On February 6, 2026, ENS (Ethereum Name Service) announced the halt of the development of the dedicated Layer 2 network Namechain, changing the originally planned deployment of ENSv2 on L2 to a direct deployment on the Ethereum mainnet. This shift closely follows the Fusaka upgrade completed by Ethereum in 2025: the mainnet gas limit was raised to 60 million, along with changes like EIP-4444, significantly enhancing the execution layer's capacity. The direct result is that the cost of ENS registration, as reported by the media, plummeted from about $5 to $0.05, a reduction of 99%, described as entering the "cent era." In this context of mainnet expansion, a dedicated L2 originally designed to solve performance and cost issues has been actively abandoned, raising a sharp question: as L1 continues to strengthen, is a dedicated L2 still necessary? ENS's decision may very well mark the beginning of a rewrite of the entire industry's technical narrative.
From Expensive to the Cent Era: ENS
● Cost Structure Leap: According to reports from Rhythm and Planet Daily, the Fusaka upgrade in 2025 raised the Ethereum L1 block gas limit to 60 million, combined with changes like EIP-4444, significantly alleviating the long-standing capacity bottleneck of the mainnet. After the upgrade, improvements in throughput and execution efficiency on L1 are no longer just minor adjustments to the "settlement layer," but directly impact the cost curve of specific applications, including middleware like ENS that heavily rely on on-chain write operations.
● Cost Magnitude Reshaping: The same batch of reports indicates that the on-chain cost for ordinary users to register an ENS domain has dropped sharply from about $5 to approximately $0.05, a decrease of up to 99%. From the user's perspective, this means a shift from the high-frequency pain of "a few dollars each time" to a psychological vacuum of "cent pricing," where transaction friction is almost negligible. The statement "ENS registration costs have entered the cent era" quickly spread within the community, becoming a symbolic label for measuring the effectiveness of this round of L1 expansion.
● Historical Pain Points Easing: Looking back over the past few years, discussions within the ENS community about cost issues have hardly ceased: from users being forced to queue for registration during low gas periods to the anxiety of "betting" on gas fluctuations during one-time batch operations, cost has always been a prerequisite in the argument for expanding dedicated L2. Now, as the cost reduction brought by the mainnet is sufficient to alleviate the "pain" in most user scenarios, the logic of Namechain, originally driven by cost and performance, is shaken. L2 is no longer the only seemingly reasonable solution.
Namechain Shelved
● Original Intent and Problem Portrait: Since 2023, ENS began systematically exploring dedicated L2 solutions, with Namechain envisioned as a highly customized network around naming services, designed to handle large-scale registrations, renewals, record updates, and other high-frequency operations. Its goal was to move high gas repetitive writes off the mainnet, ensuring security while providing ENS users with lower fees, faster confirmations, and more flexible functional expansion through Rollup or dedicated chain architecture, responding to the long-standing "expensive and congested" reality of Ethereum L1 at that time.
● Emergence of a Turning Point: The Fusaka upgrade in 2025 changed the planning boundaries. With the gas limit raised to 60 million and execution load restructured, the ENS team gradually concluded in subsequent evaluations that, for current and foreseeable demand, Ethereum L1 is sufficient to support the core functions of ENS. When the cost of registration and management operations on the mainnet is compressed to the $0.05 level, the "necessity" of Namechain is no longer indisputable. The additional complexity and risks introduced by maintaining a dedicated L2 begin to be difficult to justify simply by "better performance."
● The First Middleware to Withdraw: Against this backdrop, on February 6, 2026, ENS officially announced the termination of Namechain development, with ENSv2 changing to direct deployment on the mainnet, becoming one of the first and currently most typical large middleware projects to actively abandon dedicated L2 due to L1 expansion. Unlike past projects that followed a one-way narrative of "migrating from L1 to L2," this time it is a protocol that has deeply embraced the expansion route, choosing to revert to L1 after the mainnet's capabilities have been enhanced. This symbolic significance should not be overlooked in the debate over technical routes.
Idealism vs. Pragmatism: ENS's Governance Choice
● The Pull Between Vision and Efficiency: In the early discussions within the ENS community about Namechain, supporters emphasized the imaginative space of dedicated L2: it could provide a tailored execution environment for the naming system, optimize state storage, introduce more flexible billing models, and even explore deeper integration with traditional systems like DNS in the long run. This represents a strong "idealistic" path—granting an important middleware its own sovereign execution layer; in contrast, the pragmatic camp advocates continuing to rely on the mature infrastructure of the mainnet to maximize existing ecological synergy.
● Shift in Governance Discussion Focus: After the Fusaka upgrade slashed registration costs from $5 to $0.05, the focus of governance discussions within the community clearly shifted from "technical optimal solutions" to "economic optimization and maintenance costs." A dedicated L2 entails additional costs for monitoring, operations, security audits, bridging, and cross-domain governance. These could be seen as "necessary costs" during the expensive gas era, but after the mainnet has resolved most cost issues, they gradually become an unavoidable burden. ENS's final route adjustment reflects the grounding of this topic reordering at the governance level.
