Moving Beyond Layer 2

Blockchain already faces a serious UX identity crisis, and L2 solutions aren't making things any easier. The user experience, especially when dealing with Dex and swaps via L2, is often way too many steps for a UX that is supposed to be simple. Juggling networks, ensuring bridge support, and grappling with transaction fees – a process that is far from intuitive. For most users, using them is purely akin to finding an alternate route to save some change in transaction fees. While L2 is providing solutions for users, it adds extra layers of complexity to an already complex UX and simply doesn't fully mitigate the application layer issues that have long plagued some L1 platforms.

It's kind of nice to see the flood of new L1 emerging, claiming to address the application layer issues that have long plagued earlier L1 platforms. It's refreshing to see development efforts shifting from adding yet another L2 solution to refining and iterating on L1, which, by the way, often struggles with interoperability issues – a hurdle that must be overcome, especially if these chains wanna position themselves as ideal rails for the institutes to launch official securities or permissioned networks.

Interestingly, the answer to interoperability lies with the L0, which essentially works as an OS and helps L1 with interoperability without significantly changing the base layer or compromising its fundamental principles or core features. There is also a scope of L0s for their potential to mitigate the impending fragmentation in the blockchain ecosystem. Their role in reducing complexity and unifying diverse blockchain technologies could be crucial in the long run instead of investing resources with L2 and figuring out stop gaps in scaling and transaction fee issues on L1. I believe we are still early, and we still can afford to manage to reiterate and improve as we learn the limitations of the systems we design.