The onchain economy is no longer a niche — onchain innovation is changing how we interact, trade, and create, from financial systems to gaming and collectibles.
An excerpt on Base’s role in the growing onchain economy. 👇🧵
Our latest consulting report dives into the recent growth of the onchain economy across major networks, with a focus Base’s position therein.
Most graphs cover data from January 2024 to October 2024. Metrics have continued to spike in November! Major networks analyzed include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, Avax, Base, Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Cosmos, Optimism, Polygon, Sei, and Sui.
In 2024, the onchain economy surged with daily txs up 50% YTD and TVL rising 70% to $70B+ across major networks.
Highlighting a global shift to digital infrastructure, as projected by the WEF, which estimates 10% of global GDP will be onchain by 2027.
As total TVL onchain surges, Base’s growth in particular stands out.
Base’s onchain TVL increased from $439M in Jan. 2024 to $2.51B at the end of Oct. 2024 – a 470% increase.
Subsequently, Baseʼs market share rose from 1.07% of total onchain TVL to 3.59%.
YTD, cumulative weekly transactions have gone from 315M at the start of the year to 531M as of Nov 19, >60% YTD increase in total weekly onchain txs. 👇
In the same timeframe, Base has gone from 2.1M daily transactions at the start of the year to 42.34M at the end of October, a gain of over 1,900%.
This has increased Baseʼs market share from .67% to 9%.
This rise shows its growing popularity and affordability, highlighting its success while still enabling other networks to be successful (e.g., other networks in the Superchain).
One key area of onchain economy growth is stablecoins — YTD, total deduped onchain stablecoin weekly volume has gone from $89.7B to $249B, a gain of over 177%.
Stablecoin growth is also rapidly accelerating on Base: in that same timeframe, Base's cumulative weekly stablecoin volume went from $620M in January to $62B at the end of October, a gain of >9,800%.
This has increased Baseʼs market share from 0.7% to 33%, a multiple of 47x.
Zooming in on Base
Base is rapidly growing in correlation with the total onchain activity surge:
🔹 Daily txs on Base have surged 1,600%.
🔹 Base TVL has risen 470%.
In comparison, total onchain transactions grew 50% and TVL rose 70% across major networks.
Base is more than a DeFi hub — it's a thriving ecosystem where diverse onchain applications can flourish, fostering the growth of a true digital economy:
Over 60% of Base's onchain apps cater to use cases beyond DeFi, with 20% focused on gaming, 18.8% on collectibles, 15.3% on social, and 5.9% in other categories.
Contrary to Web2 dynamics, the cost of doing business on Base has decreased despite soaring demand:
Base's avg fee dropped 95% YTD, from $0.44 in Q1 to $0.019 by Oct 17, driven by EIP-4844 & scaling efforts while daily txs surged 800% (615K to 5.6M).
In just over a year, Base has solidified its position as a leading L2.
By establishing a developer-friendly ecosystem with minimal transaction fees, Base has created an environment that not only attracts developers and users, but also sees robust retention. 👇
Base’s daily returning addresses rose from 59,000 in Jan to over 1M in Oct, with a peak of 1.23M on Oct 3rd.
Over 1,600% YTD growth — a clear indicator of explosive activity paired with strong user retention.
Curious to learn more about the key drivers behind the growing global onchain economy and Base's role within? Don’t miss the full @base consulting report!
Crypto x AI Month - Decentralized AI Training: Can It Dismantle Centralized Powerhouses?
Top experts @IridiumEagle, @DillonRolnick, @fenbielding, @johannes_hage debate how open-source and DeAI can rival tech giants, a panel hosted by @Shaughnessy119.
🗣 “What decentralization really gives us is the opportunity for a properly modular infrastructure where you could actually compose those models together.” - @fenbielding (@gensynai)
Timeboost, @arbitrum's new transaction sequencing policy, replaces first-come-first-serve with an auction for transaction priority.
Winners access an "express lane" with a 200ms advantage for transaction inclusion. This shifts competition from latency to strategic bidding and prediction.
Arbitrum uses first-come-first-serve (FCFS) transaction ordering based on sequencer arrival.
This enables fast blocks and reduces frontrunning, but it has drawbacks:
In the other hand, Timeboost auctions are held every minute for next-minute express lane control:
Auctioneer accepts bids for 45 seconds, with 15 seconds for resolution. Minimum bid: 3 $ARB or 0.001 $ETH (DAO decision). Limit: 5 bids per address per round. 👇
4 Potential Express lane strategies:
1️⃣ Predict MEV opportunities using price models for arbitrage and liquidations.
2️⃣ Capture real-time MEV during control period.
3️⃣ Establish secondary market by winning auctions and reselling rights.
4️⃣ Collaborate with others, sharing access when collective MEV exceeds individual extraction.
Timeboost shifts Arbitrum's MEV from speed to strategy via time-based auctions.
It generates DAO revenue, reduces spam, and allows flexible allocation.
This approach encourages strategic bidding, benefiting the ecosystem while enabling community-driven distribution.
In last year’s Infrastructure Year Ahead report, we outlined the evolving landscape of rollups in the section "The L2 Wars."
This year, we reflect on these past predictions in this new unlocked Alpha Feed 🔓
Key insights included 👇
🔹Blast Rollup: A complete distortion of rollup architecture, signaling the end of the “kumbaya” phase.
🔹Fragmented L2 Ecosystems: Increasing isolation with unique bridging, interoperability standards, and SDKs for new chains/L3s (e.g., Superchain, Orbit).
🔹Alt-DA for Scaling: Rollups rely on alternative DA to achieve scalability.
🔹Disruption of DA Value: Premium charges on DA would no longer be sustainable, as DA faces innovation.
🔹ETH’s New Bull Case: Ethereum's future as the global proof verification layer and money.
🔹Limited Value for DA Layers: DA layers would see restricted value accrual.
🔹Positive Outlook for L2 Tokens: Sequencing value could drive positive outcomes for L2 tokens.
These predictions have largely played out, with Ethereum's focus shifting back to scaling L1 to avoid losing value to rollups.
ETH has been going through somewhat of a social crisis, and these talking points above are now brought up ad nauseam. ⤵️
Reflecting on our report a year ago, "Solana The Monolith", @solana's modular components continue gaining value across platforms, affecting ETH & BTC.
As rollups promote modularity, Solana is at the forefront.👇
In the report, we explore how Solana is contributing to the growing landscape of modular blockchain components while also developing its internal demand through the creation of L2 solutions.
Previously, the SVM and Validator Client were closely integrated, which constrained innovation by requiring any changes to consider the entire system as a whole.
The 21st century is primed for a continued struggle: the state, the corporation, the elites vs. the network. The hierarchy and the hivemind. The Tower and the Square.
With the rapid advances in AI, perhaps the stakes have never been higher.
Of history's countless concentrations and diffusions of power, the next chapter is perhaps its most consequential.
Don’t miss out on @PonderingDurian lastest report ! Probably the best current read on Centralized AI, Crypto, and Open Source AI 👀👇 delphi.link/TheTowerAndSqu…
Your Size is Not Size
Google, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Apple have over $400B in cash-like assets and generate >1.5% of GDP in annual operating income. The race for AI supremacy is only heating up.
The 4 hyperscalers (Excl. Apple) spent $467B in capex the last 3 years👇