Ethereum L2s
Ethereum L2s
Ethereum's scaling roadmap is rollup-centric. Rather than increasing L1 throughput, Ethereum treats L2s as first-class execution environments and optimizes L1 as a settlement and data availability layer. As of early 2026, over $30B in assets are secured across L2 networks.
Major Chains
Arbitrum One
Largest L2 by TVL: ~$19.12B (L2BEAT, June 2026). Optimistic rollup with Arbitrum's own WASM-based fraud proof system (BOLD). Deep DeFi ecosystem, strong institutional adoption. Stage 1 as of 2026.
Base
Coinbase's L2, originally built on op-stack. Dominant in users and activity — ~$11.55B TVL (L2BEAT, June 2026). Generated $78.2M in 2025 network revenue, 89% of total Superchain revenue. In February 2026, Coinbase announced Base is migrating away from the OP Stack to a proprietary "unified stack."
OP Mainnet
Optimism's flagship chain. Preceded Base in the Superchain. Smaller activity than Base but serves as the governance and protocol reference chain. ~$1.52B TVL (L2BEAT, June 2026).
zkSync Era
ZK rollup by Matter Labs. Uses custom zkEVM. High-throughput settlement focus. Stage 0 due to centralized prover.
StarkNet
ZK rollup using STARKs (no trusted setup). Compute-intensive applications — AI inference, gaming, privacy. Proprietary Cairo VM, not EVM bytecode compatible natively, though Kakarot brings EVM compatibility.
Polygon zkEVM
ZK rollup with EVM equivalence focus. Part of Polygon's broader "AggLayer" vision — aggregating ZK proofs across chains into a unified settlement.
Key Differentiators
| Chain | Type | TVL (June 2026) | Stage | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arbitrum One | Optimistic | ~$19.12B | 1 | DeFi depth |
| Base | Optimistic | ~$11.55B | 1 | Users, retail |
| OP Mainnet | Optimistic | ~$1.52B | 1 | Reference chain |
| StarkNet | ZK (STARK) | ~$617M | 0 | Compute apps |
| zkSync Era | ZK (SNARK) | ~$404M | 0 | Settlement |
Trends (2026)
- Enterprise rollups on OP Stack proliferating (Unichain, World Chain, Soneium, INK)
- ZK rollups closing the EVM compatibility gap but still behind on decentralization
- data-availability costs dropped 10–100x post-EIP-4844 (depending on chain and conditions); some chains migrating to Celestia or EigenDA for further savings
- superchain interop shipping — cross-chain messaging without bridges within OP ecosystem
- Base's February 2026 departure from the OP Stack signals potential fragmentation in the optimistic rollup ecosystem
Related
rollups · op-stack · base · superchain · data-availability