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Comment by msm_ | Hacker News Reader

Do you recommend any "Ethereum L2"s? I'm only vaguely familiar with the concept, and didn't hear about a single Ethereum L2 in the wild. Quick google led me to Arbitrum, Optimism, and Boba. Do you honestly think they may compete with PayPal in terms of usabilty, fees and transaction speed in the near future? Are there any caveats (other than their immaturity)?

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If “near future” is 3-5 years then yes. Four interesting protocols in early development: Optimism, Arbitrum, zkSync, Scroll. These already all compete with PayPal in fees & transaction time, but not in UX, features, and widespread use. In theory they could provide similar frontend web UX, but with the option to hold tokens non-custodially so you could withdraw & exit the protocol without having to ask permission.

(IMHO it’s likely that other tech/protocols will emerge in 3-5 yrs that supersedes the protocols in development today.)

Lots of typical crypto caveats - eg: USDC on an L2 is centralized around Circle’s ability to redeem. Protocols can have bugs that make coins go poof. Non custodial ownership is harder for many users than asking PayPal or a bank not to lose their funds. L2s specifically are typically run by a single sequencer who could potentially disrupt your ability to use the network smoothly (but then you could use an escape hatch to permissionlessly get your funds out if that happens).

Fees and Transaction speed definitely - with new upgrades coming out in the next year (EIP4844) L2s can handle thousands of transactions per second.

The UI is really up to the apps, the good thing is there are many teams working on payments so there will be plenty to choose from to find the UI you like, and people will be able to pay via the same wallet. Stripe already has USDC payments on crypto rails and Visa is working with Starknet to integrate with these L2s too.

All the L2s with their usage, security, speed and tradeoffs are at http://l2beat.com

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