Analysis of the Evolution of Ethereum L2 and Public Chain Landscape

The current landscape of the blockchain industry is changing, with increasing competition between Ethereum Layer 2 solutions and other public chains. By analyzing some key data and trends, we can gain insights into future developments.

DeFi TVL and Trading Volume

The total locked value (TVL) of DeFi on Arbitrum and Optimism has entered the top ten, with Arbitrum ranking fifth, only behind Ethereum, BSC, Tron, and Polygon. In terms of 24-hour DeFi trading volume, Arbitrum ranks third, and Optimism ranks fifth, surpassing most public chains. This reflects that the activity level of Layer 2 is rapidly increasing.

Ecological Project Development

DeFi, NFT, and GameFi projects on Layer 2 are already quite abundant, and many mainstream DeFi protocols such as Aave and Uniswap have also deployed Layer 2 versions. At the same time, some native Layer 2 projects are also showing potential, such as the GameFi ecosystem magic network on Arbitrum and the DeFi project GMX.

According to the data, there are already multiple projects on Arbitrum with user addresses and monthly active addresses exceeding 10,000. The situation on Optimism is similar. Overall, the development speed of the Layer 2 ecosystem has surpassed that of most public chains.

Active Addresses

From the daily active user data, BSC, Ethereum, and Solana are currently still higher than Arbitrum and Optimism, but the latter two show a significant upward trend. It is expected that with technological advancements, the daily active user count of Layer 2 has considerable room for improvement.

Transaction Amount

Currently, the daily transaction volume of the Ethereum mainnet is about 1 million, while Arbitrum and Optimism are approximately 360,000 and 350,000 respectively. The transaction volume of Layer 2 has been on the rise and is expected to stabilize above the Ethereum mainnet soon. However, the number of transactions does not fully reflect the activity of the chain; it is necessary to consider the actual active applications and user situations in the ecosystem for a proper assessment.

Transaction Fees

The transaction fees for Layer 2 have been significantly reduced, with the costs of sending ETH and exchanging tokens dropping to a few cents to a few dimes, which is more than 10 times lower than the Ethereum mainnet. Except for Solana, the fees for Layer 2 are now comparable to or lower than most public chains.

More importantly, with the implementation of technologies like EIP-4844, Layer 2 has the potential for a dozens-fold decrease in fees. This will give Layer 2 a significant advantage in terms of costs, attracting more users to migrate.

TPS( transactions per second )

According to actual tests, the TPS of most public chains currently ranges from dozens to hundreds. Layer 2 can theoretically achieve 1000-4000 TPS, and with future technological advancements, it is expected to exceed 100,000 TPS. This will give Layer 2 a significant performance advantage.

Outlook on Future Patterns

Based on current trends, Layer 2 is expected to surpass most public chains in terms of ecological scale, user numbers, and real transaction volume within 5-10 years. It will become a major competitor to other public chains and may ultimately establish a dominant position in the blockchain smart contract space.

However, the future landscape still has uncertainties. A completely new technological paradigm may suddenly emerge, solving scalability issues through different paths. Therefore, the true outcome of blockchain may only be revealed when Web3 experiences large-scale explosion. Before that, we need to maintain an open attitude and pay attention to the continuous evolution of the industry.