The rapid expansion of blockchain technology has made scalability a critical challenge for Ethereum. While Ethereum remains the most trusted and decentralized smart contract platform, it is limited throughput and high fees often hinder mainstream adoption. To address this, ConsenSys—the team behind MetaMask and Infura—launched Linea, a next-generation Ethereum Layer 2 (L2) network. Since its mainnet debut in July 2023, Linea has quickly positioned itself as a leader among scaling solutions, combining security, speed, and Ethereum native alignment.
What is Linea?
Linea is a zero-knowledge rollup (zk-rollup) built on Ethereum, designed to deliver high throughput and low transaction costs while preserving Ethereum’s security and decentralization. Unlike some other L2s, Linea prioritizes Ethereum alignment—using ETH as gas, burning ETH fees, and even introducing native yield on bridged ETH, a first among Layer 2 networks. Linea is designed not as an alternative to Ethereum, but as an extension of it, mirroring its values, amplifying its security, and sustaining its monetary logic.
Key features
- •Ethereum Alignment: ETH used as gas, ETH fee burn, ETH native yield. $LINEA governance stewards oversee ecosystem growth.
- •Performance: Among the highest throughput of any L2 (71.5m gas/second), with the lowest L1 cost per L2 transaction.
- •EVM Equivalence: No code rewrites needed for Ethereum dapps.
- •Institution-Ready: Strong governance via the Linea Consortium (MetaMask, Infura, Starks, ENS, Lido, and others).
- •Ecosystem Growth: Over 500 dapps and partners live, spanning DeFi (Etherfi, Aave, Renzo), Gaming (Oath of Peak, Planet Mojo), Identity (Verax, RNS), and AI (Degenset).
Stats
- •$1.2B+ Total Value Locked (TVL) (as of Q3 2025).
- •4.5M+ unique wallets transacting on Linea.
- •500+ dapps deployed within the first year of mainnet.
Team
Linea is built and backed by ConsenSys, the blockchain software company founded by Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin. Joseph Lubin is the founder of ConsenSys and one of the co-founders of Ethereum. He is committed to building a distributed Web 3.0 infrastructure based on Ethereum.
Tokenomics
The $LINEA token is a tool for economic alignment with incentives to ensure that both networks grow stronger together. Linea’s total token supply is 21,000,000,000 $LINEA.
- •LINEA is not a gas token. ETH is used as gas.
- •LINEA currently carries on-chain governance rights and the protocol operates without a DAO.
- •No LINEA tokens have been allocated or sold to employees or investors. ConsenSys Software will retain 15% of the tokens with a five-year unlock.
Instead:
- •A portion of net ETH revenue, defined as the L2 fees after Layer 1 costs, is used to buy and burn LINEA.
- •LINEA is used to fund builders, users, liquidity providers, and Ethereum public goods.
- •LINEA is earned by participating in the network’s growth. Access is granted through use, not capital.
Token Allocation
