Ethereum’s layer-2 scaling ecosystem has achieved a new milestone in daily transactions, highlighting significant growth and increasing user activity.
Recent data has pointed to continued expansion in Ethereum’s scaling networks, driven by surges in specific blockchains and broader market dynamics.
This trend underscored the growing importance of layer-2 solutions in the cryptocurrency space.
According to Growthepie, an Ethereum layer-2 block space analytics platform, the ecosystem reached a new all-time high for daily transactions on 12 August, hitting 12.42 million transactions in a single day.
The head of research at the Onchain Foundation, Leon Waidmann, commented on this achievement in a post on X the next day noting that “scalability is improving rapidly” and “user activity is at its peak”.
The rapid increase in transactions reflects a 140% growth in daily transaction volume since the start of 2024.
This data, however, only includes transactions executed by users or smart contracts, excluding system transactions, which provides a clearer view of user-driven activity.
The main driving force behind this growth has been the Coinbase L2 blockchain, Base, which recorded a peak of over 4 million transactions in late July.
Basescan, a blockchain metrics platform for Base, confirmed a 700% surge in daily transactions over the past six months.
The explosive growth of Base, largely attributed to the memecoin craze earlier this year, has seen users flock to lower-cost, higher-throughput chains to create tokens.
Overall, the scaling ecosystem’s throughput has also increased, with the average transactions per second (TPS) doubling in the past two months as the number of layer-2 platforms continues to rise.
Outperforming Solana & Binance Chain
Beyond transaction volume, Ethereum’s layer-2 networks have also gained ground in other critical metrics.
Growthepie also noted that layer-2 networks in the Ethereum ecosystem now surpass both Solana and Binance Chain (BSC) in stablecoin holdings.
The report indicated that Ethereum’s layer-2 networks hold 150% more stablecoins than Solana and 94% more than BSC.
This dominance also extended to unique wallet activity, where Ethereum layer-2s show a 4% advantage over Solana based on a 7-day rolling average of active addresses.
This combination of increased stablecoin holdings and wallet activity suggests growing trust in Ethereum’s layer-2 solutions. However, questions arise regarding investor sentiment towards competing platforms.
Some are beginning to wonder whether Solana is overvalued, or if Ethereum’s layer-2 networks are undervalued.
Interestingly, the Fully Diluted Valuation (FDV) of Ethereum layer-2 networks hit nearly $95 billion during the time of EIP 4844, surpassing Solana’s FDV. Since then, it has dropped to $31 billion, now lower than Solana’s.
Spot ETFs see steady inflows
The Ethereum ecosystem has also seen positive developments in the form of spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which have attracted investor interest.
SoSoValue reported that Ethereum-based spot ETFs witnessed inflows of $24.34 million on 13 August. This followed $4.93 million of inflows on the previous day, marking two consecutive days of investor activity.
As of now, the Total Net Assets of these Ethereum ETFs have reached $7.65 billion, accounting for 2.36% of Ethereum’s total market capitalisation.
BlackRock’s Ethereum ETF led the market with $49.12 million in inflows on 13 August, bringing its cumulative net inflows to $950.38 million.
Fidelity’s Ethereum ETF followed closely with $5.41 million in inflows on the same day, accumulating net inflows of $351.1 million.
Meanwhile, Grayscale’s ETHE saw continued outflows, with $31.01 million in daily outflows and cumulative net outflows totalling $2.38 billion.
Crypto analysts view these consistent inflows into Ethereum spot ETFs as a positive signal, even though major inflows have been relatively rare since their launch.
Some analysts, like Michaël van de Poppe, believe that the growing interest in these ETFs could potentially inject bullish momentum into Ethereum’s price.
