Ethereum News Today: Ethereum's Scaling Push Sparks Security Debate: Can Speed Survive Scrutiny?

Web3 Focuses on Tangible Proof Over Popular Metrics

The cryptocurrency landscape is shifting toward metrics that emphasize tangible utility and institutional-grade infrastructure, moving away from speculative hype. This trend is evident in two key developments: institutional capital's focus on established altcoins and Ethereum's evolving scalability solutions.

Institutional investors are increasingly prioritizing older altcoins like XRP and Cardano (ADA) as potential beneficiaries of altcoin season 2025. Experts predict that these "dinosaur" coins, which have regulatory clarity and ETF approval prospects, will capture the bulk of traditional finance inflows. Maen Ftouni, CEO of CoinQuant, highlighted at the Global Blockchain Congress 2025 that liquidity is concentrating in these established assets, driven by ETF-driven capital flows, according to a a CardanoFeed report. With over 26 million crypto tokens diluting demand, analysts warn that broad market rallies are unlikely, and instead, short-lived surges in select tokens will dominate, as the CardanoFeed report notes.

Ethereum's scaling innovations are also reshaping Web3's infrastructure priorities. Vitalik Buterin recently praised ZKsync's Atlas upgrade for transforming the network into a real-time liquidity hub, enabling 15,000 transactions per second and near-zero fees, according to a Coinfomania article. The upgrade allows Layer-2 chains to access Ethereum's liquidity directly, eliminating the need for fragmented pools and accelerating cross-chain interactions, as Cryptofront News reports. This advancement supports institutional applications like real-world asset (RWA) integration and strengthens Ethereum's role as a global financial settlement layer, a point also made in the Coinfomania coverage.

However, debates persist over the security of Ethereum's Layer-2 solutions. Buterin defended L2s' resilience against 51% attacks, citing Ethereum's robust validator network of over one million participants, according to a Yahoo Finance interview. Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko challenged this view, arguing that L2s expose vulnerabilities through complex codebases, multi-signature custody risks, and off-chain centralization — an argument he made in the same Yahoo Finance piece. The debate underscores growing scrutiny over whether scaling solutions can maintain decentralization while meeting institutional demands for efficiency.

The convergence of these trends highlights a maturing Web3 ecosystem. Institutional capital is gravitating toward assets with proven compliance and utility, while Ethereum's technical upgrades aim to balance scalability with security. As the number of Layer-2 networks expands—L2Beat now tracks 129 verified chains—the industry faces a critical question: Can innovation in infrastructure outpace the challenges of fragmentation and security? For now, the focus remains on projects delivering measurable, real-world value over fleeting metrics.