I’ve been thinking about this a lot. An imperfect analogy, perhaps, but an ideal monetary system is like the gearing system of a bicycle. The most important factor is to develop a system that can adjust to variable conditions such as going uphill/downhill, headwinds/tailwinds using a finite input of power (leg muscles). A fixed single speed bike (like Bitcoin Layer 1) is the simplest, but it won’t get you very far on a 100km ride through the mountains. This is where the gearing helps.

So, Layer 1 (Bitcoin) is the pedal assembly that takes the power and turns it into torquing power. Layer 2 Lightning is the bicycle chain and freewheel assembly that enables the transmission of power to a useful place, namely the rear wheel. And finally ‘Layer 3’ Cashu (there is a debate whether it is a Layer, but we’ll set that aside), is the gearing cassette/chainring that allows for selective leverage to match the conditions demanded of the road before you.

If you’re an experienced cyclist, you know how much strategy goes into selecting the right gear combo, when to preserve/expend energy. For a particular ride, you know that comes from a finite source - your legs. If you want more power, you need to do additional training to increase the power available for your next ride.

As I said at the outset, this is an imperfect analogy, but IMHO is is better than the simple ‘scaling’ that the layers provide. Instead, in the spirit of the First Law of Thermodynamics, you are not creating any new energy (i.e., money) but rather adjusting the power (money) system to best suit road (economic) conditions ahead.