Since pivoting to a layer 2-centric approach, the Ethereum (ETH) ecosystem has relied heavily on L2 solutions to scale. However, these solutions are struggling to compete effectively, especially under pressure from alternatives like Solana (SOL). During the recent meme coin craze, Solana attracted much of the activity due to its advantages: low fees, high transaction speed, and user-friendliness.

To understand the challenges, it’s essential to examine why L2 solutions have not demonstrated the scalability and cost advantages that were widely anticipated.

Why meme projects favor Solana over Ethereum L2s

Meme projects have significantly contributed to the recent surge in market activity. These projects favor Solana for several reasons beyond user-friendliness:

• Low fees: Solana’s low transaction costs make it ideal for fee-sensitive applications like memecoins.
• High speed: Solana’s multithreaded architecture enables high throughput, ensuring seamless user experiences.
• Better developer experience: Solana’s tools and ecosystem are optimized for ease of use, attracting developers and projects.

Why is scalability important?

Scalability is fundamentally measured by the number of transactions a blockchain can process. A highly scalable blockchain can handle more TXs while offering lower fees, making it crucial for widespread adoption and maintaining a seamless user experience.

This is especially important for grassroots projects like meme coins, many of which are short-lived and highly fee-sensitive. Without scalability, these projects cannot thrive, and users will migrate to platforms that offer better efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

Why Ethereum L2s aren’t up to the challenge

Architectural limitations of Ethereum. Ethereum has long faced scalability issues, and L2 rollups are its primary solution to these problems. L2s operate as independent blockchains that process transactions off-chain while posting transaction results and proofs back to Ethereum’s mainnet. They inherit Ethereum’s security, making them a promising scaling approach.

However, Ethereum’s original design poses inherent challenges. Ethereum’s founder, Vitalik Buterin, has admitted that “Ethereum was never designed for scalability.” One of the key limitations is the lack of multithreading in the Ethereum Virtual Machine. The EVM, which processes transactions, is strictly single-threaded, meaning it can handle only one transaction at a time. In contrast, Solana’s multithreaded architecture allows it to process multiple transactions simultaneously, significantly increasing throughput.

L2s inheriting Ethereum’s limitations. Virtually all L2 solutions inherit Ethereum’s single-threaded EVM design, which results in low efficiency. For instance, Arbitrum: With a targeted gas limit of 7 million per second and each coin transfer costing 21,000 gas, Arbitrum can handle about 333 simple transactions per second. More complex smart contract calls consume even more gas, significantly reducing capacity. Optimism: With a gas limit of 5 million per block and a block time of 2 seconds, Optimism can handle only about 119 simple transfers per second. Gas-intensive operations further reduce this capacity.

Unstable fees. Another major issue with Ethereum and its L2 solutions is unstable fees during periods of high network activity. For applications relying on low and stable fees, this is a critical drawback. Projects like meme coins are especially fee-sensitive, making Ethereum-based L2s less attractive.

Lack of interoperability between L2s. The scalability argument for having multiple L2s only holds if contracts on different L2s can interact freely. However, rollups are essentially independent blockchains, and accessing data from one rollup to another is as challenging as cross-chain communication. This lack of interoperability significantly limits the potential of L2 scalability.

What can L2s do to further scale?

Embed features to enhance interoperability. Ethereum L1 needs to do more to support interoperability among L2s. For example, the recent ERC-7786: Cross-Chain Messaging Gateway is a step in the right direction. While it doesn’t fully resolve the interoperability issue, it simplifies communication between L2s and L1, laying the groundwork for further improvements.

Architectural updates: Diverge from the existing L1 design. To compete with multithreaded blockchains like Solana, L2s must break free from Ethereum’s single-threaded EVM design and adopt parallel execution. This may require a complete overhaul of the EVM, but the potential scalability gains make it a worthwhile endeavor.

Future milestones

Ethereum’s L2 solutions face significant challenges in delivering the scalability and cost-effectiveness that applications like meme coins demand. To stay competitive, the ecosystem must address fundamental architectural limitations, enhance interoperability, and embrace innovations in blockchain design. Only by doing so can Ethereum L2s achieve the scalability needed to support widespread adoption and fend off competition from emerging blockchains like Solana.

