Base leads other L2 platforms in profits, but there’s a caveat

Posted: September 2, 2023

• Base recorded over $2 million profits in August.
• Base’s TVL continued to surge, but it was yet to dominate.

A recent post by Kofi highlighted that L2 platform Base stood out as the most profitable platform among other L2s in August. A deeper dive into transaction fees earned using Dune Analytics revealed that Base outperformed competitors such as Arbitrum [ARB], OP Mainnet, and zkSync Era.

According to the Dune Analytics chart, it secured a remarkable profit exceeding $2.7 million. zkSync Era claimed the second-highest profit with roughly $2.3 million, followed by Arbitrum at around $1.1 million, and OP Mainnet with approximately $972,000.

Base was the most profitable L2 this month, surpassing Arbitrum, Optimism, and zkSync Era

𝑂𝑛𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑖𝑡 = 𝑅𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑢𝑒 𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑔𝑎𝑠 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑠 – 𝐶𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 𝑡𝑜 𝐿1 – 𝐶𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑓𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑓𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝐿1 pic.twitter.com/mqS1Xo9JEs

— Kofi (@0xKofi) August 31, 2023

Analyzing Base’s volume and TVL

Based on data from DefiLlama, Base has exhibited a relatively steady volume and revenue trend over the past 30 days. However, during most of August, the volume remained below $100 million, except for two instances when it briefly exceeded this threshold before decreasing again.

As of this writing, the volume was approximately $14 million.

Regarding revenue, it followed a generally positive trajectory but experienced a decline towards the end of August. At press time, the revenue was around $75,000.

Source: DefiLlama

In contrast, the Total Value Locked (TVL) demonstrated significant growth and an upward trend. As of this writing, the TVL was approximately $198 million. This level was substantially increased from the approximately $14 million TVL observed at the beginning of August.

Good start, but a long way to go

Despite its positive trend in TVL and profitability relative to other L2 solutions, Base still had ground to cover regarding market share. According to L2 Beat, Arbitrum, OP Mainnet, and zkSync Era remained the dominant players.

As of this writing, Arbitrum and OP Mainnet commanded approximately 55% and 25% of the L2 market share, respectively. zkSync Era held nearly 4%, while Base accounted for around 3.7% of the market share.

It remains to be seen whether Base will catapult past its competitors in the months to come.