Ethereum Economic Zone to Address Layer-2 Fragmentation

• Developers from Gnosis and Zisk, with support from the Ethereum Foundation, have introduced the Ethereum Economic Zone (EEZ).
• The initiative aims to improve interoperability and efficiency within Ethereum's fragmented layer-2 networks.

On March 29, 2026, Cointelegraph reported that developers from Gnosis and Zisk, supported by the Ethereum Foundation, outlined a proposal for a new framework called the Ethereum Economic Zone (EEZ). The initiative addresses inefficiencies in Ethereum’s layer-2 ecosystem caused by liquidity and user activity becoming dispersed across various rollups, such as Arbitrum, Base, and Optimism.

The EEZ framework seeks to enable seamless interaction between layer-2 networks and the Ethereum mainnet within a single transaction, removing the necessity for bridges. By facilitating shared infrastructure and synchronous smart contract execution across rollups, the framework aims to reduce system redundancy and the complexity of cross-chain transfers.

Central to the project is the “EEZ Alliance,” a coalition of Ethereum ecosystem stakeholders working to standardize practices and promote adoption of the framework across the network. The collaborative initiative aims to establish a consensus-driven approach to enhance network scalability and efficiency within the layer-2 ecosystem.

Leading developers from Gnosis and Zisk are at the forefront of the initiative. Zisk, led by Jordi Baylina—creator of Polygon zkEVM—is joining forces with Gnosis, a key player in Ethereum infrastructure development. Their expertise in scaling solutions and zero-knowledge technology provides strong technical backing for the proposal and boosts its potential for widespread adoption.

The Ethereum Economic Zone comes amid long-standing debates in the Ethereum community over trade-offs within Ethereum’s rollup-centric scaling model. While rollups have greatly increased transaction throughput, they have exacerbated the ecosystem’s fragmentation, particularly in liquidity and bridging challenges. Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder, has previously emphasized the need to revisit Ethereum’s scaling roadmap to address such issues.

Developers plan to release further technical details and implementation benchmarks in the coming weeks as the EEZ framework reaches finalization.

As of March 29, 2026, 17:08 UTC, Ethereum (ETH) is trading at $1,997.209, registering a 1.305% decline in 24-hour trading volume, according to CoinMarketCap. Arbitrum (ARB) is priced at $0.089, down by 3.82%, while Optimism (OP) is trading at $0.102, reflecting a 3.581% decrease during the same period.