Top Layer 2 Networks in 2025

We evaluated Layer 2 networks through bridge flows, fee estimations, and ecosystem depth across wallets, DEXs, and onramps. Our process prioritized security architecture, developer ergonomics, ecosystem liquidity, governance transparency, and verifiable throughput from public dashboards.

While Ethereum L2s dominate overall activity, credible alternatives are maturing, including OP Stack Superchain deployments and ZK rollups oriented for performance and privacy. We also included new entrants from major exchanges to reflect onramps that matter for mainstream adoption.

We highlight the most important factors in the table below:

1. Base

Base ranks as the best Layer 2 network in 2025 for combining Ethereum’s security with Coinbase’s global reach and broad consumer accessibility. Its integrated fiat pathways and native bridge make it the most straightforward entry point for mainstream users moving onchain.

Built with the OP Stack, Base maintains full EVM compatibility, letting developers deploy Ethereum applications without code changes or tooling adjustments. The network averages sub-cent fees and near-instant confirmation times while aligning with the broader Superchain roadmap for scalability.

Base’s ecosystem now hosts thousands of active applications across DeFi, payments, and social use cases driven by Coinbase’s retail liquidity. Its scale, reliability, and real-world adoption make it the benchmark Layer 2 for accessibility and practical Ethereum expansion in 2025.

Base Highlights:

• Active Users: 730,000 weekly active addresses.
• Onramps: Fiat, exchange bridge, standard crypto bridges.
• Fees: $0.02 for swaps and transfers.
• Top Protocols: Aerodrome (DEX), Morpho (Lending), Aave (Lending).
• Token: Actively "exploring" the idea of launching a native Base network token.

2. Arbitrum

Arbitrum is an optimistic rollup emphasizing EVM fidelity, high throughput, and a very broad DeFi and gaming application footprint. The design prioritizes low fees, bytecode compatibility, and secure settlement guarantees anchored to Ethereum with an established fraud-proof framework.

The ecosystem spans hundreds of applications, liquidity programs, and bridges, creating deep markets across perpetuals, spot DEXs, and structured products. Tooling maturity allows teams to port production systems without major rewrites, preserving audits and security assumptions effectively.

Arbitrum’s ecosystem governance, grant programs, and sequencer roadmap continue to expand decentralization and open participation. For users, the practical outcome is reliable execution, tight spreads, and frequent listings from teams prioritizing liquidity depth and composability.

Arbitrum Highlights:

• Active Users: 237,000 weekly active addresses.
• Fees: $0.08 for swaps, $0.02 for transfers.
• Security: Fraud proofs anchored to Ethereum.
• Top Protocols: Aave (Lending), GMX (DEX), Pendle (Yield).
• Token: $ARB with market cap of $1.48 billion and FDV of $2.7 billion.

3. Optimism

Optimism powers the OP Stack and the Superchain vision, enabling many Layer 2s to share standards, tooling, and eventually decentralized sequencing. OP Mainnet itself is a production optimistic rollup focused on affordability, reliability, and developer experience.

For developers, OP offers stable EVM alignment, strong documentation, and reusable modules supporting rollup deployment beyond a single chain. For users, this translates to growing cross-chain liquidity, familiar wallets, and predictable fees across interoperable Superchain networks.

Shared standards encourage reuse of infrastructure like bridges, monitoring, and governance primitives that compound ecosystem effects. The strategic focus is to scale Ethereum by federating many OP Stack networks under consistent, upgradeable, and secure components.

Optimism Highlights:

• Active Users: 62,000 weekly active addresses.
• Fees: Less than $0.0004 for swaps and transfers.
• Onramps: Bridges, CEX support, and wallets.
• Top Protocols: Aave (Lending), Velodrome (DEX), Spark (Lending).
• Token: $OP with market cap of $0.94 billion and FDV of $1.8 billion.

4. Unichain

Unichain is an OP Stack Layer 2 crypto network optimized for trading, liquidity efficiency, and ultra-fast pacing using sub-blocks to improve market responsiveness. It aims to minimize slippage and confirmation uncertainty for active traders while remaining fully EVM compatible.

The chain is built to host order flow heavy apps, AMMs, and routing systems that benefit from quick block cadence and deterministic performance. Liquidity programs and cross-chain asset routes are positioned to consolidate fragmented liquidity into tighter markets.

