Ethereum is the Linux of blockchain, says co-founder Vitalik Buterin

2 months ago

The Ethereum network, a decentralized layer-1 blockchain that executes astute contracts, is analogous to the open-source operating strategy Linux, according to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. 

Linux and Ethereum are some unfastened root and diagnostic custom-tailored implementations. Linux achieves this done developers gathering customized modifications of software, portion Ethereum does it done its layer-2 (L2) scaling networks, Buterin said.

Linux has provided worth to “billions” of individuals, enterprises and authorities governments “without compromising” connected its unfastened root ethos oregon decentralization, Buterin said, adding: 

“We indispensable marque definite that Ethereum L1 works arsenic the financial, and yet identity, social, and governance location for individuals and organizations who privation a higher level of autonomy, and springiness them entree to the afloat powerfulness of the web without dependence connected intermediaries.”
Linux, Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, Layer2Source: Vitalik Buterin

The analogy highlights the Ethereum Foundation's semipermanent goals of making Ethereum an operating strategy for the Internet that allows for distributed computation, transferring worth and hazard and reaching statement connected on the Internet.

Related: Ethereum and Solana clash implicit what blockchain resilience truly means

Ethereum has layer-2s for each flavor, but hostility persists

There are 127 layer-2 networks wrong the Ethereum ecosystem astatine the clip of this writing, according to L2Beat

Critics of Ethereum’s layer-2 scaling attack accidental that determination are too galore layer-2 networks, competing with Ethereum and cannibalizing the basal layer’s revenue, which plummeted pursuing the Dencun upgrade successful March 2024.

Linux, Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, Layer2Ethereum layer-1 revenue. Source: Token Terminal

Proponents of Ethereum’s scaling attack accidental that the divers ecosystem of layer-2 networks gives Ethereum users optionality and a amended idiosyncratic experience.

The modular scaling strategy perchance allows Ethereum to person galore high-throughput chains built connected apical of the basal layer, Anurag Arjun, co-founder of Ethereum L2 Polygon, told Cointelegraph.

"The under-appreciated quality of this rollup-centric roadmap architecture is that it allows aggregate teams to experimentation with antithetic execution environments and antithetic artifact times," Arjun said. 

However, a torrent of high-throughput chains without existent blockchain interoperability volition pb to greater ecosystem fragmentation, trapping idiosyncratic liquidity wrong isolated pools and giving users a worse experience, Arjun told Cointelegraph.

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This interrogation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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