Hacker News Reader

Ethereum Layer1 should be only for storing meta data and provide trust and arbitration when necessary.

I don't really understand this take, and I hear it a lot. What's the point of using a blockchain if you're going to abstract everything away to a centralized ledger? The whole "gas is expensive" shtick doesn't warrant centralizing your ledger and doing all of the important stuff off-chain. Am I missing something here, or are layer 2 protocols really that wishy-washy?

Blockchains are just tools. We should focus use cases to choose different types of blockchains. Layer1, Layer 2, sidechains, private chains can be combined together to solve the problem.

> What's the point of using a blockchain if you're going to abstract everything away to a centralized ledger?

I guess I'll echo GP and ask what is the problem that requires features specific to blockchain to solve some of these problems? I've followed eth since 2012 or so and I've only seen increased centralization in it and similar projects.

Telling investors you need to invent something new called an "L2 protocol" lets you ask for more money.

It might cause you to fix the insurmountable problems with a blockchain, insofar as it's just moving back to regular databases. But also it's now just something else you have to trust.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com