Recently, the community has been buzzing about the argument that Layer2 is draining Ethereum L1. The data is in front of us: Base can earn $75 million in a year, while the revenue of the Ethereum mainnet is shrinking. No matter how you look at it, it seems like L2 is eating the mainnet's lunch. Suddenly, the "L2 parasitism theory" is everywhere, and many ETH holders are complaining that L2 is a "white-eyed wolf."

But the truth may not be so simple. From a five-year industry perspective, this kind of argument is completely backwards. L2 is not a vampire; rather, it acts like a "pioneer" helping Ethereum expand its territory—that's the most ingenious symbiotic relationship in the crypto space.

To put it plainly, without L2, Ethereum would have been overwhelmed by its own high gas fees long ago. Remember 2023? A single transfer could cost dozens of dollars, scaring off retail users and causing developers to start fleeing. Later, the two upgrades, Dencun and Fusaka, revitalized Layer2 solutions, slashing transaction fees to about one-tenth of the original, and the ecosystem came back to life. Now, L2 handles the vast majority of high-frequency small transactions, which might look like it’s taking the mainnet’s share, but in reality, it’s helping the mainnet "clean up junk traffic"—allowing Ethereum to focus on high-value activities like large-value settlements and cross-chain assets.

Some might say, "L2 makes more money, L1 makes less—this is the son surpassing the father." But this logic is quite shallow. Looking from a different angle: Taobao’s profit often exceeds that of the entire Alibaba Group’s direct subsidiaries, but no one would say Taobao is draining Alibaba, right? Essentially, L2 upgrades the "retail model" to a "wholesale model"—per-transaction profit may decrease, but transaction volume doubles. Moreover, as the ecosystem continues to iterate and optimize, this complementary relationship will only deepen.