Is 2022 the Year of Ethereum L2s?

Arbitrum hits TVL ATH, Optimism getting cheaper, Metis on the rise...

Jan 19

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The Ethereum community has been patiently waiting for L2s to mature and finally help ETH scale.

There is good reason to believe that 2022 is the year everything comes together for L2s and we see actual adoption occur. There is even a hashtag, so it must be a thing - #L222

Let’s see what has been happening with L2s in January and what Crypto Twitter has been saying.

General L2 thoughts:

So, what you are saying is if L2s have a great 2022 then ETH has a great 2022?

Flood @ThinkingUSD

All L1's are just replacement trades, everyone wants ETH but is too poor to use it. IF ETH scales, price goes ballistic.

The L2 rotatoooooor…

Wangarian @0xWangarian

The willingness of the mkt to latch on to any L1 play surprises me. If / when L2s on Ethereum launch their tokens + the right playbook (eco fund + incentive program), I do expect the capital to rotate v aggressively.

Arbitrum

The biggest crypto exchange enabled withdrawals of ETH direct to Arbitrum. Kind of big.

Arbitrum @arbitrum

.@binance users are now able to deposit and withdraw ETH to and from Arbitrum! 🪙 Read the guide below. 👇 arbitrum.notion.site/How-to-use-Bin…

Following on from this, Arbitrum TVL surged past the $3B mark and peaked at $3.8B, and is now sitting at $3.4B

So many people withdrew from Binance they have now suspended withdrawals again, but as David points out, this is a good sign.

David Mihal.eth (ℹ️, ℹ️) @dmihal

Binance has suspended Arbitrum withdrawals, less than a week after first enabled. Why? Their hot wallet (arbiscan.io/address/0xb38e…) got absolutely drained, and they need more deposits to refill it. There's already massive demand to use L2s, and this is only the beginning #L222

There are more positive signs when you look at the deposits vs withdrawals data. Clearly people feel at home on Arbitrum.

Crypto Maxi @cryptoMaxi420

#Arbitrum is actually impressive with the high number of deposits vs withdrawals. Most people come and stay. Layer 2s for #Ethereum seem to be solid for now even in their infancy! #L22022

Some dApps are having tremendous success on Arbitrum. $GMX has just surpassed $10B in traded volume. Defi Man will $GMX pill you if you so desire.

DeFi Man 🫐 @Mark2work

To celebrate that GMX in @arbitrum will surpass today $10 Billion traded volume I felt it was a good time to dig deeper into the "GMX wars" topic Its not just words, @GMX_IO wars are upon us Make sure you are not late to the party this time anon 👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

Treasure has been growing rapidly on Arbitrum, with $MAGIC the most traded token on chain currently. Check our Treasure newsletter for the rundown in this project.

Sonnie (9,5) @Dior_eth

Connect the dots... arbiscan.io/chart/address Unique Addresses Growing Daily EXPONENTIALLY $MAGIC is the #1 Token by volume on @arbitrum Upcoming: Bridgeworld, Smolverse, Seed of life, Toadstoolz, Enjoooyers, Peek-a-Boo Probably nothing $MAGIC

Dopex, the options dApp, has been another big success story so far on Arbitrum. Never fade Tetranode.

dopex (💎, 💎) @dopex_io

🍾 Congrats Dopefam! $DPX & $rDPX hit ATH (again 😉) “Dopex is my highest conviction bet” - Tetranode, UpOnly.tv - 2022 📺 Watch the episode on Twitch @ 01:22:30 twitch.tv/videos/1262580… #Dopex #Arbitrum

This anon has put a very nice list together of other Arbitrum dApps you might want to check out.

Otti (👾,🎮) @yitingqian_

Arbitrum项目 Umami: market maker & treasury Dopex: options GMX: perp Cap: perp Premia: options Treasure: nft marketplace Hundred: lending (ve) Tracer: perp Lemma: stablecoin with market neural derivatives Vesta: lending Primitive: replicating market maker Abacus: nft pricing

A thought on NFTs.

Scalynelson 🌈🤮 @punk3178

NFTs on arbitrum will be what we were all hoping for on these other layer ones.

Finally, wen token?

Cobie @cobie

They're listening

Optimism

Optimism had a slow start to its life in 2021, but it’s starting to pick up some steam.

It will be getting much cheaper, as will Arbitrum. Polyna has a 2022 prediction.

polynya @epolynya

Casual 30% few days ago, another 30% now; 50% with Arbitrum Nitro. Rollups are advancing rapidly. Over the course of 2022, rollups will mature to a point that'll make monolithic L1s look like DINOsaurs. Enjoy the ride while it lasts, the parks won't be endorsed.

Optimism @optimismPBC

Just found a way to shave another 30% off average transaction fees, feelin cute, might deploy later 👀👀 👀 guess there's a reason why they're called Optimizations

Putting this in the Optimism section, but AAVE will be deploying to both L2s.

marczeller.eth @lemiscate

Governance has spoken. Aave V3 will be on Arbitrum and Optimism. #L222

Curve has also joined the Optimism party.

