How Arbtirum, Optimism, Base changed the nature of L2 adoption

Posted: September 29, 2023

• Transactions on the L2 network increased by 46% compared to what they were one year ago.
• Network activity on Base and Optimism has been impressive, but Arbitrum has lost momentum.

Most Ethereum [ETH] L2s have since held their ground since launch, as a number of them have excelled in attracting and retaining users while maintaining a healthy level of transactions. 

Realistic or not, here’s OP’s market cap in ARB’s terms

But when it comes to the Zero Knowledge (ZK) and optimistic rollup groups, the latter has remained dominant.

Out to do the numbers

This assertion was evident in a recent post by Lucas Outumuro on X (formerly Twitter). Outumuro, who is the Head of Research at IntoTheBlock, noted that the adoption of the likes of Arbitrum [ARB], Optimism [OP], and Base have been impressive.

Typically, adoption for most blockchain projects is measured by the level of network growth. This is the number of new addresses not just joining the network but also interacting with it. 

A year ago, the optimistic rollups only had a 16% share of daily L2 transactions. But in September, the trio had a combined share of 67%, Outumuro noted.

Ethereum Layer 2 adoption has been increasing steadily in 2023

The share that optimistic roll-ups have out of the number of daily transactions has been averaging 67% in September, compared to just 16% a year ago pic.twitter.com/gTduPxMO4g

— Lucas (@LucasOutumuro) September 27, 2023

However, it is important to note that one year back, most of the projects were still in the Testnet stage. Only Optimism, whose Mainnet launched on 31 May 2022, was in full development. Hence, this could be one of the reasons for the tremendous growth. 

Meanwhile, the Ethereum Mainnet still ranks first as having the highest Transactions Per Second (TPS) at 11.93. However, Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism have had more growth than Ethereum in this regard in the last seven days, L2BEAT revealed. 

Source: L2BEAT

The growth of these optimistic rollups is a testament to the speed and efficiency smart contracts and dApps get by employing the L2s. But has this also had a positive effect on daily users?

OP, Base in prime position; ARB lags

Well, data from Blockscan showed that new unique addresses on Arbitrum have decreased to 1.43 million. This decrease has, in turn, resulted in a reduction of transactions on the Arbitrum network. 

For Base and Optimism, it has been the other way around. On 22 September, Optimism’s daily new unique addresses rose to 1.2 million. But that number has decreased at the time of writing.

How much are 1,10,100 OPs worth today?

Base, which is relatively new compared to the other two, also had a similar trend to Optimism. On 22 September, the new addresses on Base jumped to 782.860, the highest number Base registered since the month began.

At press time, the unique addresses on the network were 665,890.

Source: Blockscan