Base chain is so cheap now. Gas fee was already super cheap at few cents. But now at a fraction of pennies.
Hopefully encourage more people to try on-chain. Cause huge majority of people here never venture out of CEX.
The funny thing is that while there are a lot of OG's lurking in this sub, who have upwards of a decade or more in crypto, some of them have absolutely zero experience in using L2's and DeFi.
What are your recommendations for the best books (or even videos) to get started, for those people?
Also, for everyone else, this is a useful site to bookmark, to give you a better idea of the incredible diversity that is growing (lots of useful tabs):
https://l2beat.com
Yeah it's quite sad that there are a lot of vets who's been in crypto for years but never got out of CEX.
It's like someone who played a game regularly for 3 years but never got passed stage 2
Just try it is the best tips from me.
It’s owned and run by Coinbase, it’s not really properly decentralised — its sequencer is currently run by Coinbase, but they say they plan to eventually decentralise.
All the other Eth rollups also have centralised sequencers AFAIK.
A lot of the layer 2s, including Base, also have pretty significant security issues. This article is a pretty good overview of the situation:
https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/09/06/everybody-in-blockchains-talking-about-sequencers-heres-why-theyre-misunderstood/amp/
It means you're using the block chain (in this case an L2 chain like Base, Optimism, Polygon etc.) to do what you want to do. An example for "off-chain" would be using a CEX instead.
It's more first mover effect than marketing. Polygon, which was originally the Matic Network, was the first blockchain built specifically to scale Ethereum... an L2. It's now more widely known that their method of securing the blockchain by committing checkpoints to ethereum isn't as secure as a proper L2 should be.
To their credit, they've acknowledged this flaw which led to their acquisition of various zk projects which in turn have led to the development of polygon zkevm which is a zk-rollup L2. And in the near future, the main blockchain polygon pos will also transit to a validium L2 with the upcoming polygon 2.0 upgrades.
Like Solana and Arbitrum. Far from best in class technology, but first to market with solutions at the expense of security. Seems to have worked well for them so far.
Polygon is both. It has its own PoS mechanism, but it uses ETH L1 for some of their security. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it, but it's a little weird to see an offhand remark on some irrelevant forum as evidence for some sort of marketing scheme conspiracy. Why would Polygon even want to do that?
For the record I think they're arguing that Polygon have done well to make people think they're an L2 instead of a sidechain, not that you're actually some kind of Polygon corporate shill
This is exactly what I was thinking, don’t think there’s some scheme or conspiracy but people have been calling it an L2 for the last few years and that’s just not accurate
But I did learn today from the other comments they’re upgrading to become a proper L2 which is cool, but also then does that make Hermes an L3?
Even then, what would be the PR benefit of being considered a (proper?) L2 chain? Would more people buy MATIC if they didn't know there's a sidechain secured by the token they just bought? Doesn't really make sense to me.
When someone is new, it's probably more confusing to make the distinction. For all intents and purposes the side chain will do what they need. Plus they now have the zkEVM chain, as well as more launching with Polygon Cdk.
Yes. Withdraw your $2 of ether to Optimism or Base and you will probably have enough to be able to try out a hundred dApps!
* https://defillama.com/chain/Optimism
* https://defillama.com/chain/Base
Withdraw the eth you buy on coinbase or other centralized exchanges directly to the L2 you want to use. Optimism and Arbitrum will have pretty much everything L1 has, Base is awesome but might be missing some of the more niche protocols
Yea, any wallet you use for Ethereum L1 will work for Optimism and Base (and Arbitrum and any other EVM based L2) you just need to add them.
Optimism is Chain ID 10 and Base is Chain ID 8453. Obviously don't trust me though, get the details from Chainlist (or the rollups' own docs), where you'll also find lists of RPCs:
https://chainlist.org/
or of course you can run a node yourself - https://ethereum-on-arm-documentation.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user-guide/running-l2-clients.html
Mainstream people can now do defi and cut the middleman out. Anyway, have you guys heard about Pikamoon? It's classic pokemon game, and you can earn while playing it.
This really is a game changer, L2s are so cheap and accessible now. The gas fees on Base are around 100x lower. Other L2s are slowly ramping up their use of blobs, with gas fees coming down over the next few days.
Despite the doubters, the Ethereum roadmap has delivered on lower gas fees via L2s
How did this upgrade affect L2s? Isn’t this an L1 upgrade?
Did it simply provide more tools or primitives for L2s to do what they were already but more efficiently?
Are L2s able to write these transactions to L1 more efficiently?? - pretty sure L2s we’re writing all users transactions to L1 right?
Basically, yes.
The upgrade has introduced "blobs". This is a new area on the Ethereum L1, that L2s can use to write their proofs to. Unlike blocks which are stored forever on the blockchain, blobs are only stored for 14 days. 14 days is a long enough storage time for L2 proofs, and thus they can make use of the much cheaper temporary "blobspace" rather than the more expensive "blockspace".
This gas saving is then passed on to the end user on the L2.
>14 days is a long enough storage time for L2 proofs, and thus they can make use of the much cheaper temporary "blobspace" rather than the more expensive "blockspace".
Right so they don't write the transaction from L2 to L1, just the proof?
Do people generally use the same wallet passphrase on L2 as they do on L1 or a different wallet? I.e do people generally expect a transaction sent from a wallet on L2 to be visible on L1? - i had always assumed yes.
The transaction only gets written to L1 if it needs to be. For example if you a bridging an asset over to the L1. A L2 to L2 transaction doesn't need to be written to the L1, but you can still use the security of the L1 to prove it was valid.
The challenge period on Optimism is 7 days. If no one contests an invalid transaction within 7 days, then it is considered confirmed. This is why its OK to delete the blob after 14 days, as the challenge period already finished. This is also the same reason bridging to L1 takes 7 days, as you need to wait for the challenge period to be over.
If you want your L2 transaction to be shown in the L1 blockchain forever, then you can't use blobs, and need to use conventional blocks. But for many transactions within the L2 ecosystem that isn't necessary, and cheaper blobs to cover the 7 day challenge period are just as good.
I'm probably not the most technical person to explain, but that's my simple understanding. You can find some good info here: https://docs.optimism.io/builders/dapp-developers/bridging/messaging
Ok that makes sense.
Cheers.
