bitcoin needs a softfork to get more capabilities, then you can have different types of L2 networks besides lightning, such as rollups or drivechains. there are different proposed softforks that would unlock different capabilities. unless there is a softfork, the only alternative to lightning right now is federated sidechains like liquid and rootstock, which require too much trust. there is some talk about attempting to build a rollup without relying on a softfork, but I don't think it's worth attempting because it wouldn't work that well.
the benefits of building a proper drivechain or rollup are pretty high because they would scale self-custody and actually kill altcoins like monero and ethereum. I don't look down on people who are using monero and ethereum right now because bitcoin doesn't have anything that can perfectly replace them yet. I use monero and ethereum myself, but I would be happy to stop.
I think there is a perverse incentive for some entities in the bitcoin ecosystem to obstruct any softforks that would give us something better than lightning. they want bitcoin to be something that is controlled by financial institutions. they want 99% of bitcoin users to go through a bank account to use it and they want lightning to serve as a sort of ACH between custodial wallet providers. governments would also be very happy if it works like that. it's just a bunch of parasitic rent seeking and it's the exact thing that caused gold to fail as a form of commodity money.
Wasn’t taproot supposed to enable this kind of stuff?
taproot mostly just enables transactions to be constructed differently so that they are more efficient and can do more things at the same time. there are also a few fancy tricks it unlocks. most of the articles discussing it are using language that oversells it. taproot doesn't instantly transform bitcoin into something that can do anything the EVM can do. it doesn't give you full defi, or the ability to validate ZK proofs or optimistic fraud proofs. you can't use it to construct a drivechain either.
for drivechains you would need a different enhancement called BIP300 which includes several new opcodes. BIP300 specifically targets the ability to have drivechains. for rollups you would need a more general purpose scripting enhancement such as OP_CAT, which would end up enabling other things in addition to rollups. OP_CAT is already enabled on other chains like liquid. satoshi created OP_CAT on bitcoin but he didn't make it safe enough at the time, so it was disabled as a precaution. if it is turned back on, it cannot work the way satoshi first designed it to work.
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