L2 scaling solutions Arbitrum and Optimism have both flipped Solana in TVL. One without even a native token. L2s are here and scaling DeFi

Arbitrum and Optimism have both already flipped Solana in terms of TVL.

TVL of top 10 chains. Source: DefiLlama

As of now, Solana's TVL has dropped below $1bn and has lost 22% of its TVL in the last month, in a major blow to the project.

And Arbitrum doesnt even have a native token (yet!). But it has already leapfrogged Solana both in terms of TVL and also in number of projects deployed on the network. Having a native token means a portion of the token's supply is deployed in various DeFi protocols, thereby increasing the chain's TVL. This is the case with Solana, where Solana's native token SOL is deployed into various Liquid staking protocols, CDPs, DEX LPs and lending pools, thereby increasing the TVL on Solana network. Arbitrum doesn't even have a token, yet has amassed over $1bn in real TVL.

Another interesting fact is that now 9 of the top 10 chains are all EVM compatible chains. Solana is the only one that is a non-EVM chain.

Edit:

Currently Arbitrum is quite centralized. L2s use sequencers and validators to generate fraud proofs, and currently the Arbitrum team operates these and therefore the L2 is quite centralized.

https://l2beat.com/scaling/risk/ - you can click over the yellow box to see the security assumption risks under which L2s are currently operating. Right now, all the L2s are centralized to various degrees.

The technology to decentralize sequencers is still being developed. It is around 12-24 months away. No one really thought that L2s would be big in 2022 itself, and Zk-rollups are also almost nearing mainnet launch. The initial belief was zk-rollups wouldn't be live till 2025. Tech in this space moves very fast

Launching a token helps decentalize the network. The base layer gas token cannot be used to decentralize a L2 rollup that is built on top of the base layer, or govern the L2 network.

ze bellcurve