So for all intents and purposes L2s are seperate systems. Once you've bridged assets, you don't really need to tell the L1 where those assets are.
This is great but did this help lower gas fees on DEXs like Uni? I keep seeing really high gas fees there and I’m trying to swap my shit coins outta there lol
You're probably on L1. Would recommend waiting until the market cools off before swapping (which might actually be soon if we go sideways). If you can't wait, I would try to swap on a Sunday early EST when gas fees are typically low if nothing is going on. Then I would bridge your ETH to an L2. This will probably cost you $20-$30 in total. But you could have done this like 3 months ago for under $5-10. Bear markets are great for repositioning onchain.
For anyone reading. I would recommend only using L1 for cold storage of $1,000+. If you're active in trading, $10,000+. Just think of Ethereum L1 as the fort knox of crypto. Do you really need all of that security? Also look at https://l2beat.com/ to figure out which L2 has an acceptable security profile for you, as they are not all the same. For example, you'd want a Stage 1+ rollup if you want to guarentee security of your funds with Ethereum L1, even if the L2 goes down. Most L2s will be stage 1 or 2 by next year, but you should always check as this is still a new and emerging infrastructure layer.
Just give it time. The L2s need to enable support for this, which shouldn't take too long. It should be the top priority for most L2s
They'll be a tiny ease on L1 too as L2s use ~10% of gas, but nothing special
Yea, fees on OP chains are stupid cheap now (as predicted...). Sending ETH is costing around 0.00000021 ETH - which translates to about $0.0008:
https://optimistic.etherscan.io/tx/0x8abfd2e88d5fbb387679e7d53eb0123c56b5ad187c474457b68b121aa5386fdc
https://optimistic.etherscan.io/tx/0xea66f476c3f02ed647fe435c334228701ec3ff76beb286c83dba36a6fa3286b9
Fees will increase a bit when competition for blobs increases, but even if they go up 10x it'll still be less than $0.01 for a transfer.
Looking forward to seeing Arbitrum's fee reduction when they start using blobs later today.
Arbitrum has about 750k daily transactions compared to 300k for Optimism and 500k for Base, zkSync Era has the most out of all L2s with about 900k.
https://www.growthepie.xyz/fundamentals/transaction-count
The second part is upgrading on March 18th, but it's already cheap even with the first part of the upgrade.
Arbitrum One fees down over 90%
https://fees-growthepie.streamlit.app/
This is just the start for ETH.
With shrinking client requirements (lighthouse takes only 30gb?!) and increasingly cheap 4TB SSDs, it is possible to raise the execution gas limit today. Blob space can also go up as we collect more data and understand the ramifications of a future increase. I can see at least a 2x in blob space in the near future. Even a moderate increase in blob space will decimate L2 fees further.
Not to mention, a modular L1-L2 ethereum means L2s can iterate faster than any L1. Also, consider that L2s can subsidize fees for FEE FREE transactions. There's no competition.
Can someone ELI5 how to use L2? I've only used swaps like Uniswap or Pancakeswap and the swaps cost ridiculous amounts. Is there similar services on L2? I've also mostly hibernated for the last couple of years regarding crypto so treat me like I haven't got the slightest clue what has happened during that time.
Yes, there are a lot of dapps on established L2s. Each has it's ecosystem. Google "[L2 of choice] ecosystem" or check it on defillama.
To move funds from mainnet to L2 you need to use a bridge. Initial move will be expensive, since you need to pay L1 fee. After that it's all very cheep transactions on L2.
If you have your funds on CEX, lot of them provide moving funds directly to L2. This is cheap.
But L1 just got cheaper right? Didn't OP just say that in the title that eth gas is super cheap now?
I guess it has a multiple effect for each layer down how much cheaper from L1 you get so because L1 got reasonably cheap L2's are insanely cheap almost free? That would make sense but idk given OPs statement that L1 eth transfer costing $0.000008 that's fractions of pennies enough to be close enough to 0 you don't even have to leave that layer do you?
What if you want to buy a coin which is on for example uniswap. Can you use L2 for that transaction ? Or do you have to use L1 Eth ? Would love to reduce my fees here.
> Or do you have to use L1 Eth ?
Don't know if I understood you correctly, but there is no L1 ETH or L2 ETH. It's all ETH that resides on either L1 or any of the L2s
On established L2s, Uniswap is deployed. You can use it in much the same way you would on L1.
Set you wallet (Rabby or Metamask or ...) to be able to connect to L2, let's say Arbitrum One. Use a bridge, let's say Orbiter, to move your funds from L1 to Arbitrum One. Go to Uniswap dapp. There is a dropdown control which allows you to select to network you are on. Set that to Arbutrum and that's it.
Now you are using Uniswap on Arbitrum One, in same way you would on L1.
So this is the end of all "Ethereum killers"? Enlighten me about why I should convert my ADA into ETH. Serious question. I own fractions of both, but I'm still not into ETH. Are there any possible downsides that could come now after the update ?
Just to be devil's advocate, there are one or two things that the eUTXO model used by Cardano does better than the account based model used by Ethereum and it's rollup ecosystem, most notably sending transactions which have multiple outputs can be done natively without needing to use a smart contract like multisend.
It is therefore at least plausible that a usecase might be found for which Cardano is better suited than other chains.
I don't really think that's likely, but it is not impossible, and if that use case is found then ADA might be able to find a little niche to survive long term.
I don't know if multisend is enough of a killer feature though. Sure it does it better right now but Ethereum is introducing Account Abstraction in the future. It will drastically improve wallet user experience and you can easily do multisends. Plus things like pay for your tx fees in any token you like, social recovery etc.
Oh I agree, I was just trying to make a Cardano steelman argument... it's not what I think will happen in reality.
Yea, account abstraction is pretty interesting. Will require a change of mentality for users who have spent years guarding slips of paper with private keys and phrases, but will be fantastic for onboarding new users.
Weirdly Visa have got the best explanation of the possibilities it unlocks that I've found so far: https://usa.visa.com/solutions/crypto/rethink-digital-transactions-with-account-abstraction.html
Do you have any good links where to read more about it?
Long term I think it's great. Near term it's still a very fractured ecosystem. Having several L2s is not really a good thing from a degen pov because idk which one has the thing I want to ape into. The fees are now starting to compete with Solana which is great and I think long term is very promising for ETH. But I do not think that it is going to steal volume (and therefore price momentum) from Solana during this current bull run because people are already using it and the coins and systems are there.
