Buterin and Yakovenko Tension: Crypto Titans Disagree on Ethereum Layer-2 Safety
Anatoly Yakovenko, a co-founder of Solana, and Vitalik Buterin, a co-founder of Ethereum, have expressed divergent opinions regarding the security of Ethereum’s layer-2 networks. The question of whether L2 solutions actually inherit strong security from Ethereum’s base layer has been raised in the cryptocurrency community.
Buterin Defends Ethereum L2 Security Amid Growing Debate
According to Buterin, Ethereum layer-2 solutions are highly secure against 51% attacks. The base layer provides them with finality guarantees.
A key property of a blockchain is that even a 51% attack cannot make an invalid block valid. This means even 51% of validators colluding (or hit by a software bug) cannot steal your assets.
Buterin
Buterin did admit that trusting validator sets outside of chain-controlled operations has limitations.
This property does not carry over if you start trusting your validator set to do other things, that the chain does not have control over. At that point, 51% of validators can collude and give a wrong answer, and you don’t have any recourse.
Buterin
Yakovenko Questions the Safety of Ethereum’s L2 Networks
Buterin’s claims were directly contested by Yakovenko. The co-founder of Solana questioned whether L2s are unable to achieve the needed security features due to technical constraints.
The claim that L2s inherit eth security is erroneous. 5 years into the L2 roadmap, wormhole eth on solana has the same worst case risks as eth on base and generates as much revenue for eth L1 stakers. Yes there is something fundamental about L2s that makes it difficult to actually achieve the desired security. That’s why it hasn’t happened in 5 years. Or are you suggesting that all the L2 teams are lazy or dumb?
Yakovenko
He lists three main issues with L2 implementations as they stand today. First, it is challenging to conduct a thorough audit of L2 networks due to their extensive attack surfaces and intricate code bases. Second, money can be transferred without user approval thanks to multi-signature custody agreements. Third, in contrast to the fundamental decentralized tenets of blockchain, off-chain processing centralizes control. In order to present Ethereum as a layer-2 for Solana, Yakovenko has suggested creating a customized bridge. This attempts to solve security issues and enable smooth asset transfers between ecosystems.
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