Activity On Linea Slumps After Voyage Campaign Concludes

Activity on Linea, the Ethereum Layer 2 network from Consensys, is slowing down after explosive growth amid its multi-week promotional campaign, Voyage.

On Dec. 20, Linea tweeted that Voyage had concluded following 10 waves of tasks across six weeks. Participants were rewarded with soulbound “XP” points, driving a surge in on-chain activity amid speculation the non-transferable tokens could confer eligibility for an airdrop in the future.

Voyage kicked off on Nov. 7, with its first wave encouraging users to bridge assets onto the network. At the time, Linea was driving just 1.6 transactions per second (TPS) on average, according to L2 beat, down from a record high of 4.2 TPS four weeks prior — indicating sluggish network adoption.

Linea’s throughput quickly picked up amid the campaign, rallying to an all-time high of 14.9 TPS on Dec. 10 to briefly overtake Ethereum’s 13 TPS. However, has since receded, now sitting at 5 TPS after falling 67% from its peak.

Linea’s total value locked (TVL) also rallied from $78.5M when Voyage commenced to an all-time high of $263.4M on Nov. 23. However, TVL had retraced down to $142M just one week later, and is now at $176M.

Still, the TVL of Linea-based DeFi protocol has consistently increased since Nov. 11, diverging from the value of assets held on the network. Linea’s DeFi TVL is at a record high of $59.5M, up from $26.5M on Nov. 11, according to DeFi Llama.

L2 throughput and TVL diverge

Linea is the latest Layer 2 to offer incentives for users who participate in a multi-week campaign exploring the network and its DeFi ecosystem. While these campaigns have been highly effective at driving up DeFi and network TVL, on-chain activity has proved to be less sticky.

Base, the L2 from Coinbase, launched the OnChain Summer campaign alongside its mainnet deployment on Aug. 9 after opening its doors to developers in late July. Throughput rocketed from 5.3 TPS at general launch to overtake Ethereum with 15.9 TPS on Aug. 21.

While OnChain Summer ended as September began, Base’s flagship DeFi dApp Friend Tech continued to drive activity amid a SocialFi boom, pushing the network’s throughput to a record high of 21.3 TPS on Sept. 14.

However, activity on Base has since dried up, with the network processing just 2.4 TPS over the past 24 hours. The decline comes despite Base’s network and DeFi TVL both consistently posting new all-time highs throughout December, with the network ranking third among L2s with $715M and its DeFi ecosystem amassing $439M.

Scroll similarly rocketed up the L2 rankings in October after launching its Origins NFT campaign, allowing any user who deployed a smart contract on the network from Oct. 10 — one week before its mainnet launch — until Dec. 9.

Scroll posted a throughput high of 5 TPS on Nov. 9, ranking it as the third-most active Layer 2 amid a slump in sector-wide activity. However, Scroll now ranks 12th with just 1.2 TPS, despite activity jumping 48% in one week.

Still, Scroll has enjoyed sustained TVL growth, with network TVL posting a high of $50.4M on Dec. 15 and pulled back by only 6% since. Scroll’s DeFi ecosystem is also at a record $19.9M.