Ethereum L2 Transactions Soar to Record High of 12.5 Million, Base Takes the Lead
Ethereum’s layer-2 networks have achieved a remarkable milestone by processing an unprecedented 12.52 million transactions, marking a new all-time high in activity. This peak, documented on August 13, surpasses the previous record of 11.5 million transactions established on April 4. Following a period of reduced activity between late April and early June, transaction volumes rebounded in mid-June, maintaining a robust level despite market uncertainties.
Leading the pack among Ethereum’s layer-2 solutions is Coinbase’s Base, which facilitated a significant 3.98 million transactions on the record-setting day. Base’s performance is particularly noteworthy considering its relatively recent launch just over a year ago. Additionally, Arbitrum One closely followed with 1.79 million transactions on August 13. Notably, Base and Arbitrum One were the sole networks to surpass the 1 million transaction mark on that day. OP Mainnet ranked third with 487,820 transactions, while Linea secured the fourth position with 409,520 transactions.
Alongside the surge in transaction volumes, the stablecoin market cap within Ethereum’s layer-2 networks has experienced substantial growth, reaching $9.69 billion. Despite the uptick in transactions and stablecoin market cap, user fees have seen a significant decline. On August 13, users paid only $171,514 in fees, a stark decrease from the peak of $4.2 million recorded on March 5. This 96% drop indicates that while network activity is on the rise, the cost to users is decreasing, especially during periods of market volatility. Cumulative active addresses on these layer-2 networks have also decreased by 16.23% over the past week, totaling 5.29 million unique wallets.
Furthermore, the six primary Ethereum layer-2 networks—Base, Arbitrum One, Linea, OP Mainnet, Scroll, and zkSync Era—exhibited varying performance metrics concerning active wallet addresses and cross-chain activity. Base, currently leading the pack, recorded 3.25 million weekly active addresses, with only 9.1% engaging in cross-chain activities. Despite being almost three years old, Arbitrum One maintained its strong position with 1.11 million weekly active addresses.
Linea, a ZK Rollup network established a year ago, demonstrated solid growth with 493,570 weekly active addresses, with 43.6% of its activity involving multi-chain transactions. OP Mainnet, utilizing Optimistic Rollup technology, observed 315.32K weekly active addresses. Scroll, a network in its infancy at nine months, attracted 272,290 weekly active addresses, with 61.4% of its transactions involving multi-chain activities, the highest among the top six layer-2 solutions. Additionally, zkSync Era, another ZK Rollup network, reported 261,260 weekly active addresses.
