Vitalik Buterin said on Feb. 4 that Ethereum L2 networks, originally conceived as "brand sharding," are no longer essential as the L1 scales and gas limits are set to increase, according to BlockBeats. He wrote that L2s cannot fully satisfy the expected properties of that model, some may even remain at stage 1 to meet customer regulatory needs, and he urged a shift from pure throughput toward differentiated features such as privacy‑focused virtual machines, application‑specific efficiency, extreme scaling, social/identity/AI non‑financial designs, and lower latency or built‑in oracle capabilities. Community responses were split: supporters argued the L2 narrative masked L1 shortcomings and that L1 progress makes many L2s redundant, citing centralization, liquidity fragmentation, and added risk; Ryan Sean Adams described it as a turning point tied to a strong L1, while Mike Dudas said he had reached that conclusion years earlier. Others cautioned the remarks could dent L2 project confidence and funding and stressed ongoing utility for specific high‑throughput cases; Paradigm's Dan Robinson said L2s retain significant scope unless L1 targets sub‑6‑second block times or replaces its PBS‑based builder auction, and Avalanche's Emin Gün Sirer said his team had voiced similar points years ago. In Chinese‑language discussion, some framed this as Buterin abandoning L2s, but the characterization was a redefinition rather than a rejection, BlockBeats reported.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin said in a February 4 post that Layer 2's original vision within Ethereum must be redefined due to L1's scaling progress and relatively slow L2 development, BlockBeats reports. The statement marks the latest shift in Buterin's scalability stance, following his 2017"2018 promotion of Plasma as the primary Layer 2 solution before acknowledging in 2020"2021 that rollups proved more practical for most use cases, and his evolution from describing full on-chain validation by ordinary users as a "fantasy" around 2017 to targeting 2026 for ZK-enabled full nodes for everyday users. BlockBeats noted that Ethereum's 2015"2020 roadmap initially positioned 64-shard sharding as the ultimate scaling path, though Buterin has since repeatedly indicated sharding is no longer a top priority and its necessity was overestimated.

Address 0xd475… added 119,470.37 HYPE worth $4.14M to its short position within two minutes on Feb. 4, Hyperinsight data show. At 11:21, the address added 58,431.91 HYPE ($2.01M); at 11:23, it added 61,038.46 HYPE ($2.12M). The notional value rose to $11.47M with an unrealized loss of $1.42M (61.47%), an average entry price of $29.08, and a liquidation price of $98.65.

Three addresses spent $13.1 million to buy 5,970 ETH at an average price of $2,195 within 8 hours on Feb. 4, Lookonchain data show. The addresses had been dormant for 4 years and are likely controlled by the same entity.

Whale address bc1pyd sold its entire 5076 BTC position, worth approximately $384 million, over an eight-hour period on Feb. 4, Lookonchain data show. The address had been accumulating Bitcoin before closing the position at an estimated loss of about $118 million.

Michael Burry said on Monday that Bitcoin has fallen more than 40% from its early October all-time high and warned that another 10% decline could leave Strategy facing multi-billion-dollar losses and largely shut out of capital markets, BlockBeats reports. He argued Bitcoin has proven to be a purely speculative asset rather than a hedge like precious metals, and cautioned that further weakness could trigger catastrophic spillovers into broader markets and a collateral death spiral in tokenized metals futures. Burry added that the launch of spot ETFs has intensified speculative behavior and pushed Bitcoin's correlation with the S&P 500 close to 0.50, while Bitcoin ETFs have recorded some of their largest single-day outflows since late November. He also linked the recent crashes in gold and silver partly to crypto declines, saying corporate treasurers and speculators are reducing risk by closing profitable tokenized gold and silver futures positions, and warned that if Bitcoin fell to $50,000, miners would go bankrupt and tokenized metals futures could collapse into a buyerless black hole.

A large ETH holder deposited 8,329 ETH to Galaxy Digital on February 4 after holding the tokens for four months, on-chain data show. The position shows an unrealized loss of $19.69M with a current market value of $18.59M. The whale had originally withdrawn 11,860 ETH worth $46.26M from OKX and still holds 3,530 ETH valued at about $8M.

A wallet with a history of $99.22M in ETH swing trading profits withdrew 750 cbBTC valued at $55.999M from Coinbase over eight hours on Feb. 4, on-chain data show. The withdrawal averaged $74,665.8 per coin, according to analyst Ai 姨 (@ai_9684xtpa).

The "Strategy counterparty" whale added a series of long positions on Feb. 4, HyperInsight data show. Current exposures include an ETH long position worth $52 million at an entry price of $2,270, a SOL long valued at $15.52 million at $99.28, an XRP long valued at $11.65 million at $1.59, and a BTC long valued at $4.41 million at $76,345.