Laurent Zhang

Laurent Zhang is the president and founder of Arcology Network, a revolutionizing Ethereum layer-2 solution with the first-ever EVM-equivalent, multithreaded rollup—offering unparalleled performance and efficiency for developers building the next generation of decentralized applications. With an executive leadership and innovation background, Laurent holds a degree from Oxford Brookes University. Laurent’s professional journey includes over a decade of experience in science, research, engineering, and leadership roles. After graduating in 2005, he joined MKS Instruments as an Algorithm Engineer. From 2010 to 2012, he worked as a research engineer at the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute, followed by a position as a research scientist at Baker Hughes from 2012 to 2014. He then served as vice president of engineering at Quikflo Health between 2016 and 2018. Since 2017, Laurent has been the president of Arcology Network, being a visionary of a future where blockchain technology reaches its full potential, offering unmatched scalability, efficiency, and innovation.

When investors decide which stocks or ventures to invest in, they usually have a set of criteria to evaluate which options best align with their financial goals. One main factor to consider is risk appetite, which refers to investor willingness to take on risk in pursuit of potential returns.

Those with a lower risk appetite prefer more stable blue-chip stocks with steady but modest returns. On the other hand, investors with a higher risk tolerance may seek out more volatile stocks or emerging markets, enticed by the possibility of substantial returns. They are often willing to endure market fluctuations, believing the potential long-term rewards outweigh the risks.

However, when it comes to crypto, retail investors have remained conservative. Despite the industry’s notorious promises of high returns, many retail investors cautiously approach crypto. Their hesitation is due to crypto’s well-known volatility, the perception that frauds and scams are prevalent, and a general lack of technological understanding compounded by a complex user experience.

With 2025 on the horizon and Bitcoin (BTC) soaring amid bullish vibes, crypto has steadily gained traction as a legitimate investment class. While recent price jumps stem from Donald Trump’s election victory and his crypto-friendly appointees, the industry has been gaining traction for some time. 

The industry has found a new product-market fit for stablecoins, DeFi is booming, and newly improved infrastructure has enabled a variety of new applications while also reducing transaction costs. As such, many retail and institutional investors are becoming enamoured with crypto’s investment potential and growing technological capabilities. 

This begs the question: How can blockchain-based projects effectively convert conservative retail and institutional investors into active participants beyond their comfort zone?

Enter crypto launchpads

Crypto launchpads grant investors early access to tokens before they list on public exchanges. In practice, this offers investors enticing investment opportunities as they have the potential for higher ROIs.

Cryptocurrency uncertainty can be unsettling for those who prefer investing in safe stocks with steady growth. Launchpads address these concerns by helping make crypto approachable, challenging the perception that it is unsafe, and emphasizing transparency to foster trust among hesitant new investors.

The concept wasn’t always perfect. For one, ICOs became notorious during the 2017 bull run due to scammy token launches and straight-up fraud. However, the next generation of crypto launchpads incorporates stronger vetting practices to bolster safety and informed investment. This allows investors to engage with early-stage projects with a sense of security they might not get when exploring projects independently.

Investors gain here in two ways. They get to actively engage with projects with some level of protection and gain bragging rights to say they helped launch an innovation in a growing field. As crypto expands and matures, so do the launchpads that propel many of the industry’s most promising projects, even putting community-focused spins on the “auction house” vibe launchpads sometimes inhabit.

For instance, Gems’s launchpad emphasizes community and networking as it seeks to establish an exclusive ecosystem for crypto investing and fundraising. At the heart of Gems’s platform is a diverse network of “Leaders,” eager and discerning investor influencers who then rally their community around projects on the launchpad based on their interests and speciality.

Compared to other launchpads, Gems recognizes the unpredictability of crypto investments and offers an optional protection program through a trusted insurance provider. To make sure the projects utilizing their launchpad are the cream of the crop, Gems’s investment committee also conducts a thorough vetting process to pinpoint teams with the most disruptive potential. 

It’s understandable why investors may be cautious about investing in unknown crypto projects. However, launchpads are an irreplaceable asset for an industry that is in the midst of expansion by helping demystify early-stage investing and broadening access to everyone.

