Base Layer 2 Surpasses $14 Billion in TVL, Pays Ethereum Just $8,800

Base, an Ethereum layer 2 network incubated by Coinbase, has reached a total value locked (TVL) of $14.42 billion as of September 7, 2026, surpassing Arbitrum One's $12.6 billion and pushing the combined TVL of the two leading networks past $27 billion.

This milestone is significant because Base processed 292 million user operations over the same period, with Ethereum collecting only around $8,800 in fees. This works out to an average daily bill to Ethereum mainnet of roughly $290.

The low fee revenue is a result of the 'blobs' upgrade on Ethereum mainnet in March 2024, which introduced a cheaper data lane for rollups to post their transaction data. This change reduced layer 2 transaction costs by a factor of 100 to 200 and allowed Base to process small nation-sized daily transactions while paying Ethereum less than a mid-size household spends on groceries in a month.