# Ethereum has gotten stronger

Source: https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/1826506920393355347
Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Ethereum-has-gotten-stronger?index=0x66c7065946581f2a2899d150c353bebc862263e44c97caa4cdc9446a206904234c0eae33
Submitted by macbudkowski.eth on 2024-08-22 UTC, 2 upvotes, 0 comments

## Summary

Ethereum's fundamentals are described as "actually crazy strong right now," with the author listing improvements across the network. Layer 2 transaction fees are now under $0.01, and Optimism and Arbitrum are both at stage 1. Other claimed gains include more mature zero-knowledge tooling, early second-generation privacy tools such as 0xbow, and clearer roadmaps for account abstraction and block construction. The post also says staking decentralization has remained stable and that the claim that proof-of-stake is more centralized than proof-of-work has proven false.

## Article

Ethereum has gotten stronger:

* Under $0.01 txfees on L2
* Two EVM L2s (@Optimism @arbitrum) now at stage 1
* Cross-L2 wallet UX has improved a lot (eg. no more manually switching networks), though still a long way to go
* Much more powerful and mature ZK tooling making life easier for app builders
* Starting to see second-generation privacy tools (eg. @0xbowio )
* Identity/reputation/credentials ecosystem much more powerful, and starting to actually be used more and more
* Progress on STARKs leads to much clearer long-term security and decentralization story
* Much more clarity on account abstraction roadmap
* Much more clarity on block construction endgame (it seems to be down to FOCIL + APS vs multi-proposer)
* Staking decentralization stable (see comparison charts below, the "PoS is more centralized than PoW" line has proven completely false)

The fundamentals for Ethereum are actually crazy strong right now.