Posted:
- The exponential development in L2’s on-chain exercise got here through the bear market.
- Optimistic roll-ups maintained a mean each day transaction share of 67% in September.
The Ethereum [ETH] layer-2 (L2) panorama has expanded by leaps and bounds in 2023. The blockspace demand for scaling options has hit the roof with customers onboarding to capitalize on its relative benefits.
L2s see sharp rise in transaction charges
Erik Smith, Chief Funding Officer at 401 Monetary, and a eager observer of the blockchain trade, took to social platform X to focus on the fast strides taken by this rising sector.
Citing knowledge from on-chain analytics agency Token Terminal, Smith acknowledged that community charges collected by L2 networks ballooned from 0 to $15 million in a span of simply two years.
It was astonishing to look at that exponential development got here through the bear market. Notably, this was the part the place on-chain exercise throughout main L1s stagnated.
Month-to-month charges paid to make use of L2 blockchains👇🏻
$0 to $15 million in 2 years. In a bear market.
Blockspace demand is up & to the precise. 📈
by way of @tokenterminal pic.twitter.com/L48oSjs7z2
— Erik Smith, CFP® (@eriksmithcfp) September 27, 2023
L2s unburden Ethereum
Over time, Ethereum has been severely slowed down as a result of quickly rising person site visitors. This led critics to query its scalability in the long term.
L2 options, constructed atop the bottom layer Ethereum, had been discovered to be the reply to the scalability query. It was deliberate that over time, these L2s would deal with the vast majority of low-value transactions, with the bottom layer taking good care of safety and decentralization.
Whereas it began on a sluggish observe, the imaginative and prescient appeared to be coming to fruition. In line with Lucas Outumoro of IntoTheBlock, optimistic roll-ups maintained a mean each day transaction share of 67% in September, from simply 16% a 12 months in the past.
Ethereum Layer 2 adoption has been rising steadily in 2023
The share that optimistic roll-ups have out of the variety of each day transactions has been averaging 67% in September, in comparison with simply 16% a 12 months in the past pic.twitter.com/gTduPxMO4g
— Lucas (@LucasOutumuro) September 27, 2023
As is well-known, optimistic rollups included among the high L2s like Optimism [OP] and Arbitrum [ARB] and the recently-launched Base. In truth, on the vast majority of days since its launch, Base has outperformed Ethereum when it comes to each day transactions.
In line with L2Beat, aggregated transaction throughput on L2s has grown metaphorically in 2023. On 27 September, the common transactions per second (TPS) was 60, practically 5x greater than that of Ethereum.

Supply: L2Beat
Onwards and upwards for Ethereum scaling?
It appeared extra possible that almost all on-chain exercise will swap to L2s within the coming days. The upcoming Ethereum Cancun improve, or EIP-4844, might speed up the speed. This improve was set to considerably cut back Ethereum’s gasoline charges and enhance transaction throughput, permitting roll-ups to scale.