In this context, if I'm reading this correctly, "second layer" simply means "centralized shit tokens like HiveEngine" running on a single server.

This is incorrect.

What Blocktrades is talking about is a smart contract network that will provide decentralization. It was in an earlier post.

He is well aware of the need for decentralized smart contracts. If not, why even create it, just go with H-E.

Obviously I am not sure the technical details of how it works. I would say we will know a great deal more in a month or so. It appears a lot of the backlog of coding is being caught up.

We shall see how this all progresses.