The Future of L2 Economics Post-Blobs

With blob data costs converging to a low, shared baseline, L2s can no longer compete on marginal gas savings alone. The new battleground is execution efficiency and value-added services.

• Costs are now dominated by execution, making Arbitrum Stylus and zkSync's Boojum critical for compute optimization.
• Pure cost marketing becomes noise; sustainable moats require superior developer tooling and economic alignment.

Solving the user experience problem of fragmented liquidity across L2s is the next major revenue stream. Protocols that abstract complexity will capture premium fees.

• UniswapX, CowSwap, and Across demonstrate the model: users express a desired outcome, solvers compete for profit.
• L2s that natively integrate intent infrastructure (like anoma) transform from passive data pipes into active market makers.

Control over transaction ordering (MEV) and cross-chain atomic composability is the ultimate L2 moat. The race is on to own the shared sequencer standard.

• Espresso, Astria, and Radius are building neutral sequencing layers that L2s like Fuel and Arbitrum may adopt.
• The winner captures billions in MEV revenue and defines the interoperability standard, reducing reliance on LayerZero and Axelar.

As L2s decompose into specialized layers (DA, sequencing, proving), their native tokens must accrue value beyond simple gas fee burns. Value capture shifts to staking and service provision.

• Celestia and EigenDA tokens secure data availability; proving markets may reward zk-rollup token stakers.
• Legacy "gas token" models become obsolete, replaced by restaking primitives and solver/staker incentives.

Survival for new L2s requires dominating a specific vertical (DeFi, Gaming, Social) with hyper-optimized execution and native app integration, not being another EVM clone.

• dYdX Chain (Perps) and Immutable zkEVM (Gaming) show the blueprint: the app is the chain.
• Generic L2s face commoditization; vertical chains capture 100% of sector-specific MEV and fees.

The high fixed cost of ZK proving is a temporary barrier. Specialized proving networks like RiscZero and Succinct will drive costs to near-zero, making ZK a feature, not a foundation.

• L2 differentiation shifts from "using ZK" to prover decentralization and proof recursion speed.
• This forces zkSync, Starknet, and Scroll to compete on ecosystem strength, not cryptographic novelty.

Blobs reduce L1 data posting costs by ~100x, but finality and liquidity fragmentation across rollups remain expensive. The bottleneck is now proposer/sequencer economics and cross-chain capital efficiency.

• High Sequencer Bond Costs: Centralized sequencers create MEV and liveness risks.
• Settlement Latency: Finalizing to Ethereum still takes ~12 minutes for optimistic rollups.
• Fragmented Liquidity: Native assets and yields are siloed across Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, zkSync.

Decentralized sequencing layers that batch transactions for multiple rollups, enabling atomic cross-rollup composability and mitigating centralization risks.

• Cross-Rollup MEV Capture: Enables atomic arbitrage between Uniswap on Arbitrum and Aave on Base.
• Reduced Capital Lockup: Sequencers can reuse stake across chains, lowering bond requirements.
• Fast Pre-Confirmations: Provides sub-second soft confirmations before Ethereum finality, critical for perps DEXs like Hyperliquid or Aevo.

Moves from transaction-based to outcome-based execution. Users specify a desired end state (e.g., "swap 1 ETH for ARB on Arbitrum"), and a solver network competes to fulfill it optimally.

• Optimal Routing: Automatically splits across UniswapX, 1inch, CowSwap for best price.
• Cost Abstraction: Users pay in any token; solvers handle gas and bridging via LayerZero, Axelar.
• Reduced Failed TXs: Solvers bear the risk of slippage and execution, improving UX.

Most L2s rely solely on sequencer fee capture, a low-margin business now undercut by blob pricing. They lack sustainable value accrual mechanisms for their native tokens.

• Fee Market Collapse: With cheap blobs, the ~80% profit margin from data compression evaporates.
• Token Utility Crisis: Tokens like OP, ARB have weak economic linkage beyond governance.
• Subsidy Dependence: Growth is fueled by unsustainable token incentives to protocols and users.

