Vitalik Buterin criticizes copy-paste Ethereum scaling projects

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has pushed back against what he described as a lack of originality in the current layer-2 and blockchain scaling landscape.

Summary

• Vitalik Buterin criticized the growing trend of launching similar EVM-based layer-2 chains, arguing that copy-paste designs have slowed meaningful innovation in Ethereum’s scaling ecosystem.
• He said Ethereum’s base layer is already scaling and will provide significant blockspace, reducing the need for additional generic layer-1 networks or loosely connected EVM chains.
• Buterin urged developers to build systems that offer genuinely new capabilities and to align their branding with how closely their projects are actually connected to Ethereum.

In a blog post published earlier today, Buterin said the ecosystem has grown too comfortable with launching similar EVM-based chains that add little technical innovation.

“We don’t need more copypasta EVM chains,” Says Vitalik Buterin

Buterin argued that creating yet another EVM chain with an optimistic bridge to Ethereum (ETH) and a week-long withdrawal delay has become a default approach.

He compared the trend to the early days of DeFi governance, when repeated forks of protocols like Compound stifled innovation.

According to Buterin, this pattern has “sapped imagination” and pushed infrastructure development into a dead end. He was even more critical of EVM chains that lack a meaningful connection to Ethereum, saying the ecosystem does not need more standalone layer-1 networks.

Buterin also noted that Ethereum’s base layer is already scaling and will continue to provide significantly more EVM-compatible blockspace. While not infinite, he said Ethereum will be able to support a wide range of applications.

Moreover, Buterin has recently raised broader concerns about how decisions are made within the Ethereum ecosystem. In a previous blog post, he argued that governance should move away from informal, sentiment-driven decision-making and toward more structured, accountable mechanisms.

Call for meaningful innovation

Instead, Buterin urged developers to focus on building systems that introduce genuinely new capabilities. He pointed to privacy-focused designs, application-specific efficiency, and ultra-low latency execution as examples.

Buterin also criticized projects that present themselves as tightly connected to Ethereum while maintaining only minimal or superficial links.

He said teams should be honest about how dependent they actually are on Ethereum.