Arbitrum Co-founder Backtracks? Post States "Arbitrum is not Ethereum" in Response to Vitalik's Roadmap Controversy

BlockBeats News, February 4, Steven Goldfeder, co-founder of Off Chain Labs, the team behind Arbitrum, posted on social media:

Arbitrum is not Ethereum. Arbitrum and Ethereum are close allies and have maintained a symbiotic relationship over the past five years. But it is not Ethereum. The view that a scaled L1 is at odds with a thriving L2 ecosystem is mistaken. I have never heard of an L2 team against L1 scaling. In fact, Offchain Labs not only supports L1 scaling but actively contributes to it—acquiring and continuously funding Prysm to ensure it has enough funding and resources to further Ethereum's development.

Vitalik's "The Story of Rollup is evolving over time" is correct. But the best path for Ethereum to win large institutions is still L2. In fact, Ethereum has L2, which is a superpower that allows it to win over those institutions that other L1s simply cannot serve.

During last Saturday's market turmoil, both Arbitrum and Base peaked at over 1000 TPS, while Ethereum was at 40 TPS. Ethereum L1 simply cannot directly handle such transaction volume, and this is exactly the point of L2's existence—to scale L1 to the point where L2 is no longer needed.

It is worth noting that on January 3, 2025, Steven posted that "Arbitrum is actually Ethereum," a tweet that has not been deleted at the time of writing.

Previously reported by BlockBeats, Ethereum founder Vitalik yesterday tweeted that with L1 scaling and L2 development progressing slowly, the original vision of Layer 2 and its role in Ethereum is no longer reasonable, requiring a new development path and positioning.