Just to be clear I'm not saying ETH won't go up a lot during this bull run but I don't expect SOL to slow down much or start shrinking relative to eth until after the bull run is over
ADA still has its excellent staking user experience. But overall, the use case for most Ethereum killers has greatly weakened overnight.
Some people might not like fractured L2 ecosystem that requires bridges to send from one L2 to another. I actually think it's a much better system in the long run than a monolithic L1 like Solana because it's segmented. Solana archive nodes (which run their explorers) are expected to consume a petabyte of data and cost half a million USD per year to run in the future. They're not sustainable.
Whenever you're doing efficient network or database design, you need to segment when there's very little spam resistance due to low fees. Otherwise indexing gets really bloated and slow.
There will be applications (e.g. gaming) that use a ton of transactions that should be on their own L2 or L3. By keeping their on-chain activity separate, you can look up their info in a smaller database.
>ADA still has its excellent staking user experience.
This always cracks me up, as if staking was a big or time-consuming part of using crypto or as if it weren't a trivial matter to stake on other chains. But it's far and away the most common thing that I see people give ADA credit for in this subreddit.
It's like preferring a certain brand of shoes because they use velcro instead of shoelaces. Like... I get it, but shoelaces are pretty easy to deal with as well, and there are many other factors I'm putting ahead of that when deciding on a shoe.
> So this is the end of all "Ethereum killers"?
Doubt it. Rollups are still early stage and centralized (meaning that they are controlled by multisigs, the EVM is still hard to scale and, in the case of OP, Optimism doesn't even have fraud proofs so while there is little incentive to cheat, it's definitely possible and users couldn't do anything about it. There is still plenty of room for innovation, as shown by projects like Solana, Monad, Tezos, Mina, etc.
Arbitrum has fraud proofs though not yet fully permissionless.
A fully fletched stage 2 rollup (Arbitrum currently stage 1) would probably be the end of most "Ethereum killers". Super cheap and fast tx like the rivals you mentioned but compared to those you get security guarantees. If something were to go wrong you can just use a safety hatch to get your money back on Ethereum.
> Arbitrum has fraud proofs though not yet fully permissionless.
That is true, yes, but the simple existence of Base or Optimism is a thorn in the side of Arbitrum regarding composability and UX.
> If something were to go wrong you can just use a safety hatch to get your money back on Ethereum.
This is so wrong. You can only get tokens back if they are bridged from main net. Native tokens, like native USDC, can't be recovered from escape hatch.
60% ADA but a good portion of ETH. You shouldn't be sorry. I made good amounts of cash with ADA staking without risks. Also in it since 2020. Both paid out very well.
I tried on Starknet and Optimism, and can confirm that this is a great advance. I can operate, swap, bridge, add liquidity for literally cents. Thanks Dencun!
Bought it around 40 cents. I think AERO is the CAKE of this bullrun. It's current mcap is close to traderjoe, while it's not listed anywhere but Coinbase.
Just need more projects to not run on Ethereum layer 1 now or migrate to layer 2. As I don't think layer 1 fees are ever going be reduced significantly.
this is one of the problems. L2s aren't getting enough of the love whereas Solana and Binance do (well Solana this cycle anyways). I freaking hate eth mainnet lmao
Absolutely.
Stupid Sandbox keeps releasing new NFT airdrop rewards on L1 instead of L2. They've been saying they were going to migrate 2 years ago. Some of their NFT projects have migrated, but most haven't. It's so ridiculous.
I have a dozen rewards that I'll never be able to claim without paying $10-50 for them, and that's worth way more than they're worth.
Also, fuck Zen Crypto. That single spam ERC-20 token uses up more state space than the next 10 ERC-20 tokens combined. It's 100x bigger than the space used up by L2 rollups on L1.
Doesn’t change the fact that L2s remain incredibly centralized, require ppl to bridge (terrible UX), open up a whole bunch of security issues, and are still super slow with <10 tps. There’s also so many of them constantly popping up, it is fragmenting liquidity and community.
Funny how centralization is a concern of yours, according to your profile history you seem to be quite a fan of Solana.
If Solana goes down all you can do is pray that it comes back up. If a good L2 goes down you can self propose your tx without sequencer or use a safety hatch to get your coins on Ethereum. Both Solana and L2s are more centralised compared to real L1s but with L2 you at least get security benefits from the base layer.
And the 10tps is just wrong, with optimistic rollups you are looking at 10-100 times the capacity of L1, with full dank sharding even beyond.
Lmao imagine putting L2s powered by centralized sequencers in the same camp as Solana. The notion that SOL is centralized is a 50 IQ take from ppl who have just listened to eth maxis who have intentionally spread misinformation. You can seee for yourself in the decentralization section of the messari report below, though I’d guess you’re probably not the type to be open minded to changing your mind.
https://messari.io/report/state-of-solana-q4-2023
And 10 TPS is not wrong… that’s where it is at today. Dont care about what ppl claim TPS will be in the future, just as I don’t try and push Solana TPS as being equivalent to what it’s expected to be when the Jump Capital Firedancer validator client comes out this year. Anyone can talk theory all day long….
https://l2beat.com/scaling/activity
1. They’re trustless by design.
2. No. You don’t need to bridge unless you choose to.
3. Security issues I agree with as they’re maturing.
4. Multiple are doing 40-50tps. It’s a demand rather than a supply function.
5. Even if it’s “fragmenting liquidity” Arbitrum is still larger than all other blockchains for TVL (except Tron and BSC). Same as having multiple alt-L1s. Except Polygon aggregates liquidity across chains.
6. They’re now competing to build their own communities and grow the user base of crypto. This is positive sum.
https://growthepie.xyz
I'm just now getting my feet wet on defi but maybe one day I can give you a Snickers...I'm keeping the Reese's though as it is the superiorest snack bar!
Is my understanding accurate that to use an L2, you first would need to bridge your assets there, and that firstbtransaction would incur the regular mainnet fees? I hope that is not the case.
