Layer 2 Network Arbitrum Surpasses Ethereum in Daily Transactions

On Tuesday, Feb. 21, layer 2 scaling system Arbitrum surpassed Ethereum in daily transactions, increasing Arbitrum’s dominance as the leading layer 2 rollup.

The number of daily transactions on the Arbitrum, the fourth-largest blockchain overall in terms of total value locked (TVL), jumped from 159,919 in daily transactions on Jan. 1 to over 1,103,398 at the time of press, representing a roughly 590% increase in less than two months, according to block explorer Arbiscan.

In comparison, the number of daily transactions on Ethereum increased a meager 46% in the same period to 1,084,290, per Etherscan.

Moreover, the number of unique addresses on Arbitrum’s network has reached an all-time high of about 2.95 million addresses, and data from TVL aggregator DeFiLlama shows that Arbitrum’s total value locked jumped 81% since Jan. 1 to roughly $1.85 billion.

Arbitrum’s move ahead of Ethereum follows GMX, a decentralized perpetual exchange native to Arbitrum, overtaking Ethereum in daily fees last week. The growing layer 2 ecosystem has also seen many financial applications emerge like Camelot, Vela Exchange and Radiant Capital, which have all seen their users and transactions increase by over 100% in the past 24 hours, per Nansen data.

Despite Arbitrum’s boost in transactions and addresses, Arbitrum is still lagging behind Ethereum in terms of network fees.

At press time, Ethereum’s one-day fees stand at $6.7 million, while Arbitrum’s one-day fees sit at roughly $154,000, which is less than 2.3% of Ethereum’s network fees for the day, according to cryptofees.info.

The increased activity on Arbitrum may stem from users hoping and speculating about a potential Arbitrum airdrop, despite the lack of plans and announcements from Arbitrum developers about a potential token drop, according to Walter Teng, vice president of digital asset strategy at Fundstrat Global Advisors.