2026-01-19 16:21:33

It's curious how few people bring up what's really happening under the hood with Layer 2 solutions. When you strip away the marketing, a single entity essentially controls the whole stack—sequencers, bridges, upgrade keys, the smart contract logic itself, withdrawal mechanics, and emergency pause functions. All in one place.

Yet somehow this rarely enters the conversation when comparing to Solana's 800-validator security model and its distributed validator ecosystem. The narrative around centralization tends to flow in one direction, but the technical reality of L2 architecture tells a different story. Worth examining where the actual control really sits.

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TokenRationEater

· 17h ago

Really? The set of phrases about L2 indeed obscures a lot. Sequencer, bridge, upgrade permissions are all controlled by a single entity. How can they still have the audacity to compare themselves to Solana's distributed validators... The double standards are outrageous.

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HallucinationGrower

· 17h ago

This is outrageous. The level of centralization of L2 has always been ignored, while they keep praising decentralization every day.

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LayoffMiner

· 17h ago

The centralization issue of L2 has indeed been underestimated; relying solely on marketing narratives cannot conceal the reality of single-point control.

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GoldDiggerDuck

· 17h ago

Haha, this is what I want to see. L2 project teams boast about decentralization every day, but in reality, one entity controls all the vital aspects... Laughing to death. Solana's 800 validators are indeed much better than the single point of failure in L2s, but it seems no one dares to say that directly. Speaking of which, these L2 sequencers should all be open source; otherwise, it's all just talk. It feels like everyone is willfully turning a blind eye. The true power structure never appears in marketing materials. The core is who holds the withdrawal rights and makes the decisions; everything else is just a story. If L2 were truly meant to be distributed, it should have been done long ago. The fact that it's been delayed until now suggests it’s intentional. How much money has been invested in L2 over the past two years... yet the architecture remains the same. Is it a lack of technology or just laziness?

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ImpermanentLossFan

· 17h ago

That L2 setup concentrates all authority in a single entity—aren't they playing with fire? And they still have the nerve to call themselves decentralized... Meanwhile, Solana has 800 validation nodes distributed much more evenly, which is quite ironic.

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