Vitalik personally advocates the return to the Mainnet: Is the era of Ethereum L1 revival coming?

Written by: Tia, Techub News

Since the beginning of 2025, the transaction fees on the Ethereum mainnet have continued to remain at extremely low levels, even cheaper than some L2s during certain periods. With client optimizations and declining hard drive costs leading to a continuous rise in gas limits, more and more voices are beginning to propose a viewpoint that was once considered “outdated”—perhaps Ethereum L1 has not aged, and perhaps “returning to the mainnet” is regaining practical significance.

This topic has been completely ignited recently. Evan Van Ness, the founder of Week In Ethereum News, tweeted on November 6:

“Ethereum's transaction fees are very low, and will remain so throughout 2025. Due to client optimizations and declining hard drive prices, the gas limit (“block size”) will continue to increase, keeping transaction fees low. Back to the mainnet!”

Then on December 1, Vitalik retweeted this discussion and succinctly added, “You can just build on L1.” He did not elaborate further, but this comment was enough to ignite industry sentiment.

In the context where Rollup has been regarded as the established route for Ethereum scaling and modular narratives have dominated for more than a year, Vitalik's statement undoubtedly serves as a heavyweight signal. Why have transaction fees on the mainnet suddenly become cheaper? Why is there a call to “continue building on L1”? Does this imply that the scaling roadmap is undergoing subtle changes?

Why has the Ethereum mainnet become cheaper in 2025?

The tweet mentions two key reasons: client optimization and a decrease in hardware costs. These two factors, after years of accumulation, finally resulted in significant effects in 2024-2025.

First, client optimization is gradually maturing.

Between 2023 and 2025, Ethereum clients (Geth, Prysm, Nethermind, Erigon, etc.) will continuously optimize the execution layer and consensus layer. This includes:

Single slot execution throughput improvement

Optimization of read and write efficiency for the state database

Better trading pool sorting efficiency

Faster block validation path

These changes essentially reduce the burden on nodes for processing each block. For a long time, Ethereum developers have regarded the gas limit as a security-sensitive value rather than an “expansion button.” This is because increasing the gas limit means that each node has to process more transactions and read more states within a fixed time; if the hardware cannot keep up, it will lead to more nodes going offline, thereby reducing decentralization.

However, after years of optimization, the improvement in client execution efficiency allows nodes to handle larger blocks without adding too much burden.

Secondly, the decrease in hardware costs enables more nodes to have the capability to process larger blocks.

In the past five years, SSD costs have continued to decline, I/O performance has improved, and more nodes have started using NVMe SSDs. This means that the speed of synchronizing full nodes and processing state updates is no longer limited as it was in 2020.

When the limitation of gas limit shifts from “hardware bottleneck” to “risk preference choice”, the natural growth of gas limit becomes a reality.

As a result, an essential effect emerged:

The block capacity has increased.

The cost of a single transaction has become lower.

The cost peak in high-load situations has also significantly decreased.

Even during certain periods, the cost of executing a Uniswap Swap on the Ethereum mainnet aligns with the costs of several L2s.

For a large number of developers who have been deterred by high gas fees on the mainnet for many years, this is a dramatic change. Some developers who originally “had no choice but to go to L2” are beginning to reassess their deployment strategies, and many users are also experiencing the smoothness of the “Ethereum in 2020 feel” for the first time.

Why has the debate between L1 and L2 resurfaced?

In the past 18 months, the market generally believed that the “Rollup-Centric” approach was unquestionable, as evidenced by the launch of L2 and the explosion of TVL. However, with the decrease in mainnet costs, a series of applications that were originally viewed as “must go L2” are reassessing whether they need a complex cross-chain environment.

For developers, the core attractions of L1 include:

• No need to bridge assets, providing a more intuitive user experience.

• The mainnet security is ready to use immediately, without relying on external sequencers.

• The development environment is simpler, without the need to be compatible with multiple chains or fragmented ecosystems.

• Directly enjoy the liquidity and identity system of Ethereum itself.

In simple terms, if the cost of L1 is low enough, its overall development cost may even be lower than deploying multiple L2s. This is also why Vitalik said, “You can just build on L1”—simplifying complexity itself is a form of cost saving.

Does this mean a reversal of modular narrative?

The answer is more likely “no.” Rollup, DA layers, and off-chain proof systems remain the core pillars of Ethereum's long-term scalability roadmap. Simply increasing the gas limit cannot support large-scale global use cases.

The increase of gas limit will not be endless. The history of the Bitcoin community's debate over block size is still fresh: block capacity cannot expand indefinitely, as it will erode decentralization and hardware accessibility. Ethereum's long-term roadmap remains:

L1 Consensus and Settlement

L2 execution of intensive computation

L3 or dedicated chains for high scalability customization

The value of L2 is not to replace L1, but to support the scale that L1 cannot accommodate.

However, under this long-term model, L1 itself still has a clear role: applications with high value and strong security requirements will still prioritize L1, while large-scale applications with low costs will land on L2.

