Coinbase's layer-2 blockchain, Base, experienced a surge in transaction speed on May 29, briefly nearing Solana's performance. The network reached almost 1,000 transactions per second (TPS) during a token launch on the Virtuals AI platform. This spike brought Base closer to Solana's throughput, though Solana maintains more consistent speeds.
According to Chainspect, Base hit a maximum of 959 TPS, with a theoretical maximum of 1,429 TPS. In comparison, Solana's throughput is currently around 1,039 TPS. The Virtuals Protocol generated over $60,000 in fees on Base on May 28, significantly more than the $4,000 on Solana.
Base is now the largest rollup-based layer-2 network, with $15.3 billion in value locked onchain, surpassing Arbitrum One and OP Mainnet. Its decentralized finance-derived total value locked is $3.75 billion, close to its all-time high. Both Base and Solana are primarily used for memecoin minting and trading, driving network revenue.
Solana has $9 billion in value locked in DeFi protocols, down 18% from its January high. Ethereum leads in DeFi with almost $63 billion in TVL, but its transaction throughput is lower and fees are higher than Base and Solana.
Despite the surge, the average fee on Base remained around 4 cents on May 29, according to Dune Analytics.
This article is based on our author's analysis of materials taken from the following resource: Cointelegraph.