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Ye Zhang, co-founder of the Ethereum layer-2 (L2) platform Scroll, has strongly criticized proposals that would impose fees on Ethereum rollups. Zhang described these proposals as “one of the most toxic ideas for Ethereum’s future,” arguing that they could harm the network’s long-term growth for the sake of short-term revenue.
In a series of posts on X, Zhang expressed his concerns that charging fees on Ethereum’s rollups would undermine the scalability and development of the Ethereum ecosystem. He emphasized that the true value of Ethereum lies in its role as “the hub asset across thousands of rollup ecosystems,” rather than in extracting fees from those rollups. By focusing too heavily on revenue from these fees, Zhang believes that Ethereum’s potential for long-term success could be sacrificed.
Zhang pointed to Ethereum’s ongoing upgrades, like EIP-4488, which significantly boosted the scalability of Ethereum’s rollups. Since the upgrade, Ethereum’s daily fees have dramatically decreased from tens of millions of dollars to around $570,000 by late March, as reported by data from DefiLlama.
Zhang also drew comparisons between Ethereum and Solana, noting that Solana is a “vertically integrated” network with its native token playing a central role. In contrast, Ethereum’s strength lies in its dominance across various rollup ecosystems such as Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync, and Scroll—whether or not ETH is used as the gas token. He argued that Ethereum’s value is in its widespread use across these networks, not in charging fees from them.
The Scroll co-founder further warned that imposing fees on Ethereum’s rollups could lead them to explore alternative data availability solutions, potentially weakening Ethereum’s dominance in the ecosystem. Zhang cautioned that if Ethereum becomes “greedy” and starts taxing rollups, it could lose relevance and still fail to scale effectively.
Instead of focusing on extracting value from rollups, Zhang believes Ethereum should prioritize accelerating its upgrades and scaling efforts. This perspective aligns with concerns raised by other figures in the Ethereum ecosystem. As crypto.news previously reported, former Ethereum Foundation Solidity expert Harikrishnan Mulackal pointed out that internal confusion and disagreements have led to delays in key Ethereum upgrades, further highlighting the challenges facing Ethereum’s development.
Zhang’s criticism reflects growing concerns within the Ethereum community about the pace of development and the risks posed by proposals that could stifle the scalability and growth of Ethereum’s layer-2 solutions.
