Coinbase-backed Ethereum Layer-2 network Base saw daily transactions soar to 2 million on March 16th, just days after the Dencun upgrade. Prior to the upgrade, the Base ecosystem was handling about 440,000 transactions per day. The following day, this number climbed to 1.1 million and continued to rise, reaching 2,064,920 on March 16th.
The Dencun Effect on the Base Network
The number of daily new users in the Base ecosystem also shot up to 666,866 on March 16th, marking a significant 3200% increase compared to the average of the previous days before the Dencun upgrade.
The 350% surge in transactions is linked to a substantial decrease in transaction fees within the Base ecosystem following the Dencun upgrade. According to Blockscout, average transaction fees on Base have dropped by more than 60% since the upgrade. As per industry tracker L2beat, Base, launched by Coinbase in August, is the sixth-largest network in the Ethereum Layer-2 ecosystem with a total value of $1.46 billion and a 4.1% market share among Layer-2 networks.
The Ethereum Dencun upgrade introduced Ethereum Improvement Proposal 4844, which reduces Layer-2 transaction fees by offering data blobs or proto-danksharding. The upgrade has increased Layer-2 data availability, reducing gas costs for some networks by up to 90%.
Dencun and the Ethereum Ecosystem
Blockchain data analytics firm Dune Analytics reports that average transaction fees for leading Layer-2 networks such as Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, and zkSync Era have dropped by 60% to 90% following the upgrade.
Arbitrum and Optimism continue to dominate the Layer-2 ecosystem with a total locked value of $23 billion, holding market shares of 42% and 23% respectively. As noted by the founder of the protocol Hayden Adams, transaction fees for token swaps on Uniswap’s Optimism deployment have dropped to as low as $0.01 following the Dencun upgrade.
Meanwhile, Ethereum Layer-1 transaction fees were high recently as the asset surpassed $4,000, but have since retreated. According to Gasfees.io, an Ethereum transfer currently costs about $2.1, a USD Coin transfer around $5, but a swap on Uniswap costs approximately $16.
