Ethereum Foundation Researcher: Solana's Golden Age Is Over, Rise of Layer 2s Will End Its AdvantagesDuring the last bull run, Solana attracted a massive user base with its fast transaction speeds and low gas fees, culminating in a record high of over $260 for its SOL token on November 22nd, 2022, making it a focal point of the meme season. Meanwhile, Ethereum suffered from high gas fees and relatively slow ecosystem development, leading to a persistent slump in its token price and significant user loss
Ethereum Foundation Researcher: Solana's Golden Age Is Over, Rise of Layer 2s Will End Its Advantages
During the last bull run, Solana attracted a massive user base with its fast transaction speeds and low gas fees, culminating in a record high of over $260 for its SOL token on November 22nd, 2022, making it a focal point of the meme season. Meanwhile, Ethereum suffered from high gas fees and relatively slow ecosystem development, leading to a persistent slump in its token price and significant user loss. However, Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake recently claimed that Solana's golden age is nearing its end.
As reported by the crypto media outlet The Defiant, in a recent podcast, Drake detailed how Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solutions will surpass Solana in latency and throughput, explicitly stating that Solana's golden age is coming to a close. He contrasted the competitive focus of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana: Bitcoin dominates due to its stability, Lindy effect (longevity), and monetary properties; BeamChain focuses on maximizing Ethereum Layer 1 efficiency, competing more directly with Bitcoin; and Solana's core competitive advantage lies in performance. Drake argued that Solana's true competitor is Ethereum's Layer 2, not Layer 1 itself.
Drake pointed out that Solana excelled in the key performance indicators of latency and throughput over the past year or two. Solana boasts extremely short slot times (intervals), resulting in an average latency of 200 milliseconds. However, Ethereum's upcoming pre-confirmation mechanism will drastically improve latency, potentially surpassing Solana and reducing it to near 10 milliseconds a 20x improvement.
Regarding throughput, Drake highlighted the burgeoning growth of Ethereum Layer 2s. Data from rollup.wtf shows that Layer 2 throughput (measured in gas per second) is rapidly growing, already exceeding Ethereum Layer 1 by approximately 100x, and projected to increase by another 1000x or even 10,000x next year. This represents a sustainable and scalable architecture. In contrast, Solana centralizes all activity on a single server, requiring each validator node to utilize large servers to handle all activity servers whose performance is nearing its limits, making significant throughput improvements difficult. Drake believes it's unlikely Solana will increase its gas limit by 10x next year, while Ethereum, through Layer 2s, is highly likely to achieve this.
Therefore, Drake concluded that Solana's once-proud advantages in latency and throughput will no longer be competitive, and its golden age may be ending.
Interestingly, Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko retweeted The Defiant's article with the image response: "Solana's golden age is over. The age of multi-sigs is here." This response seemed sarcastic, implying that the Ethereum Foundation lacks tangible results and relies on pronouncements of Ethereum's impending superiority over Solana to motivate its ecosystem users and developers. It's noteworthy that the Ethereum ecosystem places significant emphasis on multi-signature wallets and account abstraction.
Further supporting Drake's viewpoint, he tweeted the same day announcing that the Ethereum Foundation is investing tens of millions of dollars in zkVM projects, including zkRISC-V formal verification, Poseidon cryptanalysis, and L2beat for zkVMs. This investment demonstrates the Ethereum Foundation's commitment to driving Layer 2 technology, thereby enhancing Ethereum's performance and scalability.
Drake's perspective isn't unfounded. While Solana previously enjoyed advantages in speed and low gas fees, its network has suffered multiple outages, and stability issues remain a persistent criticism. The rapid advancement of Ethereum Layer 2 technology provides an opportunity to surpass Solana. For example, Layer 2 solutions like Optimism and Arbitrum have already achieved significant performance improvements and are attracting increasing numbers of users and developers.
The rise of Ethereum Layer 2s not only challenges Solana in performance but also demonstrates stronger competitiveness in ecosystem development. Ethereum boasts a more mature ecosystem, a broader developer community, and richer application scenarios. These advantages will further solidify Ethereum's position and attract more users to migrate to its Layer 2 networks.
In summary, while Solana once shone brightly, its advantages are being eroded by the maturation and adoption of Ethereum Layer 2 technology. Drake's viewpoint has sparked widespread industry attention and discussion, bringing new uncertainty to Solana's future. Whether Solana can meet the challenge and maintain its competitiveness remains to be seen. However, undeniably, the rise of Layer 2 technology is reshaping the landscape of public blockchains.
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