Solana is facing difficulties in its development. Will the offensive and defensive situation between Ethereum and Solana change?

Written by: Asher Zhang

Recently, Solana's strategic adjustment to Layer2 has caused heated discussions. What far-reaching impact will this move have on Solana? Why did Solana do this? Compared with Ethereum, what kind of difficulties will Solana face?

The application chain is exploding, and Solana cannot stop the escape of applications

BlockchainIt is moving towards maturity. The most important thing in the next stage isBlockchain应用突破。我们在此前文章中曾提及本轮牛市中最为主要的两个应用突破方向便是 Meme 平台和 DePin，一个是在 DeFi 基础上更进一步，具有 DeFi 功能集大成的意义，之所以这类平台上现在主要还是 Meme 项目，这也主要受制于目前区块链应用自身的局限性。除此之外，笔者也Xiaobai Navigation非常看好与 Ai 相关的 DePIN，这属于未来发展大趋势。DePIN 构建底层基础设施，Meme 平台则向上构建 DeFi 统一体。未来，区块链应用的破圈或已在不远处。那么，区块链应用出圈之后，会出现怎样的现象？这将对公链产生怎样影响？

The author believes that the initial development of blockchain applications mainly relies on public chains, but as it develops to a certain stage, it accumulates a huge user base and forms a huge wealth accumulation, and it is likely to develop towards application chains. After blockchain applications accumulate a large number of users, user transactions will generate a lot of on-chain fees, but it is difficult for blockchain applications to capture these values. Driven by interests, blockchain applications will consider building their own application chains, so that blockchain applications can capture these values and empower their projects.Token, thus providing the projectTokenProvide value support and increase user stickiness.

The blockchain application building its own application chain is not just a fantasy, this reality is actually happening all the time. dYdX is a platform that focuses on derivatives trading, especially perpetual futures.contractDecentralizationexchange(DEX). However, due to the needs of its own products, dYdX decided to build its own dedicated chain and chose Cosmos SDK as its blockchain framework. In addition to dYdX, more blockchain projects have adopted L2 To build their own private chain. NFT brands Azuki and ApeCoin use Arbitrum to build their private chains. Currently, Layer2 built with Op Stack includes Base, opBNB, Zora Network, DeBank Chain, etc.

As mentioned above, in the early stages of development, blockchain applications mainly rely on the strong foundation of public chains. However, when the development reaches a certain stage, building dedicated chains driven by interests has become a trend. Although Solana has attracted a large number of users to join the Solana ecosystem with its excellent performance, as blockchain applications mature, building dedicated chains driven by interests will become the first choice for most projects. If Solana only maintains the current model, it will be difficult for it to retain most projects in the future. This is why it may be time for Solana to consider the Layer2 strategy.

Is Solana Layer2 feasible? SOL may have to follow Ethereum

Solana 尽管相比以太坊性能更好，但其也是多次出现宕机。所以，仅仅依靠 Layer1 性能优势，整体仍然难以承载未来众多应用涌入带来的巨大性能挑战。对于区块链项目而言，出于利益考虑，区块链项目需要最终赋能项目代币，其专用链需求很难阻止。另外，对于新开发者而言，模块化区块链在很大程度上节省了巨大开发成本。整体上看，Solana 的 Layer2 和模块化转向从趋势上难以避免，但这也将给 Solana 带来巨大挑战，使其再次陷入与以太坊雷同的困境。

Since the beginning of this bull market, many projects have begun to transfer or choose to migrate to Solana in order to improve performance, which has also led to Solana's crazy rise. At the same time, Ethereum has performed poorly in this bull market due to performance issues. In addition, the Layer2 strategy has greatly reduced Ethereum's value capture ability. Even the passage of the Ethereum ETF has not brought strong support to ETH. However, with the development of Layer2 and modular blockchains, it has become more and more convenient for developers to deploy applications, and the value capture ability has continued to increase. The advantages of modular blockchains have gradually become apparent. Another point worth noting is that Layer2 has exploded before, which has led to liquidity fragmentation. However, cross-Layer2 interoperability projects have made great progress recently, which is expected to break the island effect. This will invisibly attract more developers and projects, which is why few well-known projects have migrated to Solana recently. This is also the challenge and dilemma that Solana has to face.

Regarding Solana's consideration of Layer 2 strategy, DeFi analyst Ignas said that Solana is facing a critical turning point, and it is trying to transform from a monolithic blockchain to a modular architecture. This transformation may affect Solana'scryptocurrencyCommunityThe key to Solana’s positioning in the blockchain industry is whether the concept of “network expansion” can be recognized. During this bull market, ETH is between BTC and SOL. If Solana adopts a similar L2 In the expansion mode, SOL may become the new ETH. If Solana faces problems such as liquidity dispersion, its status may become uncertain. In addition, speculators may turn to chasing the "network expansion" tokens in the Solana ecosystem rather than SOL itself, which may hinder the price growth of SOL.

The offensive and defensive situation will change, and Ethereum may explode

In this bull market, Solana clearly outperformed Ethereum in the first half; however, as modular blockchain matures, the offensive and defensive momentum of Ethereum and Solana will change dramatically.

I have previously proposed that Ethereum’s explosion may come in the first half of next year. The reason for this is:

第一，跨链互操作难题即将解决。比如，Optimism 正在集成 ERC-7683 ，以允许超级链通过应用层与其余以太坊 L2 之间实现互操作性；Polygon 正在构建一个 AggLayer，实现跨链一键交易；此外还有 Caldera 的 Metalayer、Avail Nexus 和 Hyperlane。Vitalik 本人也表示，人们会对跨 L2 互操作问题不再是问题感到惊讶。

Secondly, the Ethereum Pectra upgrade is expected to be launched in the first quarter of 2025. It merges the Prague (execution layer) and Electra (consensus layer) updates. This will also be something to look forward to in Ethereum. One of the biggest changes in Pectra is the way it handles accounts. In the upgrade proposal, EIP-3074 allows traditionalwallet(Externally Owned Account or EOA) with SmartcontractInteractions, such as batch transactions, etc. All of this will help pave the way for Ethereum to achieve greater adoption.

If Solana shifts its strategy to Layer 2 at this time, it means that Solana has achieved a change in offensive and defensive positions against Ethereum. Solana's previous leading position will undergo a huge change; at the same time, Ethereum will usher in its own spring.

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