February Layer 2 Landscape Recap

The crypto markets have remained relatively unfazed in February, resulting in minute changes across most metrics for most L2s. However, there were noticeable changes in some rollups' ecosystems, such as ZKSpace’s spike in user activity and Aztec’s surge in gas consumed. Additionally, Optimism’s activity and gas consumption have declined relative to the speculative month before. Arbitrum, on the other hand, has managed to retain a substantial level of user activity and is still seeing sustained growth in February.

The most notable trend in the Layer 2 domain would have to be the decline in Optimism’s usage as opposed to Arbitrum in February, after a stellar month in January. The surge in January was due to speculation on Optimism’s quests, though that interest quickly faded. For Arbitrum, there has always been a moderate level of ongoing speculation on a potential token, even without signs of whether the token and an airdrop will exist. As a result, Arbitrum continued to see sustained growth in users, while Optimism appeared to have flatlined in February.