L2 Adoption Wanes Despite Base Activity Continuing To Surge

Active addresses on Arbitrum and Linea have crashed by 62% and 87% in recent months.

By: Samuel Haig • October 07, 2024

L2 Adoption Wanes Despite Base Activity Continuing To Surge

The adoption of Ethereum scaling solutions is falling despite the adoption of Base continuing to post new highs.

On Oct. 6, the combined throughput of Ethereum Layer 2 and Layer 3 networks dipped to its lowest level since June 16, processing an average of 254.5 transactions per second (TPS) over 24 hours. The data point marked a 73% decline since the ecosystem hosted an all-time high of 440.4 TPS on Aug. 20.

When measuring activity on Layer 2 rollups only, Ethereum’s L2 sector hosted its lowest throughput since June 10 with 101.8 TPS — a 33.5% dip from 153.2 TPS on Sept. 11.

the-defiant — Combined throughput of Ethereum Layer 2 and Layer 3 networks. Source: L2beat.

Activity on Base, the thriving Layer 2 from Coinbase, continues to gather momentum despite the broader decline in L2 adoption.

Base’s daily transaction count tagged a record high of more than 66 TPS on Oct. 4. Data from GrowThePie also shows active addresses on Base posting an all-time high of nearly 1.52 million. Based on a seven-day rolling average. By contrast, almost 8.82 million addresses were active across all L2s over the past seven days, down from an all-time high of 10 million in early September.

Linea and Arbitrum have suffered the heaviest declines in activity in recent months.

Linea’s active users have dropped 87% from a record high of 765,777 on July 21, with the network hosting just shy of 100,000 wallets on Oct. 6. Linea also hosted just 2.58 TPS over the past 24 hours, down 95.3% from 55.7 TPS on March 31.

Arbitrum hosted 429,000 users on Oct. 6, down 62% from its high of 1.13 million active users on May 19. Arbitrum’s transaction count is also down 35.7% from its June 25 high of 2.65 million with 1.7 million.

Arbitrum’s Layer 3 ecosystem is posting a mixed performance.

Xai’s daily throughput currently sits at 66.6 TPS, down more than half from its July high. However, XAI’s 30-day transaction count is up 8.29% at roughly 201 million.

PlayBlock’s throughput is down 17% from an all-time high of 18.1 TPS on Sept. 30, while its monthly transaction count is trending sideways with 38.1 million. Winr's 30-day transaction volume has tripled to 25.4 million, while PoP Boss is down 5% with more than 34.2 million.