The return of Plasma is the death knell for the greedy Rollup
The current L2 market is simply a scene of 'The Emperor's New Clothes.' Everywhere you look, there are Rollups backed by top VCs, with valuations often in the billions of dollars. But what’s the result? Users not only have to endure seemingly cheap but actually outrageously expensive Gas fees during congestion, but they are also repeatedly harvested by project parties in endless 'points tasks.'
When Vitalik brings up Plasma again, it is not just a retro technology but a 'violent demolition' of the existing L2 interest groups.
The core logic of Plasma is extreme data off-chain. In the early years, it was sentenced to death due to its overly complex 'exit mechanism' and users' fear of losing coins. But now, the ZK booster has brought it back to life. Previously, you needed to constantly monitor the ledger to prevent node running away, but now with ZK proofs, every transaction can directly prove its legitimacy to the main chain— even if the child chain crashes, your assets can be safely withdrawn at any time.
What’s more heartbreaking is that the return of Plasma tears off the hypocritical mask of Rollup. Rollup insists on stuffing compressed data into Ethereum, leading to costs that always have a 'hard floor.' Plasma directly overturns this layer of restraint, pursuing interaction at nearly zero cost. For large games and high-frequency social applications that are extremely sensitive to costs, Plasma is the real lifeline.
In 2026, amidst the downturn of altcoins and bloated ecosystems, we no longer need grand 'orthodox' narratives; what we need is freedom without 'toll fees.' The revival of Plasma proves one point: if scaling cannot make it affordable for ordinary people, then such technological progress is better off not existing.
