Thorn added that most L2s are controlled by single companies or foundations, which means “very little value accrues to ETH holders,” and “most L2s don’t even stake back the ETH they collect in fees.”
Pointing to post-EIP-4844 dynamics, Thorn noted that aggregate L2 blob confirmation costs and L1 gas spend have hovered around $10,000 per day, while L2s earn from $100,000 to $400,000 daily in user fees.
As a result, L2 earnings leave “a nice margin even including running the chain.” Blobs are dedicated spaces offering data storage used by layer-2 blockchains built on top of Ethereum.
The critique culminated in a broader alignment question, to which Thorn responded:
“…They aren’t really ‘eth aligned…’ they look pretty ‘Eth extractive’ to me.”
Stage 1 indicates improved fault-proofs and governance safeguards, while Stage 2 is defined by an L2 having no group of actors that can post a state root other than the output of the code, even unanimously.
The post-4844 cost structure lowered L2 data costs by introducing blobs, but the balance between user fees retained by L2s and L1 spend and staking remains contested.
