End the L2 chaos! The Ethereum community proposes the "Economic Zone EEZ" to resolve cross-Rollup transactions and liquidity issues all at once.

Gnosis and Zisk, supported by the Ethereum Foundation, have proposed the “Ethereum Economic Zone” (EEZ) framework, aiming to enable smart contracts across different Rollups to execute cross-chain synchronously within a single transaction, without the need for bridging infrastructure—directly addressing the core pain point of Ethereum L2 fragmentation.
(Background: Vitalik’s attitude takes a turn! For the first time, he supports Native Rollups, stating that the timeline for ZK technology has finally aligned.)
(Background Supplement: Analysis》Why is Vitalik worried about the development of Rollups? What path should Layer 2 take?)

Table of Contents

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• One transaction, multiple chains: Core design of EEZ
• The fragmentation dilemma of $40 billion liquidity
• Vitalik’s warning and the divergence within the L2 circle
• Can a unified standard truly be implemented?

Making a call across Rollups now feels like a journey halfway around the globe—this is the current state of the Ethereum L2 ecosystem. Gnosis and the zero-knowledge proof project Zisk, backed by the Ethereum Foundation, officially unveiled the “Ethereum Economic Zone” (EEZ) at EthCC Cannes, claiming to fundamentally dismantle this wall.

One transaction, multiple chains: Core design of EEZ

The key breakthrough of the EEZ framework lies in “synchronous cross-network execution”—smart contracts deployed on different Rollups can directly call each other within a single transaction, with final settlement back to the Ethereum mainnet, maintaining the same security guarantees as contracts directly deployed on the main chain. ETH is used as the default gas token, and the entire mechanism does not require additional bridging infrastructure.

This is entirely different from existing cross-chain bridge solutions: traditional bridging requires locking assets, waiting for confirmations, and bearing the risks of bridging contracts; under the EEZ architecture, contracts on connected Rollups can directly call mainnet contracts, compressing the process into a single atomic transaction. Reports indicate that EEZ has formed the “EEZ Alliance,” with founding members including Aave, Titan, Beaver Build, Centrifuge, and xStocks, organized as a Swiss non-profit, with all software being open-source.

Jordi Baylina, founder of Zisk, is the original designer of Polygon zkEVM, and his background in zero-knowledge proofs supports the technical feasibility of EEZ. The development team is expected to release technical details and performance benchmarks in the coming weeks, explaining how the framework can be implemented in a broader Ethereum ecosystem.

The fragmentation dilemma of $40 billion liquidity

Ethereum’s Rollup scaling route has been ongoing for several years, bringing throughput but also fragmentation. According to L2BEAT data, there are currently over 20 active L2 networks collectively locking nearly $40 billion, with liquidity dispersed across independent environments like Arbitrum, Base, and Optimism.

Users moving assets between different L2s often face complex bridging processes, extra fees, and potential contract risks. For developers, the same infrastructure needs to be redeployed across multiple chains, causing maintenance costs to rise linearly. The EEZ proposal directly targets this structural problem: enabling applications to share cross-Rollup infrastructure while retaining the settlement guarantees of the Ethereum main chain, eliminating the need for redundant construction and cross-chain transfers.

Vitalik’s warning and the divergence within the L2 circle

This proposal did not emerge from thin air but is situated within an ongoing community debate. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has publicly warned against certain L2’s centralized sequencer designs and trusted bridging mechanisms.

There have recently been some discussions on the ongoing role of L2s in the Ethereum ecosystem, especially in the face of two facts:

• L2s’ progress to stage 2 (and, secondarily, on interop) has been far slower and more difficult than originally expected
• L1 itself is scaling,…

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) February 3, 2026

“The original vision of L2 and its role in Ethereum no longer makes sense; we need a new path,” Buterin stated frankly in an X post on February 3. This statement has sparked evident divergence among L2 builders: Optimism co-founder Karl Floersch agrees that L2 must evolve beyond mere scaling; Offchain Labs (Arbitrum) co-founder Steven Goldfeder insists that scaling itself remains a core function, with no common ground between the two positions.

Can a unified standard truly be implemented?

Beyond technical feasibility, the biggest challenge facing EEZ may be ecological coordination itself. Mainstream L2s like Arbitrum, Base, and Optimism each have established tech stacks and commercial interests, and historically, there have been few precedents for getting them to converge on a common standard. The establishment of EEZ Alliance provides a coordination platform, but the founding member list does not yet include several of the largest L2s by market cap.

The endorsement from the Ethereum Foundation lends a degree of legitimacy to this framework; Jordi Baylina’s technical reputation in the ZK space also raises expectations for performance metrics. The upcoming technical documentation and benchmark tests in the next few weeks will be the first hurdle for EEZ to gain broader adoption—only then will the market be able to determine whether this is the true solution to Ethereum’s fragmentation problem or just another idealistic proposal.