Base TVL Hits $4 Billion as Transactions Per Second Surpass Ethereum

Base is now the third-largest layer 2 network Arbitrum One and OP Mainnet, with $4.17 billion in Total Value Locked.

Coinbase’s layer 2 network Base has seen its Total Value Locked (TVL) blow past a new high of $4 billion, rising the ranks to become the third-largest Ethereum scaling solution after Arbitrum One and OP Mainnet.

According to data from L2 Beat, $2.7 billion of the $4.17 billion Base’s TVL has been minted natively on the blockchain, while $1.46 billion was canonically bridge and $3.64 million was natively bridged. Canonically bridged refers to assets that are locked into Base through cross-chain bridge infrastructure Ethereum. 

Transactions per second (TPS) on Base also surpassed Ethereum, with Base recording an all-time high 34 TPS compared to the 14 TPS on Ethereum, according to data from Token Terminal.

>3m transactions (34 TPS) on @base for the first time yesterday pic.twitter.com/dcVX5X8fTe

— Jesse Pollak (jesse.xyz) 🛡️ (@jessepollak) April 5, 2024

Base also surpassed other major layer 2 networks in 30-day transaction count, recording 50.5 million transactions, beating out Arbitrum One’s 40.17 million and Ethereum’s 37.87 million transactions for the period.

Of course, memecoin trading has played a hand in some of this record-breaking network activity in March, with coins like Toshie, Normie, and Base God all seeing double digit rallies over the weekend.

The more significant factor for long-term network effects has been the resulting surge in trading activity across decentralized exchanges (DEXes) on Base, which surpassed $1 billion in daily trading volume last week.

The Base-native DEX Aerodrome has been one of the largest beneficiaries of this, growing its TVL by more than 380% to $580 million over the course of nine weeks.

However, the biggest expected catalyst for Base that analysts will be watching closely is the upcoming rollout of Coinbase’s smart wallet, with the Wallet as a Service feature compatible with all EVM networks including Base.

Coinbase plans to target it’s 100 million users with its new wallet, with the goal of onboarding more people on to the Base ecosystem, without the complications of users dealing directly with decentralized finance protocol infrastructure.

Last week, Coinbase’s head of consumer products Max Branzburg said the firm plans to move more customer and corporate USDC balances on to Base.