Its developer story mirrors other OP Stack networks, reducing migration friction while enabling customizations for market-centric features. The focus is on exchange-like responsiveness with onchain composability for complex strategies.

Unichain Highlights:

• Active Users: Less than 9,000 weekly active addresses.
• Fees: Less than $0.0001 for swaps and transfers.
• Focus: Trading, routing, and liquidity efficiency.
• Top Protocols: Uniswap (DEX), Morpho (Lending), Spark (Lending).
• Token: $UNI with market cap of $5.01 billion and FDV of $7.95 billion.

5. Ink

Ink is an OP Stack L2 launched by Kraken to tightly integrate exchange onramps with onchain DeFi and app ecosystems. The goal is a intuitive path from centralized accounts to non-custodial activity with minimal friction for deposits and withdrawals.

By inheriting OP Stack standards, Ink benefits from shared security assumptions, tooling, and Superchain interoperability. For users, familiar wallets and a well-lit path from exchange balances make first-time DeFi usage considerably easier.

For developers, partnering with a major exchange network promises distribution, support, and discovery advantages. The emphasis is user experience over experimental complexity, with cost-effective execution and predictable settlement behavior.

Ink Highlights:

• Active Users: Over 50,000 weekly active addresses.
• Fees: About $0.0004 for swaps and transfers.
• Onramps: Direct funding paths from Kraken accounts.
• Top Protocols: Tydro (Lending), Velodrome (DEX), InkySwap (DEX).
• Token: $INK expected to launch soon.

6. Starknet

Starknet, the final network on our list of top Layer 2s, is a STARK-based validity rollup built for scalable, verifiable computation. It now extends beyond Ethereum, positioning itself as Bitcoin’s execution layer for BTC-native DeFi (BTCFi) and yield-generating applications.

Through Native Account Abstraction, every wallet operates as a programmable smart account, enabling flexible authentication, enhanced UX, and developer-controlled logic. This design simplifies onboarding while preserving decentralization and providing a secure foundation for next-generation applications.

Developers use Cairo, Starknet’s proof-optimized language, to build parallelized contracts and ZK-native systems supporting both Ethereum and Bitcoin liquidity. With its dual-chain focus, ecosystem grants, and growing builder community, Starknet is the frontier of cross-chain scalability.

Starknet Highlights:

• Active Users: About 70,000 weekly active addresses.
• Fees: Less than $0.01 for swaps and transfers.
• Security: ZK proofs finalized on Ethereum.
• Top Protocols: Extended (Perps), Ekubo (DEX), Vesu (Lending).
• Token: $STRK with market cap of $0.66 billion and FDV of $1.45 billion.

What Is an Ethereum Layer 2?

An Ethereum Layer 2 is a secondary execution network that runs transactions off-chain while inheriting Ethereum’s settlement and security guarantees. These systems scale Ethereum by compressing or proving transactions externally, then posting verified state updates to the base layer.

The main Layer 2 types include:

• Optimistic rollups: Batch transactions off-chain and assume validity unless challenged, relying on fraud proofs for dispute resolution (examples: Arbitrum One, Optimism, Base).
• Zero-knowledge rollups: Use cryptographic proofs to instantly verify off-chain execution on Ethereum, enabling faster finality and stronger data integrity (examples: Starknet, ZKsync, Linea).
• Validiums: Keep transaction data off-chain while anchoring validity proofs to Ethereum, trading lower fees for partial data availability assumptions (examples: Immutable, Sorare, DeGate).
• Hybrid rollups: Combine optimistic and ZK components, offering configurable balances between proof cost, latency, and security transparency (examples: Polygon, Scroll, Mantle, Taiko).

As of November 2025, Ethereum Layer 2s process over 25 million daily transactions, exceeding Mainnet volume by more than tenfold. Across networks, Base averages 15.3 million transactions and 730k active addresses, while Arbitrum and Optimism collectively serve nearly 5 million transactions per day.

What Is a Bitcoin Layer 2?

A Bitcoin Layer 2 is a protocol built atop the Bitcoin blockchain that processes transactions off-chain while anchoring settlement to Bitcoin’s base layer. These systems increase throughput, enable programmability, and expand Bitcoin’s utility for DeFi, payments, and smart contracts.

