Polygon briefly overtakes Ethereum for active addresses after 330% surge

Published at: Sept. 30, 2021

Layer-two protocols have seen monumental growth this year, and in terms of active addresses, one such protocol has briefly surpassed the network for which it is a scaling solution.

The number of daily active unique addresses on layer-two aggregator Polygon has surpassed those on the high-fee layer-one Ethereum according to Polygon co-founder Mihailo Bjelic.

According to his stats, Polygon had 351,000 daily active addresses on Monday, whereas Ethereum had 326,000.

Another huge milestone for @0xPolygon! We eclipsed Ethereum L1 in daily active addresses for the first time!This is just the beginning. We are working round the clock to improve our tech, strengthen our ecosystem and increase adoption.Let's bring the world to Ethereum! pic.twitter.com/K4sAF1y3LT

— Mihailo Bjelic (@MihailoBjelic) September 29, 2021

According to Polygonscan, the number of active addresses skyrocketed on Sept. 20, hitting a peak of 426,586 on Monday before falling back slightly to 385,740.

Etherscan is reporting that Ethereum’s daily active address count was 457,402 on Wednesday, so the two are pretty evenly matched at the moment.

The number of active addresses on Polygon has surged 330% over the past three months, whereas Ethereum’s has actually declined by 12% for the same metric over the same period.

In terms of cumulative unique addresses, Ethereum is way ahead with 170.8 million as of Wednesday, according to Etherscan, while Polygon had 89 million total district addresses on Wednesday as well. However, Matic only rebranded to Polygon and launched in February, so its growth has occurred over a shorter period of time.

Polygon has a greater number of transactions at present, according to Polygonscan, with 5.7 million total transactions recorded on Wednesday compared to 1.1 million on Ethereum’s layer one. This can largely be attributed to Ethereum’s high fees, which have increased again recently.

Defi Llama currently reports that the total value locked (TVL) of all protocols on Polygon is $4.81 billion; however, it has more than halved since its mid-June all-time high of $10.54 billion. The most popular protocol on the network is flash loan platform Aave, which has $1.77 billion TVL, or 37% of the total.

Polygon received a massive endorsement in May when billionaire investor Mark Cuban added it to his portfolio. Its native token, which is still called MATIC, has gained 5.2% over the past 24 hours to reach $1.14, according to CoinGecko.

Ethereum transaction fees have skyrocketed again in recent days, which has contributed to the surge in activity on layer-two protocols. According to BitInfoCharts, the average transaction price on the Ethereum network is currently around $23. More complex operations such as decentralized exchange token swapping or smart contract interactions can cost as much as $66 in gas, according to Etherscan.