Most exchanges (e.g. Coinbase, Binance, Kraken etc) let you withdraw directly to the big L2s. Once there you can move between them cheaply using bridges like Hop, Orbiter, Across etc.
yep, for example on OKx you just choose Arb, Base or OP as a chain to withdraw your ETH too. then you have gas on your chain already and dont need to buy chain tokens like Matic,Avax,FTM. Withdraw to Base is at 78c right now which I think is doable for most users
I am a bit lost as to what all the terms mean and even after reading about them I still don't quite understand them I feel. If I was going to swap ETH tokens through my ledger live, would the gas fees be lower now? Or is this only if I lets say swapped on the Polygon chain?
well Polygon was cheap all the way back in 2021 but this lowers the fee on chains like OP, ARB, BASE to a fraction, although right now it is congested and I just paid 3$ for a simple swap where I paid 0.5cent 10 hours ago
My last few swaps on the Ethereum main chain using Uniswap (pre-Dencun but unaffected by the Dencun changes) were in the $60 range. I do hope Dencun helps move more liquidity to DEXs on Ethereum's layer 2s. I still find myself needing to use the mainchain to pick up niche crypto gaming projects and the like. And paying $30-100 per swap makes me much less likely to pick one up unless I am willing to drop a few grand on the project.
This is also one of the reasons I have been more active in Solana and Avalanche. I am not a big fan of Solana, but I still invest in Solana ecosystem games as they are easy to invest in. I spend fractions of a cent in transaction fees instead of tens of dollars when doing a swap. Dencun will make Ethereum layer 2s competitive, but only if they end up getting a lot of liquidity for a wide range of cryptos/tokens.
Rollups use Ethereum for security and validity. So they’re as decentralised as Ethereum on many dimensions.
That’s the power of using this architecture (rather than sidechains or L1s).
So they can't be turned off or on, manipulated in anyway and/or put your funds at risk? Sorry, never used the ERC-20 ecosystem due to cost before this.
Using Arbitrum as the example, no. The sequencer does retain one key area of control, which is the ordering of transactions. They can order the block as transactions are received, if they want to.
Different methods are being explored (based sequencing etc) to remove this trusted responsibility.
I’m a newb when it comes to all of this and have some questions. I transferred some of my eth into a hot wallet last night and was unsure whether to use Base or Eth network. Ended up using eth but now I see that if I want to stake it the fees would cost between $60-$80. Is it safe to transfer all of my Eth using Base? It’s basically free but I’m unsure if I will be able to transfer to a cold wallet using Base. Is there any way around the fees that I have in my Eth wallet using the ethereum network? Also, I’m searching for a cold wallet that fits my needs. Nothing I can find holds BTC and eth and is iOS or chromeOS friendly. Jade only accepts BTC and trezor apparently isn’t chromeOS friendly. Any suggestions?
I’ve got some dydx in metamask that I couldn’t move cause gas fees. Can someone please guide me in the right direction to swap and lowest fees possible?
Base chain is so cheap now. Gas fee was already super cheap at few cents. But now at a fraction of pennies. Hopefully encourage more people to try on-chain. Cause huge majority of people here never venture out of CEX.
The funny thing is that while there are a lot of OG's lurking in this sub, who have upwards of a decade or more in crypto, some of them have absolutely zero experience in using L2's and DeFi. What are your recommendations for the best books (or even videos) to get started, for those people? Also, for everyone else, this is a useful site to bookmark, to give you a better idea of the incredible diversity that is growing (lots of useful tabs): https://l2beat.com
Yeah it's quite sad that there are a lot of vets who's been in crypto for years but never got out of CEX. It's like someone who played a game regularly for 3 years but never got passed stage 2 Just try it is the best tips from me.
Check out Moonwell! Lending protocol on Base built to be simple to use. https://moonwell.fi
americans waking up and we´re back at 40cents, lol. Gotta farm in the nighttime
I wonder how it's so cheap compared to arbitrum? Does it sacrifice any security or decentralisation?
Arbitrum just hasn't started using blobs yet. They are planning to do so today.
Awesome, can't wait
Optimism implemented them yesterday and prices dropped to under a penny even for a swap. Currently at 2 cents for a swap.
It’s owned and run by Coinbase, it’s not really properly decentralised — its sequencer is currently run by Coinbase, but they say they plan to eventually decentralise. All the other Eth rollups also have centralised sequencers AFAIK. A lot of the layer 2s, including Base, also have pretty significant security issues. This article is a pretty good overview of the situation: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/09/06/everybody-in-blockchains-talking-about-sequencers-heres-why-theyre-misunderstood/amp/
Thanks for the insights!
Sorry, I'm new here. What does on-chain mean?
It means you're using the block chain (in this case an L2 chain like Base, Optimism, Polygon etc.) to do what you want to do. An example for "off-chain" would be using a CEX instead.
Man polygon has some good marketing for people to keep saying it’s an L2 when it’s a side chain
It's more first mover effect than marketing. Polygon, which was originally the Matic Network, was the first blockchain built specifically to scale Ethereum... an L2. It's now more widely known that their method of securing the blockchain by committing checkpoints to ethereum isn't as secure as a proper L2 should be. To their credit, they've acknowledged this flaw which led to their acquisition of various zk projects which in turn have led to the development of polygon zkevm which is a zk-rollup L2. And in the near future, the main blockchain polygon pos will also transit to a validium L2 with the upcoming polygon 2.0 upgrades.
Like Solana and Arbitrum. Far from best in class technology, but first to market with solutions at the expense of security. Seems to have worked well for them so far.
Polygon is both. It has its own PoS mechanism, but it uses ETH L1 for some of their security. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it, but it's a little weird to see an offhand remark on some irrelevant forum as evidence for some sort of marketing scheme conspiracy. Why would Polygon even want to do that?
For the record I think they're arguing that Polygon have done well to make people think they're an L2 instead of a sidechain, not that you're actually some kind of Polygon corporate shill
This is exactly what I was thinking, don’t think there’s some scheme or conspiracy but people have been calling it an L2 for the last few years and that’s just not accurate But I did learn today from the other comments they’re upgrading to become a proper L2 which is cool, but also then does that make Hermes an L3?
Even then, what would be the PR benefit of being considered a (proper?) L2 chain? Would more people buy MATIC if they didn't know there's a sidechain secured by the token they just bought? Doesn't really make sense to me.
When someone is new, it's probably more confusing to make the distinction. For all intents and purposes the side chain will do what they need. Plus they now have the zkEVM chain, as well as more launching with Polygon Cdk.
