Coinbase’s layer-2 scaling solution, Base, has struggled to gain traction, acquiring under 2 million users since its launch, according to a report by Flipside Crypto. 

This pales in comparison to Polygon’s meteoric rise – it on-boarded over 15 million new users last year, almost rivaling Ethereum’s growth.

Ethereum still led overall with 15.4 million new users in 2023. But Polygon followed closely behind with 15.2 million, despite being a layer-2 network built on Ethereum.

In contrast, Base saw an initial spike of enthusiasm fizzle out into sluggish adoption. On the bright side, it now faces competition from alternative layer-2s with more mature ecosystems like Arbitrum (7.3 million 2023 users).

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As one of Ethereum’s most prominent scaling solutions, Polygon’s explosive user growth demonstrates the immense potential of layer-2 technology. 

By delivering faster and cheaper transactions, it serves as a blueprint for how Base could also take advantage of Ethereum’s mainstream adoption.

But Polygon had a multi-year head start in building its developer ecosystem compared to the Base network.

“Renewed enthusiasm across more established chains near the end of the year may have contributed to the decline in Base’s user growth, given that these networks had more robust, diverse app ecosystems to engage with,” the firm explained.