Ethereum L2s Overtake Mainnet as Value Capture Debate Deepens

Ethereum’s layer 2 ecosystem has moved into a new phase. Rollups now handle more daily transactions than the Ethereum mainnet, turning the network’s long-running scaling strategy into a measurable reality rather than a roadmap promise.

That milestone has settled the throughput argument, yet it has opened a harder economic debate. Activity has shifted upward, mainnet fee revenue has weakened, and the market is now asking whether the gains from L2 growth still flow back to Ethereum or stay with rollup operators and applications.

Activity Moves Up the Stack

The shift is now visible across the largest rollups. The data reveal that the tracked L2 networks have processed more transactions per day than the Ethereum mainnet since mid-2024, and the trend is only increasing in the first quarter of 2026.

Base has driven much of that expansion. It crossed 2 million daily transactions on multiple days in early 2026, while Arbitrum and OP Mainnet each added hundreds of thousands more. Scroll and zkSync Era also contributed meaningful volume. As a result, the combined L2 ecosystem now processes several multiples of the Ethereum mainnet’s daily transaction count on active days.

Cheaper Rollups Changed the Math

The March 2024 Dencun upgrade, especially EIP-4844, accelerated that migration. Blob-carrying transactions slashed data availability costs for rollups, making low-fee execution far more practical across trading, gaming, and consumer applications.

However, that same efficiency came with a cost to Ethereum’s base layer. Mainnet fee revenue and $ETH burn dropped sharply after Dencun, and the old model that tied Ethereum’s value directly to expensive on-chain activity weakened. Rollups became cheaper and more useful, yet each transaction contributed far less to base-layer revenue than similar activity did in 2021.

Value Capture Remains Unresolved

Meanwhile, that leaves the economic question open. Arbitrum still holds the largest L2 total value locked in the source material, with activity concentrated in perpetuals, yield products, and liquid staking. Nevertheless, ARB does not automatically capture sequencer revenue under its current structure, so tokenholder value still depends on governance choices that remain unsettled.

Base presents a different model. Coinbase retains sequencer revenue from Base, giving it one of the clearest business structures in the rollup market. Moreover, that has strengthened the view that many L2s may evolve into business ecosystems built around application revenue rather than neutral scaling layers alone.

Recent commentary around MegaETH pointed in the same direction, describing a model where brand and application economics drive the chain.

Ethereum still holds the settlement role beneath that activity. It remains the primary collateral asset across much of the L2 economy, and it still secures the broader stack. Notably, the scaling case now looks far stronger than before. Yet the value-capture case remains more uncertain, especially while sequencer centralization, liquidity fragmentation, and bridge risk continue to shape the L2 market.

Related: Ethereum Foundation Dumps 10,000 $ETH to BitMine