The impending release of the ethereum Dencun upgrade at 14.00 UTC today, March 13, has caused a notable spike in native token prices for layer 2 protocols including Arbitrum, Polygon, and Optimism.
According CryptoSlate According to data, the sector has increased by approximately 5% in the last 24 hours, reaching a total market capitalization of 20.21 billion dollars. This growth maintains a constant upward trend of 10% observed throughout the week.
Layer 2 Token Surge
In the last 24 hours, Arbitrum's ARB token rose by approximately 10% to reach $2.18. This increase coincides with the team's planned launch of over $1 billion in ARB tokens this week.
Arbitrum is the leading Layer 2 ethereum scaling solution, with approximately $16 billion worth of assets locked on the platform, according to L2Beat.
During the same period, the Polygon network's MATIC token saw a 4% rise to $1.23, marking its highest value since March 2023. This upward trend is simultaneous with a notable increase in active addresses on the chain. Polygon PoS, which registered more than 1 million daily. active addresses for 20 consecutive days.
Similarly, Optimism's OP token rose 2.26% to $4.5, according to data from CryptoSlate, a major milestone considering its starting point at around $3.5 earlier this month.
Notably, the Optimism Foundation revealed a private sale of 19.5 million OP tokens last week. While the buyer remains secret, the deal includes a two-year vesting period.
Lastly, Loopring's LRC saw a more modest 1.34% gain over the same reporting period, currently trading at $0.43140 at the time of publication.
Why are they going up?
The token price increase can be attributed to the upcoming Dencun upgrade, which will be released in a few eth-dencun-web3″>hours.
Dencun aims to significantly improve the scalability of the ethereum network. The integration of EIP-4844, known as proto-dank sharding, will introduce blob-like transactions, reducing transaction costs for Layer 2 chains. This move will enable massive scalability across Layer 2 rollups by minimizing data availability costs.
Mara Schmiedt, CEO of Alluvial Finance, said cryptoslate that the Dencun upgrade represents a giant leap in the resilience and performance of the ethereum ecosystem.
According to her:
“The combination of ethereum's accumulation-focused scalability model, the upcoming Dencun upgrade, and the rapid proliferation and growth of L2 transactions point to an optimistic future.”