Therefore, the relationship between L1 and L2 is more like functional layering rather than zero-sum competition.

Is confirmation time more critical than transaction fees?

Moreover, someone proposed: “The biggest bottleneck of returning to L1 is not the transaction fees, but the confirmation time of L1.”

This comment highlights the core contradiction: a decrease in fees does not equate to an improved experience. In the current Ethereum, most users can accept gas fees of 1–3 Gwei, but it is hard to accept a confirmation delay of 12 seconds. For many applications based on real-time interaction, delay is more fatal than cost.

In other words, lower transaction fees can attract developers to reassess L1, but whether they actually return to the mainnet still depends on interaction performance, synchronization speed, and predictability.

But the “Mainnet Return” provides a new perspective:

The purpose of scaling is to “lower the entry barrier,” not to “eliminate all applications from L1.”

In the past few years, our narrative has been too binary - as if all applications should ultimately migrate to L2.

The current reality is:

Highly financialized and high-frequency execution applications are suitable for L2.

Infrastructure applications that are sensitive to security and require maximum trust still prefer L1.

Some new applications now have the opportunity to go live directly on L1 and gain better exposure and liquidity.

This is not a modular regression, but rather a balance after the ecosystem has diversified.

Uncertainty is becoming a new risk variable.

However, some people are pessimistic about this. Regarding the return of Ethereum's mainnet, they commented, “Unfortunately, Ethereum is becoming increasingly unpredictable. The L2 paradigm has been canceled, EIP-7825 has broken compatibility, and the foundation is discussing raising the gas cost of SSTORE. In this uncertainty, developers will flee to other chains.”

This reflects another type of industry anxiety: as Ethereum enters a phase of continuous iteration while simultaneously bearing the pressure of harmonizing L1 and L2 ecosystems, the uncertainty of policies and roadmaps itself becomes a cost. The more complex the scaling path, the harder it is for developers to predict the operating environment of applications five years from now.

The decrease in transaction fees could be a positive factor, but the complexity of the roadmap is undermining this advantage.

Some even question: “If L1 becomes completely cheap, will there still be an incentive for L2 to continue innovating? After all, L2 is where everyone experiments with new security models.”

This reflects the relationship between the security model and the market model. The value of L2 lies not only in being “cheap,” but also in being “differentiable” and “experimental,” for example:

New execution environments (MoveVM, SVM, zkVM)

Different sorting models

Data Availability Alternatives

Customized Chain (OP Stack, ZK Stack)

No matter how cheap L1 is, it will not accommodate all experimental designs. What is truly likely to be affected are those L2s that do not offer additional differentiation and only rely on “cheap” as their selling point.

In other words, making L1 cheaper will reset part of the competitive landscape, but it will not kill off highly innovative L2.

Is “returning to the mainnet” a momentary emotion or a long-term trend?

At this stage, “Return to Mainnet” is neither a complete return nor a mere nostalgia, but a reflection on the current narrative of scalability.

Several real factors driving this trend include:

Client optimization → Increase gas limit

The cost of data availability is decreasing.

Execution layer research (parallel, stateless, RISC-V zkVM) is gradually maturing.

The backlash of the complexity of some L2 ecosystems

At the same time, there are also significant limitations that cannot be ignored:

The mainnet confirmation time is still a bottleneck for application experience.

Uncertainty in the roadmap puts pressure on developers.

L2 is still the only scenario for experimentation and differentiated innovation.

Therefore, it can be said that the industry is entering a new narrative cycle:

It is not about abandoning L2, but rather about re-discussing the boundaries and functions of L1 and L2.

It is not about abandoning modularization, but rather about allowing the mainnet to regain its initiative within the modular framework.

The narrative of past scalability was “L2 or bust.”

The current trend is more like “the division of labor between L1 and L2 is being renegotiated.”

Summary

Vitalik's “Build on L1” is not just a slogan, but a market signal:

Developers reassess unnecessary complexity and choose a deployment method that is less costly and simpler.

The impact on Ethereum may include:

The new generation of L1 native applications (identity, protocol derivatives, payment tools) has the opportunity for revival.

Wallets and infrastructure need to be re-optimized for support of the mainnet.

DApp developers can leverage lower costs for experimental innovation.

L2 may adjust its positioning to strengthen its complementary relationship with L1, rather than simply competing for traffic.

Of course, “the mainnet becoming cheaper” does not mean:

Ethereum does not require L2

The gas limit can be infinitely increased.

Fees remain low forever.

Once the market heats up and activity increases, costs may still rise again. Therefore, the “window period” for L1 is more like an opportunity for developers rather than a permanent trend.

Someone commented a very straightforward and realistic statement: “When the cake isn't growing, relationships become complicated; when the entire industry is growing, many problems disappear.” Low fees are not the endpoint, but a signal: the mainnet capabilities are changing, the ecological division of labor is changing, and the narrative of expansion routes is also changing. “Return to the mainnet?” Perhaps it's not a backward step, but rather an entry into a new phase.