Leading Bitcoin Layer 2 networks include:

• Rootstock: Rootstock is an EVM-compatible sidechain merge-mined with Bitcoin, using over 60 % of Bitcoin’s hash power for security and rBTC interoperability.
• Stacks: Stacks uses the Proof of Transfer consensus to anchor its blocks to Bitcoin, enabling Clarity smart contracts and the creation of Bitcoin-native dApps.
• BOB: BOB is a hybrid Layer 2 combining Bitcoin’s security with Ethereum’s EVM via OP Stack rollups, supporting DeFi apps with Bitcoin collateral.
• Hemi: Hemi integrates a Bitcoin node within an Ethereum-compatible framework, using Proof-of-Proof consensus to secure cross-chain applications and native BTC DeFi.
• CORE: CORE is a Bitcoin-anchored Layer 2 with its own validators and wrapped BTC model, designed to support scalable smart contracts and stablecoin issuance.

According to DefiLlama (as of November 2025), Bitcoin Layer 2 networks collectively secure over $600 million in total value locked (TVL). Rootstock leads with $190 million, followed by Stacks $120 million, BOB $112 million, Hemi $102 million, and CORE $86 million.

What Is a Solana Layer 2?

In theory, Solana Layer 2 networks extend the base chain by separating execution and settlement to handle high-volume workloads efficiently. Unlike Ethereum’s foundation-directed rollups, Solana’s scaling effort comes from developers seeking cheaper fees and better control of application-level economics.

Projects such as Solayer and Eclipse use Solana’s Virtual Machine to create modular environments for faster processing and external settlement. Solayer applies SOL restaking for shared security and liquidity, while Eclipse runs Solana’s execution layer and anchors proofs to Ethereum.

Other initiatives, including Grass, GetCode, and MagicBlock’s Ephemeral Rollups, offload computation and data storage to auxiliary layers. Together, these systems shift Solana from a single-chain network to a modular architecture that scales specialized applications efficiently.

How Scalable Are Layer 2s?

Layer 2 networks achieve important scalability gains by batching transactions and minimizing onchain data through compression or validity proofs. L2Beat reports combined Layer 2 throughput exceeding 250 TPS, with peak capacity projected to surpass 1,000 TPS as shared sequencing matures.

According to GrowthePie, median swap fees on leading rollups remain under $0.05, while transaction confirmation times average two seconds. These performance levels allow decentralized applications, like perpetual trading, social interactions, and gaming to operate natively on blockchain rails.

Public benchmarks show aggregate Layer 2 gas usage outpacing Ethereum Mainnet by over 40%, reflecting deep migration of user activity and DeFi liquidity. With prover optimizations, modular DA layers, and unified bridging, L2s are expected to handle millions of transactions per minute in the coming years.

Risks of Layer 2 Networks

Layer 2 networks introduce additional risks beyond those of their base chains. Understanding these vulnerabilities is essential before deploying capital, bridging assets, or building applications.

Key risks to consider when using L2s include:

• Bridge exploits: Cross-chain bridges remain frequent attack targets, with compromised contracts or validators often leading to large, irrecoverable asset losses.
• Sequencer failures: Centralized or offline sequencers can halt transaction inclusion, delay withdrawals, or cause temporary network downtime during congestion.
• Data availability issues: Off-chain data or committee-based systems can fail, making it difficult to reconstruct network state or verify transactions independently.
• Smart contract vulnerabilities: Bugs or flawed upgrade logic in Layer 2 smart contracts can expose user funds, disrupt settlement, or compromise bridge security.
• Fraud-proof liveness: Optimistic rollups require active watchers to detect invalid transactions; inactive watchers can let malicious activity go unchallenged.
• Proof-generation constraints: Zero-knowledge systems depend on computationally heavy provers, which may slow throughput or increase costs during high network usage.
• Governance and upgrade risks: Protocol governance can alter upgrade logic, exit conditions, or bridge rules, affecting user trust and smart contract reliability.
• Liquidity fragmentation: Multiple L2s split liquidity and trading volume, increasing slippage and reducing capital efficiency across DeFi ecosystems.
• Economic volatility: Incentive reductions or shifting yield dynamics can trigger liquidity flight, impacting collateralized positions and onchain market stability.

Final Thoughts

Layer 2 networks like Base and Arbitrum operate as independent environments supporting large-scale markets, decentralized finance, and next-generation digital infrastructure.

Over the next five years, shared sequencing, modular execution, and improved interoperability will connect ecosystems into a unified layer for convenient global computation.

Looking ahead, as settlement layers stabilize and proof systems standardize, Layer 2s will form the foundation for high-frequency, composable blockchain economies.