June '24 Layer 2 Landscape Recap

The total value locked (TVL) of all Layer 2s (L2s) witnessed an 8.8% month-on-month (MoM) decline in June, while the total transaction count rose by 7.8% MoM. The rise in transaction count despite the down-trending TVL indicates the prevalence of L2 user activity. This activity is likely sustained by the Sybil activity on rollups with potential airdrops like Scroll and Linea, as well as the ZK and BLAST airdrop launched this month.

Gas expenditure saw a small uptick this month, from 624 ether to 744 ether, congruent with the observed increase in user transactions. Interestingly, rollup operators’ revenue continues to trend downwards, from 3,947 ether to 3,436 ether. The decrease in revenue, along with increased transaction count, implies that gas prices on L2s must have remained relatively low, which is a trend that users would like to see sustained over the long term. However, if operators’ revenue continues to trend downwards, that may eventually raise concerns over the profitability of running an L2 operator node.