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Since the merger, the costs of issuing Ethereum have been substantially reduced. However, the combined volume of transactions on layer two (l2) arbitratrum and optimism exceeded the production of Ethereum operations. On Saturday, January 14, 2023, ethereum handled 1.10 million onchain transactions, while the combined transactions on arbitrum and optimism reached 1.32 million for the same day.
Rise of L2 Scaling Solutions Arbitrum and Optimism
Onchain transaction fees have decreased significantly since the first week of Aug. 2022 and even more so since the blockchain transitioned from a proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain to a proof-of-stake (PoS) network on Sept. 15, 2022. Data from etherscan.io’s gas tracker shows that the highest priority onchain ether transaction costs an estimated $0.75 or 23 gwei on Sunday afternoon at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
According to data from Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023, the average transaction costs about $0.101 per transfer, compared to $0.1410 per transfer. L2 scaling solutions have become increasingly popular since 2020, with options such as Polygon Hermez, Zksync, , and Starknet, in addition to Optimism and Arbitrum.
These solutions enable faster and cheaper transactions by reducing the IT workload on the primary blockchain network (ethereum), or layer one (l1). Arbitrum and Optimism transactions are periodically “rolled up” and recorded on Ethereum using an optimistic rollup or optimistic virtual machine. Dune Analytics statistics show that both L2 networks, Arbitrum and Optimism, have seen a significant increase in daily transactions.
For example, Optimism recorded 737,191 deals on January 14, and Arbitrum recorded 586,745 deals on the same day. As of January 10, 2023, the combined number of arbitratrum transactions and optimism exceeded the number of direct transfers. For example, on January 10, the total number of transactions for the two L2 scaling networks was approximately 1.12 million, whereas Ethereum handled 1.06 million chain transfers.
On the fourteenth of January, 2023, based on Dune Analytics data, the total number of transactions on the two L2 networks amounted to approximately 1.32 million transactions, out of 1.10 million transactions on the Ethereum channel. Ethereum still handles a large number of transactions daily compared to most blockchains. As of June 17, 2020, Ethereum typically processes more than one million transactions daily. However, a few other crypto networks settle more transactions than Ethereum does, such as XRP and .
On Jan. 14, Polygon recorded 3.10 million transactions and XRP saw 1.25 million transactions settled on that day. While the L2 chains Arbitrum and Optimism on their own have not surpassed Ethereum’s, XRP’s or Polygon’s transaction per day count, they have seen a significant increase in the last 12 months.
For example, on January 15, 2022, Ethereum processed 1.17 million transactions on that day, while Arbitrum processed 21,734 transfers daily and Optimism processed 30,430 transactions daily. This is what has been coming out of the last 12 months, Number of transactions per day of arbitratrum increased by 2,599 per cent, and there has been a 2,322% increase in the number of daily scale 2 transfers since January. 2022.
How do you think L2 scalability solutions will impact the future of blockchain technology and take-up? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.
