Layer 2 activity has seen significant growth and has even surpassed Layer 1 Ethereum activity in certain performance metrics, such as transactions per second. Compared to Ethereum, Layer 2 networks have a higher total number of transactions per second (TPS).
However, this does not necessarily reflect overall activity on those networks. According to Etherscan, on December 20, there were 992,470 transactions made on Ethereum.
Cryptocurrency research firm Delphi Digital discovered this shift on December 21, stating that Optimism and Arbitrum were the top two Layer 2 networks.
L2s have flipped the Ethereum base layer in terms of aggregate TPS.@optimismFND, @arbitrum, @dYdX and @Immutable lead this effort. pic.twitter.com/S7zYLBbmzs
— Delphi Digital (@Delphi_Digital) December 20, 2022
According to data, the switch occurred in late September, and since then, Layer 2 TPS has consistently been above Ethereum TPS. The chart shows that combined L2 networks have around 15 TPS, while Ethereum currently processes around 12.5 TPS. In mid-October, L2 activity and TPS reached a maximum of 25 TPS.
L2beat, a platform for Layer 2 industry analytics, has launched a new activity tracker for the ecosystem. Currently, it shows that the average Ethereum base layer TPS is 11.49, while the average Ethereum L2 TPS is 17.68. It also confirms the increase in activity observed across all examined L2 networks since mid-October.
Since the difference is currently slight, the main takeaway is that Layer 2 TPS has been increasing since August 2021. Additionally, the platform reported that both layers of Ethereum have processed over 152 million transactions, with 58% of them occurring on Layer 2.
L2beat also pointed out that the combined activity of Optimism and Arbitrum comes very close to flipping Ethereum’s L1 daily TPS.
The last two months have been special for #Layer2 in terms of activity.
Both layers of Ethereum processed a total of over 152 million transactions, 58% of which happened on L2. @arbitrum and @optimismFND combined are also becoming close to flipping Layer 1 daily transactions. pic.twitter.com/ohKUzy01rr
— L2BEAT (@l2beat) December 20, 2022
However, the total value locked (TVL) in the Layer 2 ecosystem has been decreasing since August, possibly due to declining cryptocurrency asset prices rather than funds being removed from other networks.
L2beat estimates that the total TVL of all monitored L2 networks is $4.25 billion, a 43% drop from the record-breaking $7.48 billion in April.
If you would like to read more market analysis like this, visit DeFi Planet and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
“Take control of your crypto portfolio with MARKETS PRO, DeFi Planet’s suite of analytics tools.”