● Multidimensional Considerations Behind Trade-offs: Decision-making does not revolve solely around the single dimension of cost. Returning to L1 helps simplify the user experience—fewer cross-chain bridges and network switches also mean anchoring more security directly on Ethereum consensus. At the same time, abandoning Namechain frees up development and governance resources, allowing for a focus on the evolution of the protocol's own functions. However, the cost is that ENS's "sovereign space" in terms of customizability and performance is compressed, requiring design within the constraints of a general-purpose mainnet. This represents a practical compromise among user experience, degree of decentralization, and allocation of development resources.
L1 Reflux Signal: New Equilibrium in Middleware Collaboration
● ENS as a Sample in Industry Context: ENS's choice is not an isolated event but gains strength when placed within the larger narrative of expansion. Over the past few years, middleware and DApps have almost reached a consensus on "migrating to L2" in their expansion strategies, from general Rollups to dedicated Rollups, and various Appchains, with the mainstream logic being "the mainnet only does settlement." Now, with upgrades like Fusaka substantially increasing L1's capacity, ENS demonstrates through action another path: when the foundational layer becomes cheap and efficient enough, many middleware can operate healthily on the mainnet.
● From Embracing to Reflecting on the Dedicated Rollup Wave: In previous waves, many projects viewed dedicated Rollups as a natural evolutionary direction to enhance control and performance, with TVL and chain numbers seen as symbols of "progress." ENS's recent "return to the mainnet" action suggests a subtle reversal in market route competition: not all applications need a dedicated chain. As L1's capabilities strengthen, some projects may reassess whether they are truly "pushing the limits" in performance and cost or are being overly engineered by the narrative.
● New Balance of Security, Liquidity, and Complexity: The expansion of L1 brings not only cost reductions but also makes "staying on the mainnet" more attractive in terms of security and liquidity aggregation. Projects need to find a new balance among the three when planning their routes: the mainnet provides the highest level of security and deepest liquidity but sacrifices some customization; dedicated L2 offers freedom and potential performance improvements but introduces more system complexity and bridging risks. ENS's return indicates that in a world where L1 is becoming stronger, this balance point is shifting towards "closer to the mainnet."
A Technological Narrative Forced to Rewrite: The Ethereum Mainnet is No Longer Just a Settlement Layer
● Narrative Transition from Abstraction to Practicality: The combination of upgrades like Fusaka and EIP-4444 is seen by many as "infrastructure fine-tuning" in Ethereum's route, while ENS's decision provides the first tangible feedback at the application layer from such upgrades: the mainnet is not only optimizing the settlement layer but is also effectively restoring part of its role as a "usable execution layer." The once-popular slogan "L1 only does settlement" must be reexamined in light of the actual 99% cost reduction—at least for some middleware, L1's execution capability once again holds real appeal.
● Who Benefits from Expansion, Who is Under Pressure: The direct beneficiaries of this round of L1 expansion are those protocols that pursue Ethereum's security while not having extreme performance demands, such as ENS, which frequently updates state but has limited resource consumption per operation. In contrast, those business models highly tied to "dedicated L2 logic"—for example, service providers that quickly launch chains for small and medium projects, promoting "must-have their own Rollup"—may face narrative pressure and need to re-emphasize their differentiated value rather than relying solely on mainnet congestion as a reason for existence.
● Elevation of Middleware Discourse Power: ENS's route adjustment also suggests that as the foundational layer's capabilities continue to evolve, the discourse power of middleware protocols themselves will rise in discussions about expansion routes. They are not just passive "users" but also influence the community's understanding of the division of labor between L1 and L2 through their deployment choices, performance feedback, and governance consensus. In the future, as more key middleware make different combinations between L1 and L2, the entire Ethereum ecosystem's expansion narrative may shift from a one-way "Layer stacking" to a multi-centered dialogue sculpted by specific protocol practices.
After ENS: Will the L2 Narrative Recede or Evolve?
ENS's abandonment of Namechain and shift to direct deployment on the Ethereum mainnet is essentially a comprehensive trade-off around cost, complexity, and security margins. The Fusaka upgrade raised the gas limit to 60 million, reducing ENS registration costs from about $5 to $0.05, weakening the economic necessity of dedicated L2; meanwhile, the operational, security, and governance complexities required to maintain an independent L2 appear difficult to be fully offset by user experience and performance gains in this context. The choice to return to the mainnet is a practical decision made between maximizing security, concentrating development resources, and simplifying user pathways.
Looking ahead to the next few years, as Ethereum continues to upgrade along its established route, the relationship between L1 and L2 is likely to evolve from an early simplified "substitutive relationship" (L2 replacing L1 execution) to a more nuanced "layered collaboration": L1 provides a security and liquidity foundation at acceptable costs for a broader range of applications, while L2 offers customized environments for extreme performance, specific business logic, or compliance needs. Middleware protocols like ENS may switch back and forth between the two at different stages, forming a more dynamic deployment strategy.
For readers, a question worth continuously asking is: in a world where the mainnet is constantly expanding and execution capabilities are continually enhancing, what truly irreplaceable needs should dedicated L2 still address? If it is merely "cheaper" and "faster," then when L1 itself has already lowered the threshold to the cent level, L2 must provide new value answers to stand firm in the next round of technical and governance competition.
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