After Dencun upgrade, Base’s daily transaction volume surged to 2 million

Author: Martin Young, CoinTelegraph; Compiler: Deng Tong, Golden Finance

On March 16, a few days after the Dencun upgrade, the daily transaction volume of Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer 2 network Base soared to A record 2 million transactions.

Prior to the upgrade, Base processed approximately 440,000 transactions per day. The next day, the number climbed to 1.1 million and continued to rise in the following days, reaching 2,064,920 on March 16.

Base’s daily new users also soared to 666,866 on March 16, a massive 3,200% increase from Dencun’s average in the previous days.

Basic daily trading chart. Source: Dune Analytics

The 350% increase in transaction volume is related to the significant reduction in Base fees after the Dencun upgrade. According to Blockscout, average transaction fees onBase have dropped by more than 60% since the upgrade.

Base, launched by Coinbase in August, is the sixth-largest network in the Ethereum Layer-2 ecosystem, with a total value locked of 1.46 billion, according to industry tracker L2beat. US dollars, accounting for 4.1% of the Layer 2 market share.

The Ethereum Dencun upgrade introduces EIP-4844, which reduces Layer 2 transaction fees by introducing data blobs or raw danksharding. This upgrade enhances L2 data availability and reduces gas costs by 90% on some networks.

According to data from Dune Analytics, average transaction fees on leading Layer 2 networks Arbitrum, Optimism, Base and zkSync Era dropped by 60% to 90% after the upgrade.

Average Layer-2 cost comparison. Source: Dune Analytics

Arbitrum and Optimism still dominate the Layer-2 ecosystem, with a total value locked of $23 billion and market shares of 42% and 23% respectively.

As protocol founder Hayden Adams pointed out, after Dencun, the gas fee for token swaps deployed by decentralized exchange Uniswap Optimism has dropped to $0.01.

At the same time, Ethereum Layer 1 Gas fees have been high recently. According to Gasfees.io, transfer fees are currently around $2.10 and USDC transfer fees are around $5, but swap fees on Uniswap are around $16.

Ethereum L1 and L2 fee comparison, March 18. Source: gasfees.io