In recent days, discussions around Ethereum layer 2 have intensified. An SEC commissioner stated on a podcast that relying on centralized sequencers should be considered as being akin to an "exchange," while @Scroll_ZKP suddenly announced a pause on decentralized DAO governance. Additionally, @Optimism has seen a number of core developers leave recently. The market's hesitation and anxiety regarding Ethereum layer 2 have increased, highlighting the daunting technical debt of Ethereum! Here are my personal views: 1) The issue of decentralized sequencers is clearly not timely for discussion now, as most mainstream layer 2s like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base are centralized sequencers. @VitalikButerin has proposed a technical alignment roadmap from stage 0 to stage 2 and has also suggested a pragmatic path for one-hour withdrawals. Although @MetisL2 has implemented a decentralized sequencer, it is only being utilized on a small scale within its own ecosystem. The underlying message of all these realities is clear: the decentralization issue of layer 2 is temporarily unsolvable. Therefore, discussing whether it will be recognized as an exchange is not very meaningful; 2) The pause of decentralized DAO governance by Scroll can be interpreted in various ways. One could argue that Scroll, which originally could not achieve the trustless characteristics of decentralized sequencer technology, has now also given up on decentralized DAO governance, marking the failure of the decentralized layer 2 zkEVM "experiment." However, this may not be entirely negative; it could also mean that as the team pushes for commercialization, DAO governance has become a burden. Since decentralization of the sequencer is unachievable, the decentralization of DAO governance is merely formalism. Why not abandon it in favor of embracing flexibility and efficiency for a rebirth; 3) The departure of core developers from the @Optimism team is a superficial event reflecting layer 2's loss of market narrative dominance. The real question to consider is why Hyperliquid and Stripe (Tempo) have chosen to pursue independent chains. Will chains currently relying on layer 2 technology, such as Base, Robinhood, and Upbit, also withdraw from layer 2 one day? By the way, there’s also an L2 camp, @megaeth_labs, waiting for market validation. Is layer 2 truly lacking the nourishing soil for sustained growth? All signs indicate that general layer 2 will inevitably lose out in the competition against high-performance layer 1. Relying solely on Ethereum's security inheritance cannot support the ecological prosperity of layer 2. It must either transform into specific layer 2s to compete with other layer 1s or await a blood sacrifice. The process of liquidating Ethereum's technical debt may be more brutal than everyone imagines.