Bitcoin (BTC) has already changed the world, and as it gains traction, its potential to reshape the job market is becoming increasingly apparent. Even though recently we saw layoffs by big companies like Consensys and Kraken, it must be due to the industry’s maturing nature where companies are not yet certain about hiring principals.

The real story is that Bitcoin and its associated technologies will drive long-term job growth and create new roles. Unlike traditional assets, Bitcoin is decentralized. So, it fosters innovation and creates jobs in software development, cybersecurity, and financial services.

Even despite the not well-regulated environment, it already attracts different professionals. By this, Bitcoin boosts local economies and increases tax revenues, so not only people benefit but governments as well.

A new frontier for jobs—but not without growing pains

To start with, Bitcoin was the first-ever cryptocurrency. It came as a novelty that wasn’t accepted right away. However, later on, as people were getting more into it, more companies started launching their crypto tokens. To do this, they, of course, needed people who had already gained certain knowledge about Bitcoin.

It’s been 16 years since its invention, and crypto is no longer an unexplored phenomenon. Little by little, it becomes an integral part of our lives—the future is digital, as they say. From blockchain development and data security to market analysis and customer support, the skill sets needed in the crypto industry are expanding.

However, the industry is not fully mature, so there are no set hiring standards yet. At first, companies rushed to hire employees, anticipating the massive growth they predicted. But this has sometimes led to overhiring as companies face difficulty estimating the precise number of employees needed.

So, this boom in hiring has recently faced setbacks. Major players in the crypto industry, such as Consensys, Kraken, and dYdX, have all laid off significant portions of their workforces in recent weeks. They let go of 20%, 15%, and 35% of their employees, respectively. However, it only shows that the crypto industry as a whole is still defining its optimal workforce size.

A closer look at the layoffs reveals a more nuanced reality. Crypto companies are rather re-strategizing—they are shifting to smaller company types. Why? Because they think that companies with fewer but highly specialized employees who use web3 tools and AI function more efficiently.

In this sense, Bitcoin and its associated technologies are not just creating traditional roles but are increasing the demand for a workforce with cross-functional and adaptable skill sets. Companies need more and more roles that can be dynamic and evolve along with the industry.

Also, the volatility of the crypto market means that hiring trends tend to rise and fall depending on the Bitcoin prices and overall market sentiment: During bullish periods, companies have higher profits and often expand their workforce. In contrast, bear markets, regulatory challenges, and internal restructurings can lead to workforce reductions. This is what we see with the recent layoffs.

The bigger picture: long-term growth despite setbacks

The picture of crypto industry employment trends is much wider than it might be seen at first sight. Despite the recent flow of layoffs, crypto-related jobs still seem attractive to the masses—demand for crypto-related roles continues to rise.

The supply also remains in a positive trend. The biggest increase in positions is tracked in blockchain development and product management. There is also a need for individuals skilled in, for example, decentralized finance, digital asset custody, or blockchain law. And it is very interesting, as such a tendency represents the diversity and growth of the job market around Bitcoin.

To provide the future workforce, the introduction of educational programs and certifications in crypto and blockchain prepare new generations for work in this new economy. Education around crypto has become more common, so job seekers have become better equipped with the skills necessary for roles in this sector. This, in turn, reduces the need for companies to hire large teams.

Adapting to the sector

Since the market hasn’t reached its full maturity, there will be a need for adaptability. Many of the roles in the crypto industry didn’t exist a decade ago, and even more new roles will continue to emerge. Some professionals might find themselves in positions that didn’t exist when they entered the job market.

Continuous education and upskilling are essential as never before. The Bitcoin job market requires a mix of technical expertise and regulatory understanding. Companies are definitely going to experiment with different business models and will have to navigate regulatory challenges. To do all these, they will need employees who can adjust quickly to changes and operate efficiently.

Arthur Azizov

Arthur Azizov is the CEO of B2BINPAY, an all-in-one crypto ecosystem for businesses. A thought leader and visionary with a global view, he launched his first business, a payment terminal company, in 2007, boasting over 15 years of practical entrepreneurial experience since then. Before B2BINPAY, he founded and scaled an international broker company, B2Broker Group, with over 450 employees and a $70M valuation.