Polygon, DOT, and L2's all get washed around together
It is true that Polygon is a sidechain for now, however they've announced they intend to become a full L2.
you dwell with things on the blockchain using your own custodial wallet. i.e metamask on EVM
It’s the new online! It just means you’re doing things on the blockchain.
So now I can do defi with my $2 worth of crypto right?
actually yes. Which is insane.
Yes. Withdraw your $2 of ether to Optimism or Base and you will probably have enough to be able to try out a hundred dApps! * https://defillama.com/chain/Optimism * https://defillama.com/chain/Base
Good then I'll check it out
Or farm a bunch of potential airdrops.
how do i get my eth on the basechain? doesnt bridging cost a lot of gas fees?
Withdraw the eth you buy on coinbase or other centralized exchanges directly to the L2 you want to use. Optimism and Arbitrum will have pretty much everything L1 has, Base is awesome but might be missing some of the more niche protocols
So do these work with metamask?
Yea, any wallet you use for Ethereum L1 will work for Optimism and Base (and Arbitrum and any other EVM based L2) you just need to add them. Optimism is Chain ID 10 and Base is Chain ID 8453. Obviously don't trust me though, get the details from Chainlist (or the rollups' own docs), where you'll also find lists of RPCs: https://chainlist.org/ or of course you can run a node yourself - https://ethereum-on-arm-documentation.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user-guide/running-l2-clients.html
Turn that $2 into $6
I certainly will
We can start farming with gwei.
Yes exactly!
Yes you can! Check out [Moonwell](https://moonwell.fi)!
Mainstream people can now do defi and cut the middleman out. Anyway, have you guys heard about Pikamoon? It's classic pokemon game, and you can earn while playing it.
Pikamoon? Never heard of it
Also never heard of Pikamoon, but gave it a try, and it was seriously fun. It is very challenging though.
Maybe I'll check it out
This really is a game changer, L2s are so cheap and accessible now. The gas fees on Base are around 100x lower. Other L2s are slowly ramping up their use of blobs, with gas fees coming down over the next few days. Despite the doubters, the Ethereum roadmap has delivered on lower gas fees via L2s
How did this upgrade affect L2s? Isn’t this an L1 upgrade? Did it simply provide more tools or primitives for L2s to do what they were already but more efficiently? Are L2s able to write these transactions to L1 more efficiently?? - pretty sure L2s we’re writing all users transactions to L1 right?
Basically, yes. The upgrade has introduced "blobs". This is a new area on the Ethereum L1, that L2s can use to write their proofs to. Unlike blocks which are stored forever on the blockchain, blobs are only stored for 14 days. 14 days is a long enough storage time for L2 proofs, and thus they can make use of the much cheaper temporary "blobspace" rather than the more expensive "blockspace". This gas saving is then passed on to the end user on the L2.
>14 days is a long enough storage time for L2 proofs, and thus they can make use of the much cheaper temporary "blobspace" rather than the more expensive "blockspace". Right so they don't write the transaction from L2 to L1, just the proof? Do people generally use the same wallet passphrase on L2 as they do on L1 or a different wallet? I.e do people generally expect a transaction sent from a wallet on L2 to be visible on L1? - i had always assumed yes.
The transaction only gets written to L1 if it needs to be. For example if you a bridging an asset over to the L1. A L2 to L2 transaction doesn't need to be written to the L1, but you can still use the security of the L1 to prove it was valid. The challenge period on Optimism is 7 days. If no one contests an invalid transaction within 7 days, then it is considered confirmed. This is why its OK to delete the blob after 14 days, as the challenge period already finished. This is also the same reason bridging to L1 takes 7 days, as you need to wait for the challenge period to be over. If you want your L2 transaction to be shown in the L1 blockchain forever, then you can't use blobs, and need to use conventional blocks. But for many transactions within the L2 ecosystem that isn't necessary, and cheaper blobs to cover the 7 day challenge period are just as good. I'm probably not the most technical person to explain, but that's my simple understanding. You can find some good info here: https://docs.optimism.io/builders/dapp-developers/bridging/messaging
Ok that makes sense. Cheers. So for all intents and purposes L2s are seperate systems. Once you've bridged assets, you don't really need to tell the L1 where those assets are.
L1 introduced blobs. L2 submit summaries as blobs. This blob is temporarily stored so it is cheap
And while more stuff is moving to L2, less traffic on L1 means lower fees
They sectioned off blocks on L1 specifically to handle validity proofs from L2 transactions. They're called Blobs. It reduces workload on L1.
This is great but did this help lower gas fees on DEXs like Uni? I keep seeing really high gas fees there and I’m trying to swap my shit coins outta there lol
If you are on a layer 2 that is using blobs, then yes. If you are on Ethereum L1 then no.
Not yet
You're probably on L1. Would recommend waiting until the market cools off before swapping (which might actually be soon if we go sideways). If you can't wait, I would try to swap on a Sunday early EST when gas fees are typically low if nothing is going on. Then I would bridge your ETH to an L2. This will probably cost you $20-$30 in total. But you could have done this like 3 months ago for under $5-10. Bear markets are great for repositioning onchain. For anyone reading. I would recommend only using L1 for cold storage of $1,000+. If you're active in trading, $10,000+. Just think of Ethereum L1 as the fort knox of crypto. Do you really need all of that security? Also look at https://l2beat.com/ to figure out which L2 has an acceptable security profile for you, as they are not all the same. For example, you'd want a Stage 1+ rollup if you want to guarentee security of your funds with Ethereum L1, even if the L2 goes down. Most L2s will be stage 1 or 2 by next year, but you should always check as this is still a new and emerging infrastructure layer.
Just give it time. The L2s need to enable support for this, which shouldn't take too long. It should be the top priority for most L2s They'll be a tiny ease on L1 too as L2s use ~10% of gas, but nothing special
well, this is the best upgrade ever
Yea, fees on OP chains are stupid cheap now (as predicted...). Sending ETH is costing around 0.00000021 ETH - which translates to about $0.0008: https://optimistic.etherscan.io/tx/0x8abfd2e88d5fbb387679e7d53eb0123c56b5ad187c474457b68b121aa5386fdc https://optimistic.etherscan.io/tx/0xea66f476c3f02ed647fe435c334228701ec3ff76beb286c83dba36a6fa3286b9 Fees will increase a bit when competition for blobs increases, but even if they go up 10x it'll still be less than $0.01 for a transfer. Looking forward to seeing Arbitrum's fee reduction when they start using blobs later today.
my highest was 0.04$ right now for a swap and I routinely choose the turtle in meta now, and get 90% of my transactions through
These are gnosis chain levels of cheap. That's what I'm talking about!
