What is the fastest growing layer 2?
Base is the fastest growing layer 2, having gained 1 million unique addresses in 11 days from its official mainnet launch. Base network was launched on August 9, 2023, but had already gained 532k addresses in the preceding days, with users bridging to the chain via unofficial bridges.
Time taken for layer 2 adoption has decreased over time
Recently launched layer 2 blockchains have taken a shorter span of time to gain adoption. Two of the earliest layer 2’s, Arbitrum, and Optimism, took 303 and 191 days, respectively, to hit 1 million unique addresses. Arbitrum’s mainnet was launched on 31 August 2021, while Optimism launched on 16 January 2022.
Meanwhile, it took a mere 71 days for zkSync to hit the same milestone. zkSync’s Era mainnet was officially launched on March 25, 2023, and there were over 1 million addresses on it by June 3, 2023.
This timeline was further shortened with the launch of Base. The Coinbase-supported network managed to reach 1 million addresses in 11 days from its official launch. Base mainnet was officially launched on August 9 2023, though users were able to bridge a week before the launch. Its successful adoption can be partially attributed to a wave of memecoins, some of which gained popularity, such as Bald (BALD), which reached over $100 million in market cap at its peak.
Layer 2’s without tokens have a faster adoption rate
zkSync has yet to launch a token, but punters are betting on a zkSync airdrop, and have been using the network extensively to maximize their chances of receiving any potential airdrop. Similarly, Base doesn’t have a native token, and this has translated to activity on the network picking up rapidly.
In the past, Optimism and Arbitrum, airdropped tokens to early users of their networks. Meanwhile, Polygon zkEVM, launched by the Polygon team, has a pre-existing token in the form of MATIC. Therefore, this could be an indication that users haven’t been incentivized to use Polygon zkEVM due to the unlikelihood of an airdrop on the network.
What is the largest layer 2?
Arbitrum is the largest layer 2 network in terms of unique addresses, with 11.4 million addresses. It is followed by Optimism with 8.0 million unique addresses.
Meanwhile, zkSync and Base lag behind with 1.8 million and 1.0 million unique addresses, respectively.
Layer 2’s are still dwarfed by Ethereum
Despite the rapid adoption of layer 2’s, Ethereum is still the dominant network in terms of numbers. It is far ahead in terms of users, with over 241 million unique addresses as of August 20, 2023.
Methodology
The study examined the number of unique addresses on various layer-2 networks, and the time taken to reach 1 million addresses. The networks examined were Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync, Polygon zkEVM, and Base, with data obtained from Etherscan and Dune Analytics from July 30, 2015 to August 20, 2023.
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Shaun is a Research Analyst at CoinGecko, who has lived and breathed crypto since 2017. Previously a community manager for Synthetix and RedFOX, he dived down the crypto rabbit hole to grasp a better understanding of the industry. He now spends copious amounts of time on Crypto Twitter and Telegram, searching for the next idea for CoinGecko Research. Follow the author on Twitter @ShaunPaulLee
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