Base Network Sees Record DEX Volume Amid Broader Market Surge

Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer 2 network, Base, just finished a big week, with decentralized exchange (DEX) trading volume hitting a 9-week high of $7.4 billion. This increase in activity has pushed Base’s weekly revenue to $1.2 million, marking a notable moment in its journey as a major player in the Layer 2 ecosystem, which has become increasingly competitive.Base weekly DEX volume closed at a 9-week high of $7.4b, pushing weekly REV to $1.2m. Volume increases were relatively uniform across trading pairsBase continued its scheduled gas increases by jumping to a 35 mgas per second target, and now sustaining around ~120 TPS pic.twitter.com/cpR4abWdsV— Dan Smith (@smyyguy) May 12, 2025The larger decentralized exchange (DEX) market also saw a sudden and steep rise in activity, with the average spot trading volume over the week reaching $75 billion—up an enormous 50% week over week. And once again, just about half of that volume—around 45%—was processed on Solana. Where Solana is Dominant in Decentralized Trading.Last week, DEX spot volume was $75B, increasing 50% week-over-weekAbout 45% of this volume was on Solana.Memecoin trading was the largest trading pair category at 37%.@PancakeSwap was one of the biggest gainers, jumping from 10% to 15% of total DEX volume. pic.twitter.com/HLtTdUOjUM— Sharples (@0xSharples) May 12, 2025Uniform Growth and Performance Upgrades on BaseIn contrast to a few other networks, where a few dominant pairs drive volume growth, decentralized trading this past week on Base showed relatively uniform activity across all pairs. There wasn’t one or two narratives that traders seemed to be super focused on in order to drive the price of pairs up. Instead, it looked like a lot of different kinds of traders, concentrated in a lot of different kinds of assets, were interacting with and diversifying within the protocol.Simultaneously with the increasing use of Base, the team continued to implement its planned upgrades to the underlying infrastructure. The network moved from an average gas target of 30 million gas per second to 35 million gas per second, and now sustains a throughput of approximately 120 transactions per second (TPS). This upgrade is part of Base’s overarching strategy to improve scalability and network performance.Base is evolving not just in user engagement but also in its technical capacity to meet rising demand—efficiently. This is indicated by two things:1. A combination of increasing transaction volume and better throughput.2. A user base rich in digital wallet engagements.Comparative Performance: Base Lags in Revenue EfficiencyAlthough there is favorable momentum, Base still is behind the other significant networks when measured by total revenue (REV) as a share of DEX volume. A recent comparison of revenue efficiency among Solana, Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Base found that Solana and Ethereum are the clear leaders, while Base trails behind them, with Arbitrum landing at the bottom of the comparison.Here is Total REV as a percentage of DEX volume for Solana, Ethereum, Base, and ArbitrumSolana and Ethereum hover in the same general area, Base falls lower, and Arbitrum the lowestHistorical I have measured this by only using "Ordering fees" (Includes priority fees, auction... pic.twitter.com/9VqiDXZJL6— Dan Smith (@smyyguy) May 12, 2025The revenue gap could indicate structural differences in the way these networks capture value. Although Base displays healthy transaction levels, it has yet to prove it can convert that into protocol-layer revenue. Three possible explanations come to mind for why Base remains in “fire sale” mode, allowing folks to transact on its layers for little or no cost: It’s possible that this is a temporary state of affairs, driven either by lower amounts of “gas” being charged in the Ethereum ecosystem or by the fact that Base just really isn’t trying to juice the kind of “monetization opportunities” (e.g., charging for access to its layers) that other kinds of networks are more aggressive about.Yet, the reduced revenue-to-volume ratio might also be construed as an attractive, user-friendly feature, suggesting that users can transact in large quantities without encountering hefty charges. For a network trying to enlarge its base and keep users around, that’s not a downside.Marketwide Trends: Solana Leads as Memecoins DominateLooking at the overall market, Solana came out far ahead in trading volumes on decentralized exchanges last week, with roughly 45% of the $75 billion total. This shouldn’t be too surprising, considering that Solana is the fastest and cheapest major crypto network to use these days, and that seems to be what’s attracting retail traders. But the actual mechanics of the DEX market are a lot more complicated than that.The recent surge in growth has been mainly because of a shift toward community-driven, speculative assets that crypto users are driving up in the emerging market. Solana and the Layer-2 network Base have benefited from this, as both are able to support the kind of rapid, high-frequency trading that speculators on assets love to do.One standout in the DEX landscape was PancakeSwap, which saw its market share rise from 10% to 15% week over week. The surge positions PancakeSwap as one of the top gainers in the DEX space, suggesting that ecosystems outside of Ethereum and Solana are still competitive and capable of attracting user attention.ConclusionBase’s record-setting week in DEX volume and ongoing technical upgrades show that it is evolving into a serious contender in the Layer 2 landscape. While revenue efficiency still trails behind more mature chains, the network’s scalability improvements and steady trading growth point to a promising trajectory. As overall DEX volume continues to rise and memecoin mania drives user engagement, networks like Base are poised to play an increasingly important role in the decentralized future.Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any services.Follow us on Twitter @nulltxnews to stay updated with the latest Crypto, NFT, AI, Cybersecurity, Distributed Computing, and Metaverse news!