March Layer 2 Landscape Recap

In general, the on-chain metrics for L2s in March have increased slightly compared to February, mostly due to the Arbitrum token airdrop. However, L2s have seen notable strides in development work, from the open sourcing of Polygon’s zkEVM prover to zkSync zkEVM mainnet launch. There was also negative news from Aztec Network, which announced the sunsetting of Aztec Connect, citing a shift in focus to Noir, their newest development.

The most notable on-chain activity would have to be the Arbitrum token (ARB) airdrop on March 24, evident from the spike in both users and transactions. Comparatively, activities on Optimism appeared to have flatlined throughout March, not even benefitting slightly from the spike in activity on Arbitrum. This could change, however, as perpetual exchanges such as Kwenta and Pika start offering trading pairs on ARB, which might see different funding rates from the exchanges on Arbitrum, and eventually incentivizing traders to migrate over.