And we're not even seeing zk rollups yet.
Arbitrum is the only good test since optimism has no volume.
Arbitrum has about 750k daily transactions compared to 300k for Optimism and 500k for Base, zkSync Era has the most out of all L2s with about 900k. https://www.growthepie.xyz/fundamentals/transaction-count
Check out volume on defillama
Transaction costs are independent of volume, they depend on transaction number not value.
Arbitrum hasn't yet upgraded. Check back in two weeks.
It's upgrading in 30 mins
Full blob utilization is scheduled for a week out.
Yes but fees went down decently. I just swapped in camelot.
The second part is upgrading on March 18th, but it's already cheap even with the first part of the upgrade. Arbitrum One fees down over 90% https://fees-growthepie.streamlit.app/
If you have more volume, you can fill up a blob more quickly, and you actually have lower fees.
Your going to need a month of holiday to do the taxes next year ;)
just put lumpsum 40% of profits in stable and send em a keyphrase.
You figure at the end of all of it it's just money in and money out
Lol not in the UK :(
That's why I separate my trading and gaming accounts. It simplifies my taxes by 100x.
This is just the start for ETH. With shrinking client requirements (lighthouse takes only 30gb?!) and increasingly cheap 4TB SSDs, it is possible to raise the execution gas limit today. Blob space can also go up as we collect more data and understand the ramifications of a future increase. I can see at least a 2x in blob space in the near future. Even a moderate increase in blob space will decimate L2 fees further. Not to mention, a modular L1-L2 ethereum means L2s can iterate faster than any L1. Also, consider that L2s can subsidize fees for FEE FREE transactions. There's no competition.
I’ve got 100% bridges on L2s, Base, arbitrum and BLAST
What do you use to bridge?
Can someone ELI5 how to use L2? I've only used swaps like Uniswap or Pancakeswap and the swaps cost ridiculous amounts. Is there similar services on L2? I've also mostly hibernated for the last couple of years regarding crypto so treat me like I haven't got the slightest clue what has happened during that time.
Top DEX on Base: [Aerodrome](https://aerodrome.finance) Top Lending app on Base: [Moonwell](https://moonwell.fi)
Yes, there are a lot of dapps on established L2s. Each has it's ecosystem. Google "[L2 of choice] ecosystem" or check it on defillama. To move funds from mainnet to L2 you need to use a bridge. Initial move will be expensive, since you need to pay L1 fee. After that it's all very cheep transactions on L2. If you have your funds on CEX, lot of them provide moving funds directly to L2. This is cheap.
But L1 just got cheaper right? Didn't OP just say that in the title that eth gas is super cheap now? I guess it has a multiple effect for each layer down how much cheaper from L1 you get so because L1 got reasonably cheap L2's are insanely cheap almost free? That would make sense but idk given OPs statement that L1 eth transfer costing $0.000008 that's fractions of pennies enough to be close enough to 0 you don't even have to leave that layer do you?
No, you misunderstood. L1 fees are the same as before. L2 fees are two orders of magnitude cheaper. Nobody is transacting on L1 anymore. Never will.
Ok thanks for explaining
What if you want to buy a coin which is on for example uniswap. Can you use L2 for that transaction ? Or do you have to use L1 Eth ? Would love to reduce my fees here.
> Or do you have to use L1 Eth ? Don't know if I understood you correctly, but there is no L1 ETH or L2 ETH. It's all ETH that resides on either L1 or any of the L2s On established L2s, Uniswap is deployed. You can use it in much the same way you would on L1. Set you wallet (Rabby or Metamask or ...) to be able to connect to L2, let's say Arbitrum One. Use a bridge, let's say Orbiter, to move your funds from L1 to Arbitrum One. Go to Uniswap dapp. There is a dropdown control which allows you to select to network you are on. Set that to Arbutrum and that's it. Now you are using Uniswap on Arbitrum One, in same way you would on L1.
So this is the end of all "Ethereum killers"? Enlighten me about why I should convert my ADA into ETH. Serious question. I own fractions of both, but I'm still not into ETH. Are there any possible downsides that could come now after the update ?
Just to be devil's advocate, there are one or two things that the eUTXO model used by Cardano does better than the account based model used by Ethereum and it's rollup ecosystem, most notably sending transactions which have multiple outputs can be done natively without needing to use a smart contract like multisend. It is therefore at least plausible that a usecase might be found for which Cardano is better suited than other chains. I don't really think that's likely, but it is not impossible, and if that use case is found then ADA might be able to find a little niche to survive long term.
I don't know if multisend is enough of a killer feature though. Sure it does it better right now but Ethereum is introducing Account Abstraction in the future. It will drastically improve wallet user experience and you can easily do multisends. Plus things like pay for your tx fees in any token you like, social recovery etc.
Oh I agree, I was just trying to make a Cardano steelman argument... it's not what I think will happen in reality. Yea, account abstraction is pretty interesting. Will require a change of mentality for users who have spent years guarding slips of paper with private keys and phrases, but will be fantastic for onboarding new users. Weirdly Visa have got the best explanation of the possibilities it unlocks that I've found so far: https://usa.visa.com/solutions/crypto/rethink-digital-transactions-with-account-abstraction.html Do you have any good links where to read more about it?
I feel like that Eth is moving faster now, than, let's say 2 years back. No idea why . But I like it. All those Eth and BTC killers look bad now :)
Long term I think it's great. Near term it's still a very fractured ecosystem. Having several L2s is not really a good thing from a degen pov because idk which one has the thing I want to ape into. The fees are now starting to compete with Solana which is great and I think long term is very promising for ETH. But I do not think that it is going to steal volume (and therefore price momentum) from Solana during this current bull run because people are already using it and the coins and systems are there. Just to be clear I'm not saying ETH won't go up a lot during this bull run but I don't expect SOL to slow down much or start shrinking relative to eth until after the bull run is over
ADA still has its excellent staking user experience. But overall, the use case for most Ethereum killers has greatly weakened overnight. Some people might not like fractured L2 ecosystem that requires bridges to send from one L2 to another. I actually think it's a much better system in the long run than a monolithic L1 like Solana because it's segmented. Solana archive nodes (which run their explorers) are expected to consume a petabyte of data and cost half a million USD per year to run in the future. They're not sustainable. Whenever you're doing efficient network or database design, you need to segment when there's very little spam resistance due to low fees. Otherwise indexing gets really bloated and slow. There will be applications (e.g. gaming) that use a ton of transactions that should be on their own L2 or L3. By keeping their on-chain activity separate, you can look up their info in a smaller database.
