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Base now holds $4.94 billion TVL, edging past Arbitrum’s $4.03 billion. See how rollup fees, Dencun upgrades and TVL shifts reshape Ethereum scaling.
Base TVL has risen to $4.94 billion, surpassing Arbitrum One’s $4.03 billion and making Base the largest Ethereum Layer 2 by total value locked【1】. The shift reflects accelerating migration to rollups after the March 2024 Dencun upgrade slashed L2 fees by roughly 90%, prompting users to favor cheaper, faster chains.
| At a glance | |
|---|---|
| TVL (Base) | $4.94 billion |
| TVL (Arbitrum One) | $4.03 billion |
| Fee reduction | ~90 % after Dencun upgrade |
| Daily tx volume (Arbitrum) | >1 million (steady) |
Base’s growth is tied to the Dencun upgrade (EIP‑4844) that introduced cheap “blob” data lanes for rollups. By moving bulk transaction data off‑chain, rollups can post only succinct proofs to Ethereum, driving average L2 fees down to under $0.05 and, in some cases, as low as $0.0196【1】. Lower fees have attracted high‑frequency DeFi traders and gaming dApps, boosting the amount of assets locked on Base. The platform’s TVL now exceeds $4.9 billion, overtaking Arbitrum, which had previously led the market with a record 5 million daily transactions in December 2023【1】.
While Base leads in TVL, Arbitrum remains a volume powerhouse, consistently processing over one million transactions per day without congestion【1】. Other rollups such as zkSync Era and Polygon zkEVM continue to grow, with zkSync focusing on account abstraction and Polygon reporting a 63 % QoQ transaction increase in Q1 2025【1】. Together, these solutions protect roughly $36 billion of assets across thousands of dApps, illustrating how Layer 2 scaling is now the backbone of Ethereum’s mass‑market usage【1】.
Base’s ascendance underscores the effectiveness of Ethereum’s rollup‑centric scaling roadmap: by anchoring security to the base layer while delivering Visa‑scale throughput, Layer 2s are becoming the primary venues for everyday crypto activity. The open question is whether a single mega‑rollup will dominate or a diversified mesh of specialized L2s will persist as the ecosystem matures.
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AI-assisted synthesis by the TrendWatcher Editorial Desk · sourced from 2 outlets · Jul 9, 2026 · How we report
Layer 1 scaling changes the primary blockchain’s code to increase throughput, while Layer 2 scaling uses separate protocols to handle transactions off‑chain and later submit them to the primary chain.
Ethereum’s Merge in 2022, which combined the Beacon Chain with the original chain and moved from proof‑of‑work to proof‑of‑stake, is cited as a Layer 1 scaling solution.
For Bitcoin, the Lightning Network is a Layer 2 solution that creates payment channels; for Ethereum, rollups and sidechains like Arbitrum serve as Layer 2 scaling mechanisms.