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On April 29, 2025, Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer2 network Base launched by Coinbase announced that it has reached its first phase of decentralization (Stage 1).This is another new Layer2 network that has reached the first phase of decentralization after September 2024, and has also triggered widespread speculation from the community about the possibility of Base issuing native assets.
According to L2Beat data, as of May 15, 2025, there were a total of 7 Layer2 networks on Ethereum that reached the first phase of decentralization, namely: Base, Arbitrum One, OP Mainnet, Unichain, Scroll, Ink and Kinto.
△ Layer2 Network Status (Photo source L2BEAT)
What is the decentralization phase of Layer2
The terminology of Layer2 Stage comes from a post posted by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin on November 2, 2022 on the Fellowship of Ethereum Magicians forum.The reason for dividing the decentralization stage for Layer2 is that the Layer2 network, which is in its early stages of development, has not yet reached sufficient decentralization, and developers should be given a grace period to develop until the network achieves complete decentralization over time.
The Layer2 network that has reached the first stage of decentralization is characterized by: smart contracts include“Fraud Proof or Validity Proof Plan“, This solution prevents developers from publishing invalid status roots.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin once said: Layer2, which has not reached the first stage of decentralization, will no longer be regarded as the network layer of Ethereum.Because the era of typing Rollup as a multi-signature is coming – the era of crypto trust has arrived.
This means that for the Ethereum community, whether a network is regarded as a layer on Ethereum is not only a technical question, but its more core significance is that it can determine whether the network relies on the Ethereum main network to ensure security.
To learn about Layer2’s three-stage decentralization technical guide, please refer to:https://ethereum-magicians.org/t/proposed-milestones-for-rollups-taking-off-training-wheels/11571
Layer2 Project Development Mileage
2017 ~ 2020
Representative project: Plasma
2021 ~ 2022
Representative projects: Optimism and Arbitrum
2023 So far
Representative projects: ZK-Rollup, StarkNet, zkSync and Scroll
The significance of the Ethereum ecosystem
Setting up a decentralized development stage for Layer2 is essentially still for Ethereum to achieve better capacity expansion and security.
According to Vitalik Buterin’s roadmap planning, the Layer2 network, which has reached the first stage of decentralization, enters the second stage of decentralization (Stage 2), requires third-party participation in transaction sorting, and can also issue native assets as governance and incentive tools to replace the multi-signature system and expand the participation of validators.Implementing airdrop plans is more likely to further activate the application development and user activity of the Ethereum ecosystem.