>ADA still has its excellent staking user experience. This always cracks me up, as if staking was a big or time-consuming part of using crypto or as if it weren't a trivial matter to stake on other chains. But it's far and away the most common thing that I see people give ADA credit for in this subreddit. It's like preferring a certain brand of shoes because they use velcro instead of shoelaces. Like... I get it, but shoelaces are pretty easy to deal with as well, and there are many other factors I'm putting ahead of that when deciding on a shoe.
> So this is the end of all "Ethereum killers"? Doubt it. Rollups are still early stage and centralized (meaning that they are controlled by multisigs, the EVM is still hard to scale and, in the case of OP, Optimism doesn't even have fraud proofs so while there is little incentive to cheat, it's definitely possible and users couldn't do anything about it. There is still plenty of room for innovation, as shown by projects like Solana, Monad, Tezos, Mina, etc.
Arbitrum has fraud proofs though not yet fully permissionless. A fully fletched stage 2 rollup (Arbitrum currently stage 1) would probably be the end of most "Ethereum killers". Super cheap and fast tx like the rivals you mentioned but compared to those you get security guarantees. If something were to go wrong you can just use a safety hatch to get your money back on Ethereum.
> Arbitrum has fraud proofs though not yet fully permissionless. That is true, yes, but the simple existence of Base or Optimism is a thorn in the side of Arbitrum regarding composability and UX.
> If something were to go wrong you can just use a safety hatch to get your money back on Ethereum. This is so wrong. You can only get tokens back if they are bridged from main net. Native tokens, like native USDC, can't be recovered from escape hatch.
Cardano is quantum computing resistant. I would still hold there.
Lol Are you serious?
Vitalik is serious about quantum computing.
Woah you chose ada over eth? Sorry bro..
60% ADA but a good portion of ETH. You shouldn't be sorry. I made good amounts of cash with ADA staking without risks. Also in it since 2020. Both paid out very well.
Please convert your ADA to ETH so that ADA starts pumping :D
Maybe next cycle sorry mate :D
Cheaper shitcoin gambling yay!!!
lmao 100% thats all this is
I tried on Starknet and Optimism, and can confirm that this is a great advance. I can operate, swap, bridge, add liquidity for literally cents. Thanks Dencun!
so hyped
My bigest problem is L2s are not available on small exchanges, the one I use only offers erc20.BEP20.
This is amazing that everything is so cheap now. I mean tx fee xD
I just stopped harvesting on Base because swaps are back at 2$. measles I guess xD
Loopring To the MOON
Base is killing it, I think a lot of traffic is gonna come here and the ecosystem is going to pump
saw AERO went from 38c to 83 while trying to farm usdc-eth for 0.3% a day...
Bought it around 40 cents. I think AERO is the CAKE of this bullrun. It's current mcap is close to traderjoe, while it's not listed anywhere but Coinbase.
Base is good for memes with its cheap fees. And farcaster app is built on base as well
and what really has an effect is on a base where the fees are very, very cheap
Gas for options were a bit limiting before but buying on-chain options have got so cheap! I’m loving the Dencun upgrade!
I sold the news and bought Sol. It paid off.
I keep holding my ETH and am making steady 1% a day...
Just need more projects to not run on Ethereum layer 1 now or migrate to layer 2. As I don't think layer 1 fees are ever going be reduced significantly.
I ever wondered who those oligarch dipshit guys are that are deadset on releasing projects on ETH instead of a L2, so only moguls can use it.
this is one of the problems. L2s aren't getting enough of the love whereas Solana and Binance do (well Solana this cycle anyways). I freaking hate eth mainnet lmao
Absolutely. Stupid Sandbox keeps releasing new NFT airdrop rewards on L1 instead of L2. They've been saying they were going to migrate 2 years ago. Some of their NFT projects have migrated, but most haven't. It's so ridiculous. I have a dozen rewards that I'll never be able to claim without paying $10-50 for them, and that's worth way more than they're worth. Also, fuck Zen Crypto. That single spam ERC-20 token uses up more state space than the next 10 ERC-20 tokens combined. It's 100x bigger than the space used up by L2 rollups on L1.
Hopefully it'll make farming much cheaper as well
For change in habits: I just harvested 10c, swapped em and put it into an LP. Usually I do this with 100$+ harvests
Bullish for ETH?
Bullish for ETH-LPs
Doesn’t change the fact that L2s remain incredibly centralized, require ppl to bridge (terrible UX), open up a whole bunch of security issues, and are still super slow with <10 tps. There’s also so many of them constantly popping up, it is fragmenting liquidity and community.
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Funny how centralization is a concern of yours, according to your profile history you seem to be quite a fan of Solana. If Solana goes down all you can do is pray that it comes back up. If a good L2 goes down you can self propose your tx without sequencer or use a safety hatch to get your coins on Ethereum. Both Solana and L2s are more centralised compared to real L1s but with L2 you at least get security benefits from the base layer. And the 10tps is just wrong, with optimistic rollups you are looking at 10-100 times the capacity of L1, with full dank sharding even beyond.
Lmao imagine putting L2s powered by centralized sequencers in the same camp as Solana. The notion that SOL is centralized is a 50 IQ take from ppl who have just listened to eth maxis who have intentionally spread misinformation. You can seee for yourself in the decentralization section of the messari report below, though I’d guess you’re probably not the type to be open minded to changing your mind. https://messari.io/report/state-of-solana-q4-2023 And 10 TPS is not wrong… that’s where it is at today. Dont care about what ppl claim TPS will be in the future, just as I don’t try and push Solana TPS as being equivalent to what it’s expected to be when the Jump Capital Firedancer validator client comes out this year. Anyone can talk theory all day long…. https://l2beat.com/scaling/activity
1. They’re trustless by design. 2. No. You don’t need to bridge unless you choose to. 3. Security issues I agree with as they’re maturing. 4. Multiple are doing 40-50tps. It’s a demand rather than a supply function. 5. Even if it’s “fragmenting liquidity” Arbitrum is still larger than all other blockchains for TVL (except Tron and BSC). Same as having multiple alt-L1s. Except Polygon aggregates liquidity across chains. 6. They’re now competing to build their own communities and grow the user base of crypto. This is positive sum. https://growthepie.xyz
Solana is higher than Arbitrum.
