Base and Taiko Sustain Boom In Layer 2 Activity

On-chain activity across Ethereum’s Layer 2 ecosystem is performing strong despite the Ethereum mainnet stagnating

Aug. 28 marked all-time high transaction volumes on Base and Taiko with 4.18 million or 50.8 transactions per section (TPS) and 2.28 million or 32.8 TPS, respectively, according to data from GrowThePie. The combined transaction count of Layer 2s posted a record high of more than 17 million on Aug. 21 after Immutable tagged a high of 3.98 million on Aug. 20.

For comparison, the Ethereum mainnet hosts approximately 13 TPS daily after steadily oscillating between 12 TPS and 15 TPS throughout 2024.

Both Base and Taiko are currently incentivizing activity with points programs.

Base also hosted a record number of active users on Aug. 27 with nearly 938,000 interacting with the network, while Taiko’s user base reached a new high of 128,736 the following day.

However, the number of active wallets across all L2s is down 20% since tagging a high of 2.68 million in late July. The milestone coincided with activity tagging a record high of 765,777 on July 21, while Arbitrum was driving nearly 700,000 as well. Arbitrum tagged a high of 1.1 million transactions on May 20.

Linea’s throughput has since dropped to 216,303, while Arbitrum is hosting roughly 449,000 transactions daily — down from a record high of 1.1 million on May 20.

Post-Dencun L2 adoption

The uptick in activity on Layer 2 signals the success of Ethereum’s recent Dencun upgradeas paving the way for an uptick in adoption.

Dencun slashed the costs associated with both users transacting on Layer 2 and L2s submitting transactions to the Ethereum base layer for finalization by replacing gas-intensive calldata with binary large objects (blobs).

The costs paid by Layers 2 for mainnet finalization are down more than 98% across most leading chains, while transaction fees have dropped at least 91% since Dencun was activated in March.

However, the combination of Ethereum users migrating onto Layer 2 and L2 fees plummeting has thrown ETH’s deflationary narrative into question, with the rate of new Ether issuance outpacing ETH’s burn rate since April.

ETH’s supply has grown by more than 245,000 since tagging a low of 120,063,539.5 on April 5 — its lowest level since May 2023, according to Ultra Sound Money. With nearly 17,000 ETH entering supply weekly, the number of Ether in circulation is on track to reach its highest level on record in less than 14 weeks.

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