Soaring Growth of Ethereum layer-2 Networks Set to Continue in 2023

Leading layer-2 Ethereum networks have recently seen an increase in daily active users and fees.

Ethereum layer-2 networks have experienced rapid expansion in recent months, and this trend is expected to continue in 2023.

Recent data show that the main layer-2 networks have seen a surge in daily active users, which has resulted in an increase in fees for the respective ecosystems.

Polygon leads the group with 313,457 daily active users as of Jan. 17, according to analytics service Token Terminal, a number that peaked at over 600,000 daily active users earlier in January.

This represents a 30% increase in activity since the beginning of October, amounting to roughly $55,000 in daily fees for Polygon.

Optimism has grown even quicker, with a 190% increase in daily active users in the last three months. This resulted in daily network costs of $119,475, an increase of over 140% since the start of the year.

Arbitrum One now has 41,694 daily active users, a 40% growth in the last three months. According to the data, the network’s daily fees are just over $40,000 per day.

Meanwhile, according to L2 ecosystem analytics portal L2beat, Arbitrum has a 52% market share in terms of total value locked (TVL), which is presently $2.55 billion. Aribtrum’s TVL has increased by 9% in the last week.

The second-largest L2 network, Optimism, has a TVL of $1.46 billion, giving it a 30% market share. Over the last seven days, its collateral locked has increased by 15%.

Together, they account for about 80% of the collateral locked in layer-2 platforms.

Over the last week, TVL for all L2s increased by about 10%, bringing the total TVL to $4.89 billion. However, this figure has dropped 34% since its peak in April.

Nonetheless, this drop is less than half of DeFi TVL’s drop since its all-time high. According to DeFiLlama, DeFi collateral has fallen by 75% since December 2021, indicating that there is currently more demand and momentum for layer-2 networks.