A paradigm change in Ethereum’s L1/L2 ecosystem may result from this euphoric rally. The majority of Ethereum’s fees are expected to be generated through L2 rollups by the year 2026, according to analysts. This main indicator grew in 2023 during the course of seven months as shown.3
Ethereum (ETH) fees “outperformed” Ether price; bullish sign?
The total amount of Ethereum (ETH) fees over the past seven months has climbed by 176%. The price of the second-largest cryptocurrency only increased by 53% within the same time frame. The last time this “imbalance” was recorded was in 2020, following the Crypto Winter of two years.
These findings were made by blockchain expert and seasoned cryptocurrency researcher Chris Burniske in response to a thesis made by analyst Jamie Coutts of Bloomberg Intelligence. Additionally, Burniske acknowledged that the link between these two indicators has previously been “instructive” during rallies.
At the same time, a key process in the ecosystem that significantly influences the indicators of fees is the transfer of users from Ethereum’s L1 to other L2 ecosystems.
As previously reported by U.Today, the overhyped Worldcoin (WDC) token release helped the second-largest Ethereum L2 Optimism (OP) unexpectedly overtake Arbitrum (ARB), the top scaler, in a number of measures.
In terms of the volume of daily transactions, Optimism (OP) surpassed Arbitrum (ARB), and it came close to doing so in terms of the number of active wallets.
L2s on fire in 2023, but we are still early
By printing time, however, Optimism’s (OP) TVL is less than half as high as Arbitrum’s (ARB) TVL. Locked assets for Arbitrum’s DeFi protocols amount $5.94 billion, compared to only $2.82 billion for Optimism-based protocols.
For L2, things have only recently begun. Their portion of Ethereum (ETH) ecosystem fees surged by more than 3 times in only seven months and nearly reached 14%. The research by Coutts states that there were more than 900,000 active addresses across L2s.
By the end of 2023, 20% of Ethereum (ETH) fees will be covered by significant scaling solutions like Arbitrum (ARB), Optimism (OP), and zkSync if L2 adoption continues at this rate.
Analysts predict that they will surpass L1’s statistics in three years.