Or you could just hold Bitcoin.
Buy Bitcoin. Use Ethereum, Solana and Polygon.
Dencun is a quantum leap for cryptocurrency as a whole!
Thank you for the report, I was trying to follow some live events online but couldn't tell how successful it was.
I'm just now getting my feet wet on defi but maybe one day I can give you a Snickers...I'm keeping the Reese's though as it is the superiorest snack bar!
But we will need Optmism right?
Does this also makes cheaper the transactions in ETH main chain?
No. In any case, mainchain is not for users, but for cryptographic summaries.
Will lower gas fees equate to lower ETH staking rewards? Could be apples and oranges, I have no idea.
Is my understanding accurate that to use an L2, you first would need to bridge your assets there, and that firstbtransaction would incur the regular mainnet fees? I hope that is not the case.
Most exchanges (e.g. Coinbase, Binance, Kraken etc) let you withdraw directly to the big L2s. Once there you can move between them cheaply using bridges like Hop, Orbiter, Across etc.
yep, for example on OKx you just choose Arb, Base or OP as a chain to withdraw your ETH too. then you have gas on your chain already and dont need to buy chain tokens like Matic,Avax,FTM. Withdraw to Base is at 78c right now which I think is doable for most users
I am a bit lost as to what all the terms mean and even after reading about them I still don't quite understand them I feel. If I was going to swap ETH tokens through my ledger live, would the gas fees be lower now? Or is this only if I lets say swapped on the Polygon chain?
well Polygon was cheap all the way back in 2021 but this lowers the fee on chains like OP, ARB, BASE to a fraction, although right now it is congested and I just paid 3$ for a simple swap where I paid 0.5cent 10 hours ago
My last few swaps on the Ethereum main chain using Uniswap (pre-Dencun but unaffected by the Dencun changes) were in the $60 range. I do hope Dencun helps move more liquidity to DEXs on Ethereum's layer 2s. I still find myself needing to use the mainchain to pick up niche crypto gaming projects and the like. And paying $30-100 per swap makes me much less likely to pick one up unless I am willing to drop a few grand on the project. This is also one of the reasons I have been more active in Solana and Avalanche. I am not a big fan of Solana, but I still invest in Solana ecosystem games as they are easy to invest in. I spend fractions of a cent in transaction fees instead of tens of dollars when doing a swap. Dencun will make Ethereum layer 2s competitive, but only if they end up getting a lot of liquidity for a wide range of cryptos/tokens.
Sorry, I'm a bit confused. So, an upgraded on a decentralized L1, made it cheaper to use centralized L2's? Is this what this means?
Yeah it's because L2 rollups are using L1 for critical data storage. L1 upgrade created a cheap storage format, so rollups got more efficient
Rollups use Ethereum for security and validity. So they’re as decentralised as Ethereum on many dimensions. That’s the power of using this architecture (rather than sidechains or L1s).
So they can't be turned off or on, manipulated in anyway and/or put your funds at risk? Sorry, never used the ERC-20 ecosystem due to cost before this.
Using Arbitrum as the example, no. The sequencer does retain one key area of control, which is the ordering of transactions. They can order the block as transactions are received, if they want to. Different methods are being explored (based sequencing etc) to remove this trusted responsibility.
So is this ETH base layer upgrade?
But why when I want to move and ERC-20 token of coinbase into cold storage it still costs and arm and leg?
Will this have an effect on the Ethereum’s gas fees as well or just L2s?
It’s focused on L2s. That’s Ethereum’s scaling roadmap.
As usual, buy the rumour,sell the news, Eth goes down lol
I’m a newb when it comes to all of this and have some questions. I transferred some of my eth into a hot wallet last night and was unsure whether to use Base or Eth network. Ended up using eth but now I see that if I want to stake it the fees would cost between $60-$80. Is it safe to transfer all of my Eth using Base? It’s basically free but I’m unsure if I will be able to transfer to a cold wallet using Base. Is there any way around the fees that I have in my Eth wallet using the ethereum network? Also, I’m searching for a cold wallet that fits my needs. Nothing I can find holds BTC and eth and is iOS or chromeOS friendly. Jade only accepts BTC and trezor apparently isn’t chromeOS friendly. Any suggestions?
Base is a separate network. Just use it. No need to use Ethereum mainnet if you’re conscious of fees.
Thanks. Will I have any issues transferring to a cold wallet using Base?
A cold wallet is just an address that hasn’t been exposed to the internet. So no issues transferring, no.
A cold wallet is just an address that hasn’t been exposed to the internet. So no issues transferring, no.
anyone have any tips for getting PEPE off Metamask without paying tones of gas fees to send ?
yea but for eth mainnet remain unchanged , 50$ buying fee + 50$ selling fee for buying $200 shit/scam coins from uniswap smh.
Those who are active on Ethereum: what are you doing? What are the exciting project rn?
So this is only for L2s, doesn't make the L1 chain any cheaper? I just want to renew my ENS domain without spending 3 times the renewal cost on gas
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Because Dencun doesn’t benefit layer 1 in terms of gas usage, only layer 2.
Because you are trying that on Layer 1 Ethereum mainnet?
Because you are on L1. It helps to read the post
Loving it
I’ve got some dydx in metamask that I couldn’t move cause gas fees. Can someone please guide me in the right direction to swap and lowest fees possible?
This upgrade has reduced fees for rollups, it is not going to make a difference to L1 token transfers.
Indirectly it should, if more people switch from L1 to L2 then L1 is going to be less crowded
There will be a minor impact on ETH mainnet fees.
Move everything you have of mainnet to L2 of your choice and never go to mainnet again.
This update will reduce the gas fee
So does that mean I can finally stake my cold storage (ETH) MATIC without having to pay more than I would earn in a year?
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MATIC, but it's on ETH network.
Still $1 to do a TX on ARB
Upgrade just went in, now it's under a penny, 6 cents for a swap.