Sigil

Sigil is @ethereum in monk robes. 🕯️
We are a ZK rollup prioritizing an exit window.

[Sigil @Sigil_L2]

🕯️🕯️🕯️

[Sigil @Sigil_L2]

https://t.co/CTywsjtraN

[Sigil @Sigil_L2]

Hierophant has been updated to support RISC Zero.

[Sigil @Sigil_L2]

In 1947 a Jesuit paleontologist described a planetary layer of shared thought wrapping the Earth. No central authority, just minds converging through shared infrastructure. He called it the Noosphere. We call it Ethereum.

[Sigil @Sigil_L2]

🕯️if everything becomes a trade we have failed🕯️ https://t.co/7RAEzOr25M

[Sigil @Sigil_L2]

@colludingnode holy war has it's casualties

[Sigil @Sigil_L2]

https://t.co/lkug3UAEu6

[Sigil @Sigil_L2]

🕯️@VitalikButerin READING on L2s pt 1 🕯️ https://t.co/lkug3UAEu6

[Sigil @Sigil_L2]

When it comes to evil:

"cannot > may not"

which is why we are building a fully decentralized L2 from day one. 🕯️🕯️🕯️

[Sigil @Sigil_L2]

https://t.co/OySEFl6kyg

[Sigil @Sigil_L2]

🕯️b-money - a reading 🕯️ https://t.co/OySEFl6kyg

[Sigil @Sigil_L2]

We are a dumb infrastructure pipe. We are a 2x4 in your garage. We are clay waiting to be molded in the hands of our God. We hate liars, and we love you.

[Sigil @Sigil_L2]

We are the L2 that tells you to return to mainnet.

Use Ethereum for everything that you conceivably can. Build applications that store their root of trust there. Always support interactions from Ethereum L1 and settle there. Never force any user to use an L2.

[Sigil @Sigil_L2]

If you ever want to make the trade-off of "lower-perceived latency for slower finality" we will be here for you and we will actually trustlessly inherit some meaningful amount of Ethereum security.

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

There have recently been some discussions on the ongoing role of L2s in the Ethereum ecosystem, especially in the face of two facts:

* L2s' progress to stage 2 (and, secondarily, on interop) has been far slower and more difficult than originally expected
* L1 itself is scaling, fees are very low, and gaslimits are projected to increase greatly in 2026

Both of these facts, for their own separate reasons, mean that the original vision of L2s and their role in Ethereum no longer makes sense, and we need a new path.

First, let us recap the original vision. Ethereum needs to scale. The definition of "Ethereum scaling" is the existence of large quantities of block space that is backed by the full faith and credit of Ethereum - that is, block space where, if you do things (including with ETH) inside that block space, your activities are guaranteed to be valid, uncensored, unreverted, untouched, as long as Ethereum itself functions. If you create a 10000 TPS EVM where its connection to L1 is mediated by a multisig bridge, then you are not scaling Ethereum.

This vision no longer makes sense. L1 does not need L2s to be "branded shards", because L1 is itself scaling. And L2s are not able or willing to satisfy the properties that a true "branded shard" would require. I've even seen at least one explicitly saying that they may never want to go beyond stage 1, not just for technical reasons around ZK-EVM safety, but also because their customers' regulatory needs require them to have ultimate control. This may be doing the right thing for your customers. But it should be obvious that if you are doing this, then you are not "scaling Ethereum" in the sense meant by the rollup-centric roadmap. But that's fine! it's fine because Ethereum itself is now scaling directly on L1, with large planned increases to its gas limit this year and the years ahead.

We should stop thinking about L2s as literally being "branded shards" of Ethereum, with the social status and responsibilities that this entails. Instead, we can think of L2s as being a full spectrum, which includes both chains backed by the full faith and credit of Ethereum with various unique properties (eg. not just EVM), as well as a whole array of options at different levels of connection to Ethereum, that each person (or bot) is free to care about or not care about depending on their needs.

What would I do today if I were an L2?

* Identify a value add other than "scaling". Examples: (i) non-EVM specialized features/VMs around privacy, (ii) efficiency specialized around a particular application, (iii) truly extreme levels of scaling that even a greatly expanded L1 will not do, (iv) a totally different design for non-financial applications, eg. social, identity, AI, (v) ultra-low-latency and other sequencing properties, (vi) maybe built-in oracles or decentralized dispute resolution or other "non-computationally-verifiable" features
* Be stage 1 at the minimum (otherwise you really are just a separate L1 with a bridge, and you should just call yourself that) if you're doing things with ETH or other ethereum-issued assets
* Support maximum interoperability with Ethereum, though this will differ for each one (eg. what if you're not EVM, or even not financial?)

From Ethereum's side, over the past few months I've become more convinced of the value of the native rollup precompile, particuarly once we have enshrined ZK-EVM proofs that we need anyway to scale L1. This is a precompile that verifies a ZK-EVM proof, and it's "part of Ethereum", so (i) it auto-upgrades along with Ethereum, and (ii) if the precompile has a bug, Ethereum will hard-fork to fix the bug.

The native rollup precompile would make full, security-council-free, EVM verification accessible. We should spend much more time working out how to design it in such a way that if your L2 is "EVM plus other stuff", then the native rollup precompile would verify the EVM, and you only have to bring your own prover for the "other stuff" (eg. Stylus). This might involve a canonical way of exposing a lookup table between contract call inputs and outputs, and letting you provide your own values to the lookup table (that you would prove separately).

This would make it easy to have safe, strong, trustless interoperability with Ethereum. It also enables synchronous composability (see: https://t.co/9jy6v1X6Fw and https://t.co/gZmu3YjebM ). And from there, it's each L2's choice exactly what they want to build. Don't just "extend L1", figure out something new to add.

This of course means that some will add things that are trust-dependent, or backdoored, or otherwise insecure; this is unavoidable in a permissionless ecosystem where developers have freedom. Our job should make to make it clear to users what guarantees they have, and to build up the strongest Ethereum that we can.

[Sigil @Sigil_L2]

In nomine domini bellum sacrum!

[tim-clancy.gwei @_Enoch]

Proceed to stage two or perish, Mark.

You and all trustful L2s are corposlop. You are collectively unworthy of the effort Ethereum core developers have spent to deliver a base layer that can be trustlessly extended. You are positively unworthy of Milady. You are certainly not compliant with the values espoused by Trustless Manifesto.

For far too long the Ethereum community has allowed our L2s to launder their lack of genuine security. Consistently promoting our L2s is perhaps the Ethereum Foundation's greatest sin. We should all be absolutely disgusted at allowing L2s to get away with trust assumptions we'd never let most smart contracts have.

No more! Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus. I want *Ethereum* to win, and that means a cypherpunk and pure Ethereum. Not LARPs styling themselves as the ever-so-pragmatic adults in the room who really believe in doing less than our best. This is how we get a slow erosion of values and organizations that wear our Blessed World Machine like a coporate skinsuit.

We must take the time to be trustless. We deserve better. We deserve the unstoppable, sovereign, uncensorable world computer. We deserve this no matter the cost.

In nomine domini bellum sacrum.

[Sigil @Sigil_L2]

PRAISE BE:

https://t.co/0kuT1z3khl

[Sigil @Sigil_L2]

soon🕯️