Ethereum L2s Overtake Mainnet as Value Capture Debate Deepens
Ethereum’s layer 2 ecosystem has moved into a brand new section. Rollups now deal with extra each day transactions than the Ethereum mainnet, turning the community’s long-running scaling technique right into a measurable actuality fairly than a roadmap promise.
That milestone has settled the throughput argument, but it has opened a more durable financial debate. Exercise has shifted upward, mainnet payment income has weakened, and the market is now asking whether or not the beneficial properties from L2 progress nonetheless circulate again to Ethereum or stick with rollup operators and purposes.
Exercise Strikes Up the Stack
The shift is now seen throughout the biggest rollups. The information reveal that the tracked L2 networks have processed extra transactions per day than the Ethereum mainnet since mid-2024, and the pattern is barely rising within the first quarter of 2026.
Base has pushed a lot of that enlargement. It crossed 2 million each day transactions on a number of days in early 2026, whereas Arbitrum and OP Mainnet every added a whole bunch of 1000’s extra. Scroll and zkSync Period additionally contributed significant quantity. In consequence, the mixed L2 ecosystem now processes a number of multiples of the Ethereum mainnet’s each day transaction rely on energetic days.
Cheaper Rollups Modified the Math
The March 2024 Dencun improve, particularly EIP-4844, accelerated that migration. Blob-carrying transactions slashed information availability prices for rollups, making low-fee execution much more sensible throughout buying and selling, gaming, and client purposes.
Nonetheless, that very same effectivity got here with a price to Ethereum’s base layer. Mainnet payment income and $ETH burn dropped sharply after Dencun, and the outdated mannequin that tied Ethereum’s worth on to costly on-chain exercise weakened. Rollups turned cheaper and extra helpful, but every transaction contributed far much less to base-layer income than related exercise did in 2021.
Worth Seize Stays Unresolved
In the meantime, that leaves the financial query open. Arbitrum nonetheless holds the biggest L2 complete worth locked within the supply materials, with exercise concentrated in perpetuals, yield merchandise, and liquid staking. However, ARB doesn’t routinely seize sequencer income beneath its present construction, so tokenholder worth nonetheless relies on governance decisions that stay unsettled.
Base presents a distinct mannequin. Coinbase retains sequencer income from Base, giving it one of many clearest enterprise buildings within the rollup market. Furthermore, that has strengthened the view that many L2s could evolve into enterprise ecosystems constructed round software income fairly than impartial scaling layers alone.
Current commentary round MegaETH pointed in the identical course, describing a mannequin the place model and software economics drive the chain.
Ethereum nonetheless holds the settlement function beneath that exercise. It stays the first collateral asset throughout a lot of the L2 economic system, and it nonetheless secures the broader stack. Notably, the scaling case now seems far stronger than earlier than. But the value-capture case stays extra unsure, particularly whereas sequencer centralization, liquidity fragmentation, and bridge threat proceed to form the L2 market.
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