Altcoin king Ethereum’s (ETH) Dencun update in March significantly improved the economics of Ethereum rollups but led to an increase in transaction failures in Layer-2 networks. According to research by Galaxy Digital, this situation is particularly due to bot activities.
Failed Transactions Rise in Ethereum Layer-2 Networks Post-Dencun
Galaxy Digital researcher Christine Kim highlighted the changes in Ethereum Layer-2 networks post-Dencun update on the X platform on August 22. Kim noted that the number of transactions on the Ethereum network doubled to an average of 6.65 million daily, but this increase also brought a significant rise in transaction failure rates.
Galaxy’s report titled “150 Days After Dencun” emphasized that bot activities increased due to low transaction fees, raising the failure rates in Layer-2 networks. According to the report, the transaction failure rate in the Base network reached up to 21%, while it was 15.4% in Arbitrum and 10.4% in OP mainnet. For addresses with high activity, performing 100 or more transactions daily, these rates rose to 41.6% on Base, 20.87% on Arbitrum, and 12.85% on OP mainnet.
On the other hand, for addresses with low activity, performing five or fewer transactions daily, the transaction failure rates remained much lower, recorded at a maximum of 4%.
Bot Activity Increases in Solana and Ethereum Layer-2 Networks
Not only Ethereum Layer-2 networks but also other networks like Solana (SOL) face similar issues. According to research published by Coinbase on August 13, 25% to 45% of transactions on the Solana network are failed transactions.
Solana’s higher transaction volumes compared to Ethereum are associated with bot activities. DeFi Report founder Michael Nadeau argued that bot activities create liquidity in markets, increasing efficiency, and should not be considered spam.
Although the data blocks, also known as proto-danksharding, introduced with Ethereum’s update on March 13 aimed to provide temporary data storage for rollup data via EIP-4844, thus alleviating the load on the execution layer, these innovations had unexpected side effects. They led to an increase in bot activities and consequently higher transaction failure rates in Layer-2 networks.
