The total amount of ETH held across Layer 2 networks is dropping fast as falling L2 token prices struggle to hold investors’ interest.
Ethereum reserves on Layer 2 networks appear to be dropping quickly, with data showing that rollups like Optimism have seen their ETH volumes shrink by double-digit percentages over the past few months.
According to data shared Monday in an X post by Michael Nadeau, founder of The DeFi Report, ETH balances across L2s have declined around 25% in recent months.
“In particular, ETH on Optimism is down 54% since March. It’s down 17% and 14% on Arbitrum and Base,” Nadeau wrote.
Failed Vampire Attack
The pattern marks a shift from the concerns voiced in 2024, when some feared L2s were harming Ethereum’s mainnet. Back then, fee revenue had dropped after the implementation of EIP-4844, included in the Dencun upgrade, prompting talk of a “vampire attack,” as L2s were seen as draining users and fees away from Ethereum.
“L2s are effectively stealing ETH users & fees. By pretending they are the ‘same’ as ETH, but that could not be further from the truth… at worst, it is a vampire attack,” wrote Justin Bons, founder and CIO of crypto fund CyberCapital, in an X post last August.
But now, ETH is leaving L2s in large volumes. According to data from L2Beat, Optimism’s bridged ETH supply fell from 1.12 million at the start of 2025 to about 566,000 as of mid-June, a 50% drop in just six months.
Driving Force
Nadeau says it’s still not clear what’s really driving the sudden shift. In response to Nadeau’s post, Coinbase’s Protocol Specialist, Viktor Bunin, suggested that the plunge might be driven by top crypto exchange Binance moving funds out of Layer 2 networks back to the Ethereum mainnet.
Binance’s own data seems to back up this theory. Per the centralized exchange’s website, the total value of staked Ethereum soared by more than 20% over the past 90 days.
At the same time, Ethereum appears to be gaining strength while L2 tokens weaken. Over the past 90 days, Optimism’s native token OP has fallen more than 38%, Arbitrum’s ARB is down 21%, and ZKsync’s ZK lost 44%. ETH, on the other hand, has is up about 25% over the same period, sustaining gains following its successful Pectra upgrade last month.
The amount of staked ETH has continued to break new all-time highs in recent weeks.
As of June 15, the amount of staked ETH hit an all-time high of 34.84 million ETH, up about 1% from last week’s all-time high. On-chain analyst @onchainschool also noted that accumulation addresses — wallets that have never sold — now hold 22.8 million ETH, also an all-time high.
