Vitalik revealed that every Layer 2 has a "backdoor." Is security better than centralization?

Written by: TechFlow Butcher

In a shocking statement, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin mentioned in a leaked video that every Layer 2 and Rollup (scaling solution) on Ethereum has a backdoor for developers to access and make changes when necessary.

Vitalik said he has talked to the upgrade team, "What they want to do next year is to start taking off the training wheels."

Regarding this statement, public opinion is divided into two camps.

One viewpoint believes that the existence of a "backdoor" mechanism is not a secret and can be understood and accepted.

Since the DAO hack in 2016, this practice has been in place, as vulnerabilities in smart contracts can lead to devastating consequences.

Most of the L2s currently running on Ethereum have only a few months of history, and it is expected that bugs will occur with these new protocols. Therefore, smart contract developers usually implement a mechanism that can freeze contracts, upgrade contracts, and even, in some cases, reverse changes to contracts.

For a new Dapp or protocol, launching without some fail-safe mechanisms is too risky, as audits cannot guarantee that vulnerabilities won't arise.

Thus, it is not surprising that these L2s also have these mechanisms. They are currently centralized in other aspects, such as sequencers, but the ultimate goal remains decentralization, which is always a process that everyone can understand.

However, there are also those who disagree, believing that Ethereum's decentralization is merely a facade.

For instance, in response to Vitalik's remarks, Cardano community leader Chris O stated on Twitter that Vitalik's comments reveal that Ethereum is not as immutable, permissionless, or censorship-resistant as people think, and he took the opportunity to promote ADA.

"Ethereum is not a true cryptocurrency; at this point, I don't think anyone would question that Cardano and Bitcoin (which are less centralized) are the only true cryptocurrencies in this field."

In Ethereum's past practices, there has been a mechanism for upgrades through forking to address security issues, but this upgrade is done in a decentralized manner, where nodes can choose whether to upgrade. If there is no agreement from the majority of forkers and node operators, the upgrade cannot be completed.

However, in Layer 2, there is no such decentralized forking upgrade mechanism, which creates a dilemma. Without an upgrade mechanism, removing this "backdoor" can be considered too risky, but it indeed contradicts the principle of decentralization.

Similar to how Tether and Circle behind USDT and USDC can freeze USDT and USDC during significant security incidents to save stolen assets, it is likely that project teams also want to hold the keys to the ultimate fate of L2 in their hands.

"After all, safety is better with centralization."