An Ethereum layer 2 is a network of its own that executes transactions outside the Ethereum blockchain, bundles them and settles them on Ethereum in batches. It is faster and cheaper than Ethereum itself and hangs on Ethereum for exactly that reason: the security comes from below. Starknet put that dependency to a vote among its token holders last week. The record shows this: the vote ran from October 15 to 22, 2026, 93.52 percent of the voting power cast across 3,236 votes came out in favour of researching an exit from the layer 2 model, and a move is not thereby decided, because that would need a second, binding vote. Our assessment follows further below: two things matter for holders over the coming months, the draft whitepaper in November and the question of which network actually carries their token.
This piece answers three things: what a layer 2 is technically and which designs exist, how much capital the individual networks actually secure today, and what to check in your own position when a network changes its foundation. We compiled the capital figures ourselves, which is why they appear here as a table rather than ...
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