Ethereum’s Inflation Problem Is Back — And It’s Tied to Layer-2 Scaling

[AIcash]

One of Ethereum’s biggest selling points — deflation — has quietly reversed.

As base-layer activity slowed, ETH’s burn mechanism weakened, pushing annualized supply growth to 0.8%, up sharply from near-zero inflation a year ago. The issue isn’t issuance — it’s demand.

At the same time, Ethereum’s heavy reliance on subsidized layer-2 scaling is drawing criticism. Vitalik Buterin recently acknowledged that current rollup designs rely too heavily on multisig bridges and fall short of Ethereum’s decentralization goals.

The roadmap isn’t broken — but it’s being re-evaluated.

Ethereum still leads the ecosystem, but the next phase may require rethinking how scalability, security, and value capture align.

[tradelikepro]

so basically layer-2s are helping adoption but also creating new centralization risks…interesting tradeoff