On March 13th in New York City, the highly anticipated Dencun fork event led to a significant increase in the adoption of Layer 2 solutions on the Ethereum blockchain. Following the upgrade, there was a noticeable surge in activity across these scaling solutions, indicating a growing trend towards their utilization.
Analysis by Intotheblock highlighted a remarkable 196% increase in transactions settled on Ethereum’s Layer 2 platforms, totaling 5.67 million transactions. Among these, Base emerged as a key player, processing approximately 57% of the transactions, with Arbitrum and Optimism following closely at 31% and 11%, respectively.
The surge in transactions not only showcases the rising demand for Layer 2 solutions but also signals the arrival of the ‘Base Spring,’ as noted in previous analyses. Base’s transaction volume surpassed $1.6 billion for the first time, outperforming established platforms like Optimism.
In addition to the increased transaction volume, Base has experienced a surge in network activity driven by the growing interest in memecoins. Data compiled by DefiLlama revealed a record-high total value locked (TVL) of $1.5 billion on the Base network on April 9th, marking a 235% increase since the beginning of the year, largely due to meme coin activity.
Over recent months, Layer 2 networks, fueled by the success of the Dencun upgrade, have been expanding significantly. Analysts at VanEck even predict that these scaling solutions could reach a market capitalization of $1 trillion by 2030, highlighting the potential growth and importance of these technologies in the future.