Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base are fighting over $52 billion DeFi pie
Three protocols are vying for dominance of the Ethereum Layer 2 market and its $52 billion worth of so-called decentralized finance (DeFi): Arbitrum (ARB), Optimism (OP), and Base. Bullish investors even see an opportunity for layer 2s to displace some of Ethereum’s $220 billion market cap or even the values of alternate blockchains like Solana or Avalanche. Something of a misnomer, a “layer 2” cheapens and speeds up the transactions of a layer 1 blockchain, yet layer 2s are essentially separate blockchains that publish data onto a base blockchain. Arbitrum and Optimism were the two earliest major competitors, and their valuations remain closely matched. Despite wildly divergent approaches, both ARB and OP are trading within 5% of a $3.2 billion fully diluted valuation. In contrast to Arbitrum and Optimism, Base is a corporately incubated layer 2 that doesn’t have a native token. Instead of an initial coin offering (ICO) or airdrop, Base financially ...