Base hits $4B TVL as monthly txs outstrip Ethereum and Arbitrum

Ethereum layer 2 blockchain Base has passed a TVL of $4 billion after a weekly gain of over 13%.
Ethereum layer 2 blockchain Base has passed a TVL of $4 billion after a weekly gain of over 13%.

Crypto exchange Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 blockchain Base has seen its total value locked (TVL) surge by over 13.2% in the past week to surpass $4 billion for the first time as its 30-day transactions beat out Ethereum and its top rival, Arbitrum.

L2Beat data updated on April 7 shows Base’s total TVL at $4.15 billion, including $1.45 billion of canonically bridged value — assets locked on Ethereum to be represented on Base — and $2.7 billion in natively minted assets.

Base is the third-largest Ethereum layer 2 by TVL, beating fourth-place rival Blast by around $1.4 billion and $3.5 billion behind the second-place Optimism and $14.6 billion behind leader Arbitrum.

Base’s total TVL chart with the split between canonically bridged funds (purple) and natively minted (pink). Source: L2BEAT

Base is the only layer 2 of the top five by TVL to have posted a gain in the past week. Starknet saw the biggest TVL loss at 10.2%, while Optimism was down 9.1%, Arbitrum declined 5.5%, and Blast shrunk 2.4%.

The Ethereum scaler’s TVL bump comes amid an activity surge that’s seen its 30-day transaction count hit 50.34 million, surpassing Arbitrum’s 40.1 million and Ethereum’s 37.9 million.

Base’s average daily transactions per second (TPS) jumped by 29.7% over the week and over the past day has averaged 35.19 TPS — higher than the combined TPS of rival layer-2 Arbitrum and Ethereum, which saw respective scores of 16.61 and 13.91.

Base’s TPS (red) has consistently outstripped Ethereum (blue) for over two weeks. Source: L2Beat

Meanwhile, Base has been one of the main beneficiaries of recent memecoin activity. Its meme token market capitalization has reached over $1.6 billion, a 13% jump over the last day, according to CoinGecko.

Related: Coinbase partners with Lightspark for Bitcoin Lightning payments

However, Base’s popularity has also attracted scammers, as the network saw an 18-fold increase in successful phishing scams from January to March — with $3.35 million stolen last month.

Ethereum has focused its development efforts on improving the blockchain’s ability to process layer-2 transaction data, as exampled by its March 13 Dencun upgrade, which has lowered layer-2 transaction fees.

Meanwhile, layer 2’s like Base could gain further from Ethereum’s shortcomings, with VanEck analysts estimating the network’s scaling ecosystem could hit a $1-trillion market capitalization by 2030.

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