Ethereum layer 2 bridging up sixfold year-on-year in Q1

Ethereum layer 2s, such as Optimism, Arbitrum and Polygon,

The Ethereum ecosystem as a whole also showed increased developer interest. Ethereum software development kits (SDKs) such as Ethers.js, Web3.js, Hardhat and Web3.py were downloaded 1.3 million times in Q1 2022. This became 1.9 million in the first quarter of 2023, an 8% increase. In addition, downloads of the MetaMask SDK, a tool used to develop apps that can interact with Ethereum wallet MetaMask, increased in each month of the first quarter.

Ethereum layer 2s have been offered as a solution to Ethereum’s scalability problem, which has been periodically causing high gas fees since as early as 2020. Some experts have argued that sharding the Ethereum network will also help to cut down on gas fees.

This story was updated on April 18 to clarify that the number of users bridging has increased by 518%, not the amount of assets bridged.