Ethereum: L2 data charges reach ATH, how the loot was shared

• The increase in fees represents a 5x increase from the value at the beginning of the year.
• Of all L2 projects, Arbitrum remains the one with the most market share.

Layer two (L2) solutions below the Ethereum [ETH] blockchain has gained lasting traction as a means of addressing network scalability and high transaction costs. As a result, L2 data charges on Ethereum hit an All-Time High (ATH), according to dates from The block.

Read Ethereum’s [ETH] Price forecast 2023-2024

L2 data charges refer to the costs associated with transferring data and conducting transactions on L2 networks built on top of Ethereum L1 Mainnet. As more users and applications adopt L2 solutions, the demand for off-chain transaction processing increases, reflecting the increased usage and demand for these solutions at scale.

Source: The Block

More for optimistic; ZK hoping to catch up

From the data presented above, both optimistic rollups and Zero-Knowdedge (ZK) rollups contributed to the milestone. However, it was noteworthy to mention that Arbtirum [ARB] and optimism [OP]those covered by the optimistic update outperformed their ZK counterparts.

For the month of May, Arbitum contributed no less than 47.3%. Optimism, on the other hand, grabbed 23.04% of the spoils. While ZK rollups played only second fiddle, zkSync helped beat the Optimism competition by grabbing 25.38% of the total $16.2 million registered.

The increase in these data costs indicates the growing acceptance and use of these networks. It may also be related to the spike in transaction fees on the Ethereum Mainnet.

Meanwhile, there was a noteworthy comment about publishing costs. And it was that of the Polygon [MATIC] zkEVM. Despite the hype surrounding its launch in beta, the project seems to have lost the goodwill it was used to initially, charging only 1.03% of the cost.

Ethereum: TVL Competition Drying Up

This decline has also extended to Total Value Locked (TVL) performance. Although DefiLlama showed that the metric increasedat $13.27 million, it was well below its main competitors.

Source: DefiLlama

The TVL is widely used as a liquidity pool for smart contract loans and staking in a blockchain node. When the stat increases, it means that a protocol’s health is excellent. But when it declines, it opens threats to the protocol and serves as an indicator of liquidity starvation.

Realistic or not, here’s ARB’s market cap in MATIC terms

zkSync Era was too ahead of Polygon zkEVM with its TLV at $127.63 million. In the optimistic landscape it was a very different case. For Optimism, it seems to have to maintain kind of stability at $889.36 million. As it was with data costs, Arbiturm also took the top spot with a TVL of $2.34 billion.

Source: DefiLlama

As it stands, optimistic rollups seem to have investors’ hearts. And as such, the ZK cohort should do more to impress and improve market share.