can the management chain be native L2?

Gnosis’s push behind the Ethereum Economic Zone shows that DAOs are moving from organizing to voting that complete chains become Ethereum L2s, which integrate governance and market structure.

The Ethereum Economic Zone did not appear out of thin air at EthCC 2026; it is a visible point of the management process within Gnosis that has been grappling with one strategic question for months: if the long-running sidechain becomes the Ethereum-2 layer. GnosisDAO’s administrative records from February 2026 show public discussions surrounding a six-month R&D collaboration with developer Jordi Baylina to explore “converting the Gnosis Chain (GNO) into a native Ethereum (ETH) L2 integrated blockchain,” as summarized by Whale Data. According to a subsequent note on that same site, “EEZ appears to be a product of that exploration,” effectively equipping the L2 internal Gnosis thesis into a shared framework for a wider ecosystem.

At EthCC in Cannes on March 29, Gnosis founder Friederike Ernst and Baylina formalized that pivot by unveiling the Ethereum Economic Zone, a consolidating framework sponsored by the Ethereum Foundation and pitched as a way to “reunite Ethereum” into “One Ethereum.” As Binance’s filing notes in the announcement, EEZ’s “core commitment” is “complementary consensus,” allowing smart contracts in connected rollups to interact with the Ethereum mainnet “within a single atomic transaction” and using ETH as the default gas token. In an EtherWorld press release, Ernst was quoted as telling the audience that “Ethereum doesn’t have a scaling problem, it has a fragmentation problem,” arguing that every new L2 has become “its own island, different currencies, different shipments, different bridges that decide every time you try to move between them.”

What makes the story of Gnosis different from the general development of technology is the way governance and infrastructure are now integrated. As MEXC’s summary of the program points out, Gnosis has been operating as a layer-1 for seven years, and its decision to help build the EEZ means that “a governance-driven blockchain is actively choosing to tie its future to the Ethereum roadmap instead of competing as an independent L1.” The same report emphasizes that the development is led by participants from the Gnosis project and the Baylina proving stack Zisk, with the Ethereum Foundation sponsoring the work in collaboration with the Swiss EEZ Association created to maintain neutrality and invite broad participation.

Market analysts within the ecosystem are involved. In a widely circulated post, the Bankless account described EEZ as “Ethereum’s breakout problem [getting] its most critical response yet,” emphasizing that it is “led by Gnosis and ZisK, supported by EF.” A long commenter published on Binance’s content platform asks, “Can this new framework bring Ethereum back together?” and pitched EEZ as an effort to stop building “more walled gardens” and instead connect existing rollups to “something that behaves like a single DeFi economy.”

For GnosisDAO and other token holder communities watching closely, the implications are clear. Governance is no longer just about changing interest rate curves or changing currencies; it’s about making choices about which chains move to tightly integrated blockchains, which settlement assets they prioritize, and how closely they commit to Ethereum’s financial and security model. Gnosis‑EEZ’s approach suggests that future DAO votes may be more similar to company strategic decisions—approving R&D authority, evaluating structural pivots, and approving structures that can redefine the chain’s economic role—rather than the parameters that define the early DeFi era.