Lastly, we see strong growth and a shift toward off-chain execution continuing for several reasons. First, the Ethereum protocol continues to move in this direction and will particularly do so with its next upgrade, including proto-danksharding, which expands Ethereum’s data availability capabilities. Moreover, not only is the base layer itself improving, but so, too, are the layer 2s, with improved decentralization and new paradigms around interconnectivity and shared security ahead. And these base and secondary layer improvements will come together to enable new use cases and functionality, creating a virtuous cycle. Portended by rising ecosystem transaction counts, Ethereum is perhaps on its way to becoming the world’s settlement layer.
