Gnosis Chain has approved a transition from being a Layer 1 blockchain to an Ethereum-based Layer 2 network, and the source argues the unusual part is not the shift itself but the framework behind it.
The article notes that Gnosis will be familiar to users who entered crypto early. In its telling, the project’s best-known product was not its current L1 chain but its Ethereum multisig wallet. The author says they were once one of its users and used it often during development experiments with friends before eventually moving on.
According to the piece, Gnosis later moved into building its own Layer 1 chain, which became what is now known as Gnosis Chain. The author writes that after the chain launched, they did not use it and did not see former users of the multisig wallet around them using it either, so the project gradually faded from view until the recent L2 transition brought it back into focus.
The L1-to-L2 shift is not the main point
The source says turning an L1 into an Ethereum L2 is neither new nor surprising. It repeats the author’s earlier view that most L1 networks will eventually either die or attach themselves to Ethereum as L2s, a position the article says has also appeared in reader comments.
What makes Gnosis different in this case, the article says, is its choice of technology. It is not adopting a common OP-based design, and it is not taking a standard ZK route either. Instead, it is using EEZ, short for Ethereum Economic Zone, a new framework proposed jointly by Gnosis and Zisk.
What EEZ is trying to fix
The source describes one of EEZ’s core ideas as synchronization between Ethereum mainnet and L2s. It says this is aimed at three issues:
- cross-chain security for L2s;
- Ethereum mainnet’s inability to capture and share the value extracted by L2s;
- L2 isolation and liquidity fragmentation.
The article says communication between Ethereum mainnet and L2s, or between one L2 and another, now usually depends on either official bridges or third-party bridges.
With official bridges, users may need to wait through a 7-day challenge period, or, even with zero-knowledge proofs, still wait anywhere from several minutes to several hours. With third-party bridges, faster confirmation comes from using outside liquidity, but that requires those providers to have enough liquidity in place. The article adds that these bridges also face major security pressure and are frequent hacker targets.
Same-block confirmation instead of bridges
EEZ, as presented in the article, avoids the bridge model and uses zero-knowledge proofs so all L2s can confirm each other’s transactions in the same Ethereum mainnet block. The source compares that to executing different contracts on the same chain. In that framing, the approach reduces reliance on third parties and removes long waiting times.
The article says this is how EEZ addresses cross-chain security for L2s.
Sequencing rights would move back to Ethereum validators
On the question of value capture, the source calls Ethereum mainnet’s inability to capture and share L2-extracted value a long-standing and public problem, and one reason many critics say Ethereum struggles to secure value support.
Its description of the EEZ plan is direct: sequencing rights for L2 transactions would be handed back to Ethereum mainnet validators, reclaiming value capture and requiring all L2s in the system to use Ethereum as the settlement currency.
A route toward shared liquidity
For L2 isolation and liquidity fragmentation, the article points to Uniswap’s separate DEX deployments across different L2s as a visible example of how fragmented the market has become.
It says EEZ would use millisecond- or second-level real-time zero-knowledge proofs provided by Zisk to verify the cryptographic state of both the source chain and the destination chain within the same Ethereum mainnet block time of 12 seconds, making synchronized cross-chain calls possible.
From a user’s perspective, the article says, a DEX on Arbitrum could directly match liquidity orders from Robinhood or other EEZ member chains. A trade would either complete in full or be fully rolled back, preserving atomicity and avoiding an ambiguous middle state.
Under that model, DeFi protocols would no longer need to maintain separate liquidity pools on every L2. If a pool is deployed on any EEZ L2 or on mainnet, other L2s in the zone could detect and use that liquidity. The article’s view is that this could ease the liquidity fragmentation problem.
The biggest obstacle: giving up sequencing power
The source also says EEZ faces a major execution hurdle. L2s would need to give up the sequencing rights they currently hold, and the article describes that power as the handle on their fiscal revenue.
In that sense, Gnosis Chain is presented as the first demonstration case.
Even so, the article questions how much influence Gnosis alone can have, given what it describes as a weak ecosystem around the chain. To turn this into a broader trend, it argues, larger players such as Base, Arbitrum, or Robinhood’s chain would need to set an example.
The piece ends on a practical question rather than a firm answer: who would willingly give up an established interest to benefit the wider ecosystem? Its conclusion is that only time will tell.
