Scroll Co-Founder Ye Zhang Blasts Ethereum Fee Proposals: "Toxic for the Future"

"Charging Rollup Fees is a Short-Sighted Cash Grab," Says Zhang

Ye Zhang, the fiery co-founder of the layer-2 powerhouse Scroll, has come out swinging against proposals to slap fees on Ethereum rollups. In a no-holds-barred takedown, Zhang branded the idea as "one of the most toxic ideas for Ethereum's future."

Zhang didn't pull any punches, unleashing a barrage of posts on X to vent his frustration. He tore into the notion of trading "long-term scalability and ecosystem growth for short-term revenue," calling it a strategy better suited to "centralized corps, not credibly neutral platforms." Zhang made it crystal clear that measuring ETH's value by Ethereum's revenue is missing the damn point.

In his words, "Tariffing L2s is one of the most toxic ideas for Ethereum's future. It trades long-term scalability and ecosystem growth for short-term revenue — a strategy fit for centralized corps, not credibly neutral platforms."

Zhang hammered home the point that Ethereum's real strength lies in being "the hub asset across thousands of rollup ecosystems," not in squeezing them for cash. He pointed out that after the EIP-4488 upgrade supercharged layer-2 scalability, Ethereum's fees plummeted from tens of millions per day to a mere $570,000 by late March.

Zhang drew a sharp contrast between Ethereum and Solana, calling Solana's network "vertically integrated" with its SOL token as the core asset. Meanwhile, he boasted that ETH is "already the dominant asset on Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync, Scroll — and even where it's not the gas token (like StarkNet)."

The Scroll co-founder issued a stark warning that charging fees on rollups could spectacularly backfire. He cautioned that it might drive them towards alternative data availability solutions, ultimately weakening Ethereum's grip on the ecosystem. Zhang didn't mince words, stating that if Ethereum gets "greedy" and starts taxing layer-2s, the network would lose "relevance while still failing to scale."

Instead of bleeding rollups dry, Zhang urged Ethereum to keep its eye on the prize: scaling and shipping upgrades faster. And he's not alone in his concerns about Ethereum's glacial pace. Even former Ethereum Foundation Solidity expert Harikrishnan Mulackal has hinted at internal confusion causing frequent disagreements and repeated delays in the Ethereum development community.