoming saturated.
• Data Cost remains the primary driver of L2 transaction fees.
• Throughput Ceiling: L1 bandwidth caps the growth of all rollups built on it.

Separate data publication from consensus. EigenDA, Celestia, and Avail provide cheaper, scalable data availability, allowing rollups to post data off-chain.

• Cost Reduction: DA costs drop by another 10-100x versus Ethereum blobs.
• Throughput Unlocked: Enables 10,000+ TPS per rollup.
• Trade-off: Introduces a new trust assumption outside of Ethereum's validator set.

With execution and DA fragmented across hundreds of chains and rollups, liquidity and composability shatter. Moving assets and state between domains is slow and insecure.

• Bridge Risks: Over $2B+ has been stolen from bridges (Wormhole, Ronin).
• Fragmented UX: Users must manage dozens of wallets and RPC endpoints.
• Broken Composability: dApps cannot seamlessly interact across chains.

Re-centralize trust for coordination. Ethereum L1 evolves into a universal settlement and proving layer, while interop hubs like LayerZero, Axelar, and Polygon AggLayer provide cross-chain messaging.

• Shared Security: Rollups can use Ethereum for dispute resolution (Optimistic) or proof verification (ZK).
• Atomic Composability: Protocols like Chainlink CCIP and intents via UniswapX enable cross-domain transactions.
• User Abstraction: Account Abstraction (ERC-4337) and intents hide complexity.

Execution is cheap; consensus on data is expensive. The core scaling constraint has shifted from block gas limits to data availability (DA).

• Key Benefit 1: Off-chain DA layers like EigenDA and Celestia reduce L2 posting costs by ~90% vs. calldata.
• Key Benefit 2: Enables high-throughput, sovereign rollups (e.g., Fuel, dYmension) to scale independently of Ethereum's data capacity.

Monolithic chains (Solana) optimize for synchronous performance; modular stacks (Ethereum + L2s + DA) optimize for asynchronous, verifiable trust.

• Key Benefit 1: Specialization allows Arbitrum for gaming, zkSync for payments, Base for social—each with optimized VMs.
• Key Benefit 2: Creates a multi-billion dollar marketplace for sequencers, provers, and DA providers, but forces builders to audit new trust graphs.

Users don't want to sign 10 transactions across 5 chains. They want outcomes. Abstracting execution to a solver network is the logical endpoint of modular scaling.

• Key Benefit 1: Protocols like UniswapX and CowSwap already route orders across L2s and sidechains for optimal price, hiding complexity.
• Key Benefit 2: Drives adoption by making cross-chain interactions feel like a single-chain experience, with Across and LayerZero as critical infrastructure.

Today, each rollup runs its own sequencer, creating fragmentation and MEV leakage. Shared sequencer networks (Espresso, Astria) will commoditize block production.

• Key Benefit 1: Enables atomic cross-rollup composability, unlocking complex DeFi strategies across Optimism's Superchain or Arbitrum Orbit.
• Key Benefit 2: Reduces centralization risk and creates a liquid market for block space, pushing costs toward marginal execution.

Everything can be off-chain (execution, data, settlement) except the cryptographic proof of correctness. Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) are the ultimate compression tool.

• Key Benefit 1: ZK-rollups (zkSync, Starknet, Scroll) provide Ethereum-level security with ~10-100x cheaper finality vs. optimistic rollups.
• Key Benefit 2: Enables privacy-preserving scaling (Aztec) and verifiable off-chain compute, making the base layer a pure court of appeal.

The future isn't one chain to rule them all. It's a constellation of specialized execution environments with seamless, trust-minimized asset movement.

• Key Benefit 1: Protocols like Chainlink CCIP and Wormhole abstract bridging into a primitive, letting dApps deploy on the optimal chain for their use case.
• Key Benefit 2: Ethereum L1 becomes the anchor of trust and liquidity, settling disputes and hosting canonical asset registries, while activity explodes on L2s and L3s.