In recent news, the Coinbase Ethereum layer-2 network Base has experienced a surge in daily transactions following the Dencun upgrade. Prior to the upgrade, Base was processing about 440,000 transactions per day. Just a day after the upgrade, this number skyrocketed to 1.1 million and has continued to rise since then. On March 16, Base reached a record 2,064,920 daily transactions.
The number of new users on Base also saw a significant spike on March 16, with 666,866 new users joining the platform. This represents a massive 3,200% increase compared to the average number of new users in the days leading up to the Dencun upgrade. Experts believe that this surge in transactions and new users can be attributed to the significant reduction in fees on Base following the upgrade. In fact, average transaction fees on Base have dropped by more than 60% since the upgrade, according to Blockscout.
Base, which was launched by Coinbase in August, is currently the sixth-largest network in the Ethereum layer-2 ecosystem. It has a total value locked of $1.46 billion and holds a 4.1% market share of layer 2s, according to L2beat, an industry tracker.
The Dencun upgrade introduced EIP-4844 on the Ethereum network, which aimed to reduce layer-2 transaction fees by introducing data blobs or proto-danksharding. This upgrade improved the availability of data on layer 2 networks, resulting in a significant reduction in gas costs for some networks, up to 90% in certain cases. Following the upgrade, average transaction fees on leading layer-2 networks such as Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, and zkSync Era decreased by 60% to 90%, as reported by Dune Analytics.
Arbitrum and Optimism currently dominate the layer-2 ecosystem, with a combined total value locked of $23 billion, giving them a market share of 42% and 23% respectively. Gas fees for token swaps on Uniswap’s Optimism deployment dropped as low as $0.01 after the Dencun upgrade, according to Hayden Adams, the protocol founder.
On another note, gas fees on the Ethereum layer-1 network have been relatively high recently, especially with Ethereum’s price surpassing $4,000. Since then, the gas fees have dropped. Currently, a regular transfer on the Ethereum network costs around $2.1, while a USDC transfer costs approximately $5. For a swap on Uniswap, the fees are around $16, according to Gasfees.io.
Gas fees on the Ethereum network are still ridiculously high. When will they ever decrease significantly?