Transactions on Arbitrum Surpass Bitcoin — Along With Fees

Even as transactions accelerate, the cost to use the Arbitrum blockchain remains low

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The number of transactions on the Ethereum layer 2 scaling solution, Arbitrum, has now surpassed those on the Bitcoin blockchain. And fees have jumped accordingly.

Arbitrum is an “optimistic rollup” that runs on top of the Ethereum blockchain and is designed by New York City-based startup Offchain Labs.

According to information on Crypto Fees, Arbitrum received almost $800,000 in transaction fees over the past day, whereas Bitcoin had only seen around $600,000. 

Although the 7-day average fees received on Arbitrum (ARB) are still slightly lower than that of Bitcoin’s — at $387,000 versus Bitcoin’s $630,000 — the steadily increasing number could indicate that there are now more users posting transactions on the Ethereum L2 network than on Bitcoin (BTC).

There has been a growing number of transactions on Arbitrum following its Nitro upgrade in August last year, so much so that it has overtaken the number of transactions on Ethereum itself. 

Despite the number of transaction fees on Arbitrum increasing, the cost to transact remains relatively constant. 

The cost to send ETH on Arbitrum is currently around $0.10 and the cost to swap tokens is estimated to be $0.28, by contrast, the average transaction fee on Bitcoin remains at roughly $2.05.


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