Kenny Li, the co-founder and COO of Manta Pacific, believes that out of the 44 active Ethereum layer-2 (L2) blockchains currently in existence, only a few will survive in the next five years. According to data from L2Beat, these 44 L2 networks have a combined total value locked (TVL) of $36.92 billion, with Arbitrum leading the pack at $14.5 billion TVL. However, Li argues that the future belongs to “modular” blockchains like Manta, Celestia, and Cosmos.
Critics, on the other hand, dismiss this perspective as a mere “marketing stunt,” claiming that a network’s success has nothing to do with its approach to development and scalability. Li compares the flood of new L2s on the Ethereum network to the forks of Bitcoin and Ethereum in the past, none of which survived.
Li points out that Bitcoin forks like Bitcoin Cash and BSV took an existing technology and made minor changes to it, claiming to create something better than Bitcoin. The same trend occurred with Ethereum in 2016, when networks like EOS and NEO positioned themselves as “Ethereum killers” by offering alternative Ethereum Virtual Machine and VM environments with slight tweaks. Li believes that the central issue with these forks was that they were built monolithically, lacking the ability to integrate new technology quickly.
In contrast, Li sees modular blockchains as the way forward. These networks export their primary tasks to external blockchains, allowing for greater design flexibility. On the other hand, monolithic blockchains prioritize a single-system architecture that handles all tasks within a single layer.
Some, like Austin Federa, head of strategy at the Solana Foundation, consider the debate between “modular vs. monolithic” as a marketing stunt introduced by Celestia. Federa argues that the terms are not a natural or useful distinction. Li claims that Manta, launched on Jan. 18, is the first and largest modular L2 network on Ethereum.
While Li believes in the modular approach, Federa believes that both approaches have their merits and that they are not fundamentally different from each other. According to Federa, monolithic networks handle tasks in a single layer, while modular networks complete the same functions across several layers.
In conclusion, Li believes that the future belongs to modular blockchains like Manta, Celestia, and Cosmos, while critics argue that the distinction between modular and monolithic is a marketing tactic. Both approaches have their merits, and it remains to be seen which will prevail in the long run.