Curve Finance @CurveFinance

This Monday is a bit Optimistic @optimismPBC Curve.fiCurve is an exchange liquidity pool on Ethereum designed for: extremely efficient stablecoin trading, low risk, supplemental fee income for liquidity providers, without an opportunity cost.optimism.curve.fi

Nice list of Optimism dApps. Time to wake up, anon.

Optimism @optimismPBC

Friends don't let friends burn precious ETH on fees. Bridge to the cheapest general-purpose L2 out there and play with your favorite apps, gang's all here @Uniswap @synthetix_io @CurveFinance @SetProtocol @quixotic_io @Zip_swap @HopProtocol. Are you really sleeping on Optimism?

Optimism @optimismPBC

Just found a way to shave another 30% off average transaction fees, feelin cute, might deploy later 👀👀 👀 guess there's a reason why they're called Optimizations

A shower thought for you.

κασσάνδρα.eth (kassandra.eth) @RitualTypist

optimism was overhyped L2 before launch, now it's underhyped L2 (imo)

zkSync

We love Argent and it’s just got so much more accessible for everyone. Affordable defi on Ethereum. Incredible UX. Based.

Argent @argentHQ

Cost to stake ETH right now? (Gas is 125 gwei) L1: ~$50 (M3tamask & Lido) L2: $1.52 (Argent zkSync & Lido) Fees down. UX up.

Plus Aave is also now integrated.

Argent @argentHQ

You can now earn interest with Aave for just $1-$3 in fees. Up to 100X cheaper than L1. #L222

How to earn interest with Aave on Layer 2Lend your crypto to earn rewardsargent.xyz

ZigZag exchange is also starting to see decent usage.

SwagtimusPrime.eth 🦇🔊🐼 L2'22 @Swagtimus

A single dapp on a zk rollup. Watch zk L2s go absofuckinglutely nuts as soon as EVM composability w/o whitelists is here.

ZigZag Exchange @ZigZagExchange

In the 2 months since our launch, users have traded a total of $402M in volume on ZigZag.

You might want to think about moving some ETH to zkSync. Just try and find a low gas window. You never know, you might get an airdrop if they release a token.

odin-free.eth🎡 @odin_free

Sempai, Ethereum gas is low at the moment. Switching to ZK is not financial advice, but life advice. It now costs 20 USD to move from L1 to L2. Pay with crypto or credit card. wallet.zksync.io/transaction/de… Zksync has no token.

zkSync WalletA crypto wallet & gateway to layer-2 zkSync Rollup. zkSync is a trustless, secure, user-centric protocol for scaling payments and smart contracts on Ethereumwallet.zksync.io

Other L2 chat

High praise for Immutable.

Kylereidhead.eth @KyleReidhead

@Immutable has the best UX of all the L2s so far - Don't need to create a new network in your MM - Obvious "Buy ETH" button to easily load up your wallet - 0 gas fees - Extremely fast Still very early & lots of room for improvement But for an MVP... devs need to take notice!

Immutable made history with this NFT launch.

Immutable | $IMX | Hiring!👇 @Immutable

- 125K NFTs minted in seconds on @Immutable L2 - Over $10M volume in less than 24 hours, one of the largest layer 2 NFT drops EVER. - I guess you could say this launch was a real page-turner. 📖

Gary Vaynerchuk @garyvee

whos ready for book games tomorrow ?

There is a new L2 contender in Metis and it is gaining a lot of traction.

Brett Palatiello @brettpalatiello

7/ The growth of @MetisDAO has been outstanding. It is now third in TVL among L2s with over $500M in 8 weeks.

Ryan’s shill to devs.

Ryan Berckmans @RyanBerckmans

Selling L2s Why should devs build on L2s, or start their own L2s, vs. alt L1s? Well, L2s have a few benefits. imo, the most important and urgent benefit is providing access to eth's web of assets trustlessly bridged from L1 to L2 and between L2s.

Everything sounds great about this, but Plonky2… no comment.

Polygon | $MATIC 💜 @0xPolygon

1/5 Proud to present #Plonky2 - the world's fastest ZK scaling technology, built by @0xPolygonZero! 💫 Plonky2 is a recursive SNARK that is 100x faster than existing alternatives and natively compatible with #Ethereum. A 🧵 on why this is exciting…

Lots of good stuff so far in January 2022, but seriously, L2s need tokens.

kain.eth L222 @kaiynne

But there is a missing piece here! Until we have tokens for @optimismPBC, @arbitrum and @StarkWareLtd we’re going to be fighting an uphill battle. Eth is too expensive for the average user and the upside on holding eth for them is limited.

For a general L2s overview it’s worth going through our thread from November:

Alpha @alpha_pls

1/ $ETH is scaling. L2s on Ethereum - Where are we at currently? A thread 🧵👇

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Is 2022 the Year of Ethereum L2s?

Arbitrum hits TVL ATH, Optimism getting cheaper, Metis on the rise...

General L2 thoughts:

Arbitrum

Optimism

zkSync

Other L2 chat

Sponsored Alpha

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