TL;DR
- Record Transaction Volumes: Ethereum’s layer-2 ecosystem hit a new daily transaction high of 12.42 million on August 12, driven by the Coinbase L2 blockchain Base, which saw a 700% surge in transactions over six months due to memecoin mania.
- Scalability and User Activity: The L2 ecosystem experienced a 140% increase in daily transactions since January 2024, with scalability and user activity reaching peak levels, according to Leon Waidmann from the Onchain Foundation.
- Increased Throughput and Stablecoin Dominance: Layer-2 networks now hold more stablecoins than Solana and Binance Chain combined, with overall throughput doubling in the past two months, while layer-1 Ethereum transactions remain stable and gas fees hit yearly lows.
Ethereum’s layer-2 scaling ecosystem has achieved a new milestone, reaching an all-time high in daily transactions. According to data from Growthepie, an Ethereum layer-2 block space analytics platform, aggregated daily transactions across the scaling ecosystem hit a record 12.42 million on August 12.
🚀 #Ethereum Layer 2s have set a new record with 12.42M daily transactions.
Scalability is improving rapidly.
User activity is at its peak.#ETH’s growth potential is stronger than ever. pic.twitter.com/HLaqv5a04q
— Leon Waidmann | Onchain Insights🔍 (@LeonWaidmann) August 13, 2024
The surge in transactions has been primarily driven by the Coinbase L2 blockchain Base. This blockchain saw transactions peak at over 4 million in late July. Basescan, a blockchain metrics platform, confirms that daily transactions on Base have surged by 700% over the past six months.
The explosive growth for Base has been attributed to memecoin mania, as token minters flocked to lower-cost and higher throughput chains to create memecoins.
Scalability and User Activity at Peak
Leon Waidmann, head of research at the Onchain Foundation, commented on the milestone in a post on X on August 13, stating that “scalability is improving rapidly” and “user activity is at its peak.”
According to Growthepie, the L2 ecosystem has seen a 140% increase in daily transactions since the beginning of 2024. It’s important to note that Growthepie only counts transactions executed by users or smart contracts, excluding system transactions.
Increased Throughput and Stablecoin Dominance
Scaling industry metrics platform L2beat reports that overall throughput has also surged recently, with average transactions per second (TPS) doubling over the past two months as the number of scaling platforms has increased.
Additionally, Growthepie reported that layer-2 networks now hold more stablecoins than Solana and Binance Chain combined, with 150% more stablecoins on L2s than Solana and 94% more than BNB Smart Chain.
Stable Ethereum Layer-1 Transactions and Lower Gas Fees
Throughout this year, daily transactions on Ethereum’s layer-1 have shown a consistent pattern, staying close to the 1.1 million mark, as reported by Etherscan.
Additionally, average gas fees on L1 Ethereum have dropped to their lowest levels of the year, allowing stablecoin issuer Tether to create 1 billion Tether for a mere 53 cents on August 13, according to insights from blockchain intelligence platform Arkham.
The rapid growth in Ethereum’s layer-2 ecosystem highlights the increasing demand for scalable and cost-effective blockchain solutions, driven by innovative applications and user activity.
