Ethereum\u2019s restaking sector continues to balloon, with the total value locked in liquid restaking tokens tagging new all-time highs.<\/p>\n
On April 1, the TVL of liquid restaking token (LRT) protocols jumped 4% to a new high of above $8.5 billion, according to DeFi Llama. The milestone follows sustained growth from top LRT projects, with Renzo leading the charge with weekly growth of 51.4% and a monthly gain of 191% to tag $2.2 billion TVL.<\/p>\n
Swell was the second-strongest performing LRT in percentage terms, with 33.5% in seven days and 109% for the month to arrive at $261.1 million. EtherFi, the sector’s largest protocol, also enjoyed 17.5% weekly and 78% monthly growth to post new highs near $3.38 billion.<\/p>\n
With EigenLayer, the pioneering Ethereum restaking protocol, currently boasting a TVL of $12.4 billion and sitting 1% below its all-time high, LRTs are sitting at a record high in terms of their overall restaking dominance.<\/p>\n
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EtherFi\u2019s recently airdropped\u00a0ETHFI token<\/a>\u00a0has also been rallying strong, bucking the down price action typically associated with airdropped tokens.<\/p>\n Currently trading at $6.45, although ETHFI is down 24% from its all-time high three days ago, the token is up 55.5% from its opening price on March 18, according to CoinGecko. ETHFI is also up 123% from its all-time low on March 19.<\/p>\n While liquid restaking continues to drive activity on Ethereum\u2019s base layer, Layer 2 networks are currently hosting surging volume on decentralized exchanges.<\/p>\n Linea, Base, and Arbitrum are all outperforming the Ethereum mainnet by 24-hour throughput, with the networks hosting 30.4 transactions per second (TPS), 25.8 TPS, and 20.4 TPS over the past day compared to 15.1 TPS on Ethereum, according to L2beat.<\/p>\n The activity on Base and Linea comprise new all-time highs for the networks, with TPS jumping 73.5% and 68.4% respectively. Combined L2 throughput is currently sitting at more than 10.5 times that of Ethereum\u2019s Layer 1, based on a seven-day moving average.<\/p>\n Base is enjoying meteoric growth across the board, with network TVL up 62.7% in seven days at $3.2 billion. The TVL of Base-native DeFi protocols is also at a high of $1.2 billion after jumping 150% since the start of March, according to DeFi Llama.<\/p>\n Base\u2019s growth has been propelled by\u00a0memecoin traders<\/a>\u00a0migrating onto the network, with Uniswap\u00a0tweeting<\/a>\u00a0that daily volume for its Base deployment exceeded $1 billion for the first time on March 31.<\/p>\n The network\u2019s top memecoin is DEGEN, which is up more than 1,000% in two weeks.<\/p>\n DEGEN\u2019s eye-watering gains have been propelled by the token finding\u00a0new utility<\/a>\u00a0as a vehicle for grants funding on Base, in addition to becoming the network token for the project\u2019s newly launched Layer 3 network,\u00a0Degen Chain<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"the-defiant\"](\"https:\/\/thedefiant.io\/_next\/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2F6oftkxoa%2Fproduction%2F38db4a7d3c94bab6faa03c0d68495dbd0ff6dd68-1198x339.png&w=828&q=100\")