Polygon briefly overtakes Ethereum for active addresses after 330% surge

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

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

According to his stats, Polygon had 351,000 daily active addresses on Sept. 27 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 the 27th before falling back slightly to 385,740.

Etherscan is reporting that Ethereum’s daily active address count was 457,402 on Sept. 29 so the two are pretty evenly matched at the moment.

The number of active addresses on Polygon has surged 330% over the past 3 months whereas Ethereum’s have 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 Sept. 29 according to Etherscan, while Polygon had 89 million total district addresses yesterday. 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 for Sept. 29 compared to 1.1 million on Ethereum layer one. This can largely be attributed to Ethereum’s high fees which have increased again recently.

DeFiLlama currently reports that the total value locked 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.

Related: Polygon active users grow by 75,000 as DeFi boom continues

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 DEX token swapping or smart contract interactions can cost as much as $66 in gas according to Etherscan.