The Coinbase-developed Ethereum layer-2 network, Base, witnessed an astonishing surge in daily transactions, reaching a record-breaking 2 million on March 16, just days after the highly anticipated Dencun upgrade. This remarkable 350% jump in daily transactions came on the heels of a vast reduction in fees following the upgrade's implementation.

Before the Dencun upgrade, Base was processing around 440,000 transactions per day. However, the day after the upgrade, this figure skyrocketed to an impressive 1.1 million transactions and continued its upward trajectory in the following days, culminating in a staggering 2,064,920 transactions on March 16.

The surge in transactions was accompanied by a significant influx of new users on the Base network. Daily new users spiked to an astounding 666,866 on March 16, representing a massive 3,200% increase from the average for the days leading up to the Dencun upgrade.

This remarkable 350% jump in transactions has been directly linked to the vast reduction in fees that Base experienced following the Dencun upgrade. According to data from Blockscout, average transaction fees on Base have fallen by more than 60% since the upgrade's implementation.

Launched by the cryptocurrency exchange giant Coinbase in August of the previous year, Base has quickly risen to become the sixth-largest network in the Ethereum layer-2 ecosystem. With a total value locked (TVL) of $1.46 billion, Base commands an impressive 4.1% market share of the layer-2 landscape, according to the industry tracker L2beat.

The Ethereum Dencun upgrade introduced Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 4844, which aimed to reduce layer-2 transaction fees by introducing data blobs or proto-danksharding. This upgrade enhanced L2 data availability, resulting in a substantial reduction in gas costs, reaching as high as 90% for some networks.

The impact of the Dencun upgrade was evident across leading layer-2 networks, with average transaction fees on Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, and zkSync Era falling by between 60% and 90%, according to data from Dune Analytics.

While Arbitrum and Optimism continue to dominate the layer-2 ecosystem with a combined total value locked of $23 billion, giving them a market share of 42% and 23%, respectively, the surge in Base's activity and user base highlights the growing adoption and significance of layer-2 solutions in the Ethereum ecosystem.

The reduction in gas fees was particularly notable on decentralized exchanges like Uniswap's Optimism deployment, where token swap fees fell as low as $0.01 following the Dencun upgrade, as noted by protocol founder Hayden Adams.

Despite the significant fee reductions on layer-2 networks, Ethereum layer-1 gas fees have remained high recently, as the asset's price topped $4,000 before retracing. According to data from Gasfees.io, the comparison between Ethereum L1 and L2 fees on March 18 underscored the substantial cost savings offered by layer-2 solutions.

As the Ethereum ecosystem continues to evolve and adopt layer-2 scaling solutions, the success of networks like Base and the impact of upgrades like Dencun highlight the growing demand for efficient and cost-effective transactions in the ever-expanding world of decentralized applications and decentralized finance (DeFi).