Ye Zhang, a co-founder of the Ethereum layer-2 network Scroll, has expressed his disagreement with suggestions that Ethereum should implement fees on layer-2 networks.
In a comprehensive social media post on April 2, Zhang stated that such proposals could undermine Ethereum’s long-term objectives. He criticized this stance as a “toxic” approach that favors immediate profits over sustainable value within the ecosystem.
Zhang contended that Ethereum’s true strength lies not in collecting fees from rollups but in establishing ETH as the foundational asset across various layer-2 ecosystems. He pointed out that taxing these networks resembles corporate behavior and contradicts the decentralization principles that Ethereum embodies.
He stressed that Ethereum’s worth should not be assessed based on protocol revenue but rather viewed as the economic backbone of a developing rollup-centric ecosystem.
He remarked:
> “ETH’s real strength isn’t in protocol fees — it’s in becoming the hub asset across thousands of rollup ecosystems. That’s the future.”
Zhang elaborated that ETH’s advantage is its integration with major layer-2 platforms such as Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync, and Scroll. He also observed that, even on networks like StarkNet, which do not utilize ETH for gas, the asset remains a significant trading pair on decentralized exchanges.
### Ethereum’s Future
In light of this, Zhang outlined two potential paths for Ethereum. In one scenario, ETH could develop into a trusted store of value and a central hub for rollup operations.
Zhang noted:
> “Every aligned L2 expands Ethereum’s surface area and social consensus. A thousand scalable rollups with ETH as the center > any monolithic chain.”
Conversely, should Ethereum focus on taxing layer-2 activities, this might encourage a shift toward alternative data availability layers, diminishing ETH’s role in the broader blockchain ecosystem.
Zhang encouraged the community to prioritize the scaling of execution and enhancement of data availability infrastructure. He advocated for a significant increase in blob capacity and the development of shared tools, such as cross-rollup liquidity bridges and interoperability solutions.
He concluded:
> “ETH wins by being the gravity, not the toll booth.”