Base sequencer revenue surpasses Optimism

Base sequencer revenue surpassed Optimism in September 2026. A surge in batch transactions from Coinbase smart wallets drove this change. Base remains the highest-transaction-volume L2 by daily activity, fueled by consumer DApp adoption and memecoin trading. The economic tension in the Optimism model stems from the fact that Base captures the transaction volume because Coinbase directs its 100 million registered users toward the network through the Coinbase app and wallet. I see the direct impact of Coinbase’s distribution as it pulls volume away from the Optimism Mainnet sequencer. Base captured 90% of on-chain agentic stablecoin transactions in USDC during Q1 2026. Base uses the OP Stack, which provides the technical foundation for the Optimism ecosystem. All sequencer revenue flows to Coinbase rather than a token treasury. This revenue contributes to Coinbase’s technology-segment reporting. Optimism Mainnet’s volume fell because Base users migrated to the Coinbase distribution model. The Superchain thesis relies on cross-chain fee-sharing, but this mechanism does not yet make the Optimism Collective treasury the dominant value driver. Coinbase users deposit and withdraw directly to Base from the Coinbase exchange with no bridge needed. This distribution advantage allows Base to outpace Optimism in daily activity.

Arbitrum and zkSync struggles

Arbitrum One remains the leader in absolute sequencer revenue. The network processes hundreds of millions of transactions monthly. Its DeFi ecosystem includes GMX, Uniswap, Aave, and Camelot. However, the number of Arbitrum addresses fell in the last 30 days. This decline follows a period where Base transaction counts exceeded Arbitrum’s throughout Q1 and Q2 2026. Arbitrum uses the Nitro optimistic rollup with an independent stack and a WASM-based execution layer called Stylus. Arbitrum DAO controls a treasury of $3 – 4 billion in ARB tokens. The ARB token trades at a discount because governance has not yet implemented a fee-sharing mechanism for token holders. The combination of protocol-level profitability and governance-level spending creates a situation where the network is sustainable at the protocol layer but may consume treasury at the governance layer faster than the protocol revenue supports. Arbitrum One has faced high competition from newer rollups that use different execution layers. zkSync Era remains the largest zero-knowledge rollup by TVL and transaction volume. The network must pay for cryptographic proof generation for every batch of transactions. These costs remain a meaningful component of the zkSync Era cost base. This cost prevents zkSync Era from matching the sequencer margins of optimistic rollups like Base or Arbitrum. While hardware efficiency improves, the ZK technology premium has not translated into materially higher fees for users. The ZK rollup thesis suggests that proof generation costs will continue declining, similar to how storage costs have declined. Does zkSync Era ever close the margin gap?

Fee compression and the Scroll upgrade

Transaction fees collapsed across the industry after the March 2024 EIP-4844 implementation. This upgrade reduced data availability costs for rollups by approximately 90%. The compression hit networks that built cost structures around pre-4844 pricing. Scroll pursues further reduction through the Euclid upgrade. This upgrade aims to reduce batch commitment costs by 90% by moving blob verification from contract code to zk circuits. The upgrade also includes a migration to an OpenVM Prover and MPT state commitment. Euclid also provides EIP-7702 and RIP-7212 support to allow users to tap into new smart account technologies. These changes intend to improve throughput and security for Scroll users. The market shows extreme fee compression. Rollups that cannot lower costs will struggle to remain competitive in this environment. This forces developers to choose between security and cheap fees. The current landscape favors chains that maintain the lowest operational overhead. You should notice the fee differences if you move assets between chains.