Questions About Layer 1’s

Hi everyone! I just got into self custody of my coins and swapping for newer/smaller tokens that aren’t listed on exchanges yet.

This drove me to really want to understand how layer 1’s prices are driven up by the layers 2’s. For example, does Ethereum’s price go up because people are buying the layer 2’s and holding them? Or does it go up because of people holding stack of Ethereum’s to pay for gas fees?

This is also making me wonder for example why Solana’s price has gone up compared to Ethereum (besides Ethereum gas fees), because even though Solana has cheaper gas fees, I don’t see the amount of legitimate projects on it compared to Solana. For example, every time I see a video on an up and coming AI project, gaming or any other hot niche it’s almost always on Ethereum. Is Solana just getting its boost in market cap off meme coins and/or big investors holding SOL just to hold combine with the narrative on better speed and gas fees??

This is NOT me hating on Ethereum. I’m just genuinely curious because Ethereum’s ecosystem is bigger and still continuing to get projects from my understanding.

Thanks everyone!!