Rollup stacks like Arbitrum Orbit, OP Stack, zkStack enable anyone to launch a dedicated L2 or L3. The economic model shifts to selling modular infrastructure.

• Recurring SaaS Revenue: Charge fees for chain deployment, sequencing, and data availability via Celestia or EigenDA.
• Vertical-Specific Economics: Gaming L3s can implement custom gas tokens and fee models.
• Shared Security Markets: Platforms can auction sequencer slots or sell insurance via EigenLayer restaking.

Post-blobs, the cost of proof generation becomes the new bottleneck for ZK-Rollups. Markets for decentralized provers and co-processors will emerge.

• Proof Outsourcing: ZK-Rollups like zkSync, Starknet can auction proof generation to a competitive network.
• Co-Processor Revenue: Specialized chains for AI inference or gaming physics (using Risc Zero) sell verifiable compute.
• Hardware Advantage: Entities with FPGA/ASIC provers capture market share, creating a new staking economy.

With blob data costs converging to a low, uniform baseline, L2s can no longer compete on cheap transactions alone. The new differentiators are execution performance and sustainable revenue models.

• Execution is King: Latency and throughput (e.g., ~500ms finality, 10k+ TPS) become primary UX battlegrounds.
• Sequencer Profitability: Revenue must shift from inflated data fees to MEV capture, premium services, and native token utility.
• Risk: Chains like Base and Arbitrum that rely on sequencer revenue face margin compression.

General-purpose VMs are inefficient. The future is app-specific or use-case-optimized L2s/L3s that monetize performance, not just settlement.

• Parallel EVMs (Monad, Sei) and Async VMs (Fuel) will dominate for high-frequency apps.
• Business Logic as a Service: Chains will bundle vertical-specific tooling (e.g., gaming SDKs, DeFi primitives) into their core offering.
• Investor Play: Back teams building novel VMs and proving commercial demand for their niche (e.g., Eclipse for Solana speed on Ethereum security).

Most L2 tokens are governance tokens with weak fee capture. Post-blobs, the 'value sink' problem intensifies as sequencer profits shrink.

• Fee Switch Fallacy: Simply taking a cut of already-low fees is not a $10B+ valuation model.
• Investor Risk: Tokens like OP and ARB face sell pressure without robust utility or buyback mechanisms.
• Solution Space: Requires hard forks to embed token into core economics (e.g., gas token, restaking collateral, DA slashing bond).

Running a centralized sequencer is a cost center and a security liability. The future is decentralized, shared sequencer networks like Astria, Espresso, and Radius.

• Atomic Composability: Enables cross-rollup transactions without bridging latency, unlocking new DeFi primitives.
• MEV Redistribution: Democratizes extractable value back to app builders and users.
• Builder Mandate: Integrate a shared sequencer to eliminate operational overhead and tap into cross-chain liquidity from day one.

Current blob supply (~3 MB/block) can support ~40-50 mid-sized L2s at peak. The next wave of L3s and consumer chains will saturate this, recreating fee volatility.

• Time Horizon: Capacity crunch expected within 12-18 months as adoption grows.
• Investor Due Diligence: Scrutinize L2 scalability roadmaps—dependency on future EIP-7623 (execution slot vs. blob) or data availability alternatives (e.g., EigenDA, Celestia) is critical.
• Builder Hedge: Architect for multi-DA fallbacks early to avoid being priced out.

The endgame isn't cheaper L2s—it's invisible ones. The winning stack will abstract chain selection and execution via intent-based architectures.

• Protocols to Watch: UniswapX, CowSwap, Across, and LayerZero's V2 are pioneering this shift.
• User Experience: Users declare what they want (e.g., "swap X for Y at best rate"), not how to do it across fragmented liquidity.
• Investment Thesis: The value accrues to the intent solver networks and aggregation layers, not necessarily the underlying L2s.