Solana vs Base vs zkSync: The Ultimate L1 vs L2 Showdown for the 2025 Bull Run

The cryptocurrency market’s cyclical “bull runs” tend to crown new winners – platforms that surge in usage, value, and mindshare. As anticipation builds for the next bull run, a key question looms for crypto enthusiasts and investors alike: which blockchain network will take center stage? In the last cycle, alternative Layer-1 (L1) blockchains like Solana made headlines by challenging Ethereum’s dominance.

Now, with Ethereum’s own ecosystem spawning powerful Layer-2 (L2) networks, the competitive landscape is more complex. Three names often rise to the top of this conversation: Solana, Base, and zkSync. Each represents a distinct approach – a high-throughput standalone L1 in Solana, a Coinbase-incubated Ethereum L2 in Base, and a cutting-edge zero-knowledge rollup in zkSync. All three have strong momentum and unique strengths heading into the next market upswing.

In this article we’ll dive deep into Solana vs. Base vs. zkSync, examining their technical foundations, ecosystems, recent performance, and prospects. We’ll analyze which of these platforms – whether an L1 like Solana or L2 solutions like Base and zkSync – is poised to dominate the next bull run. The goal is a fact-based, unbiased comparison grounded in reliable data and developments. From explosive user growth statistics to developer adoption and real-world use cases, we’ll explore how each network is positioned and provide context for informed, analytical insights. In an industry where hype can cloud judgment, we’ll stick to the numbers and trends to assess who might lead in a future frenzy. Let’s begin by understanding the contenders and why they matter.

Solana: A High-Speed Contender Rebounding Strongly

Solana emerged in 2020 as a high-performance L1 blockchain aiming to solve the scalability trilemma with a unique architecture. It introduced innovations like Proof of History (a cryptographic time-stamping) alongside Proof of Stake, enabling extremely fast block times (around 400 milliseconds) and theoretical throughput in the tens of thousands of transactions per second. During the 2021 bull run, Solana shot into prominence as its native token SOL rocketed in value and the network attracted waves of decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible token (NFT) projects. However, growth pains followed – including network outages and the fallout from FTX’s collapse (FTX was a major Solana backer) – which led some to question its resilience.

Fast forward to 2023-2024, and Solana has engineered a remarkable comeback. By late 2024, Solana’s network activity and ecosystem metrics were surging to all-time highs, signaling that the blockchain had not only stabilized but was thriving. For instance, in one day in late 2024, Solana processed 66.9 million transactions – a record high since its inception – which astonishingly “eclipsed the total of all other major chains combined”. This level of throughput and usage underscores Solana’s capacity to handle massive workloads, a critical advantage in bull market conditions when user activity can skyrocket. Solana’s ability to settle transactions quickly with negligible fees has fueled a resurgence in retail trading activity on-chain. By January 2025, data from DefiLlama showed Solana’s 24-hour decentralized exchange (DEX) trading volume hitting $3.8 billion – exceeding the combined DEX volume on Ethereum and Base for the same period. In other words, Solana was facilitating more DeFi trading in a day than Ethereum’s mainnet and its busiest L2, a remarkable feat that highlights its appeal to high-frequency traders and liquidity providers.

This surge in on-chain trading has been driven partly by “degen” retail trends that Solana has proven adept at hosting. During 2024, Solana became ground zero for a memecoin craze and even a novel category of AI-driven tokens, which together brought hordes of speculators to Solana’s DeFi platforms. Solana’s leading DEX, Raydium, saw daily volumes explode more than 10-fold in 2024, at one point even surpassing Ethereum’s Uniswap in monthly volume. Memecoins traded on Solana’s platforms (like the Pump.fun launchpad and various viral tokens) contributed significantly – Grayscale Research noted that “retail traders increasingly enter the crypto market through Solana as speculation intensifies around Solana-based memecoins and AI agent tokens.” This speculative fervor, while cyclic, demonstrates Solana’s capability to capture retail interest during euphoric market phases. Crucially, the activity translated into tangible growth in Solana’s DeFi ecosystem. Total value locked on Solana jumped from about $1.4 billion at the start of 2024 to roughly $9.5 billion by year’s end. That fivefold increase in TVL within a year signals a robust return of liquidity to Solana’s protocols, solidifying it as a top DeFi chain once again.

Beyond raw numbers, Solana has made technical strides to overcome its past challenges. The network’s stability has improved markedly – by mid-2023, Solana achieved 99.9% or higher uptime, a dramatic improvement after intermittent outages in 2021-2022 (a series of upgrades and better node management helped on this front). Additionally, Solana introduced Firedancer, a second independent validator client developed by Jump Crypto, aimed at enhancing performance and network resilience. In a demonstration at Solana’s Breakpoint conference, Firedancer achieved an eye-popping 1 million transactions per second in a test environment. While this is an off-chain demo figure and not yet attainable on the live network, it showcases the raw throughput potential being unlocked. Due to Solana’s design, the full speed of Firedancer can’t be realized until a greater share of validators run it (currently most still use the original client, code-named Agave). Even so, incremental benefits are arriving. As of mid-2025, about 10% of Solana validators were running the “Frankendancer” hybrid mode blending Firedancer and the legacy client, allowing careful rollout of performance enhancements without risking consensus. This multi-client environment not only boosts throughput but also improves decentralization by removing the single point of failure in software. Solana’s globally distributed validator set (over 2,000 nodes across many countries) adds further resilience, even if it does impose a baseline network latency (global distribution means information propagation can never be instant). The core trade-off is clear: Solana prioritizes speed, even at the cost of higher hardware requirements for validators, whereas Ethereum/L2s prioritize maximum decentralization. Solana’s bet is that by optimizing software and hardware (through efforts like Firedancer), it can deliver web-scale performance on a public blockchain without sacrificing security or liveness.

Another pillar of Solana’s comeback has been developer and institutional interest. Despite the rocky period in 2022, developers did not abandon Solana – in fact, new developers have flocked to it. An industry report by Electric Capital highlighted that in 2024 Solana attracted 7,625 new developers, the most of any blockchain – even surpassing Ethereum in new devs for the first time since 2016. This is a striking indication of Solana’s allure: builders are enticed by the low fees and fast execution for their decentralized apps. Many Solana developers are working on cutting-edge applications in DeFi, gaming, and now even AI-integrated crypto apps, contributing to a vibrant ecosystem. Institutional players have taken note as well. Major financial institutions began experimenting with Solana for tokenized assets – for example, in 2024 Franklin Templeton launched a tokenized money market fund on Solana, and France’s Société Générale issued tokenized bonds on the network. These real-world asset initiatives signaled confidence in Solana’s technical infrastructure. In the U.S. market, Cboe Global Markets filed for Solana-linked investment products (exchange-traded funds), and retail broker Robinhood added support for SOL trading, further validating Solana’s staying power and liquidity.

In summary, Solana enters the next bull run as a battle-tested L1 that has regained momentum. It offers blistering speed and ultra-low costs, which have translated into it handling more on-chain trades and active addresses than virtually any other chain in late 2024. Its ecosystem shows a balance of “degen” retail excitement (memecoins, NFTs, gaming) and growing serious use-cases (institutional assets, payments via Solana Pay integration with Shopify) – a combination that could fuel mass adoption in a market upswing. The key question will be whether Solana can maintain stability under peak loads and continue attracting liquidity if competition from Ethereum’s expanded network heats up. As we’ll see, that competition is fierce, particularly from new layer-2 networks.

Base: Coinbase’s L2 Leveraging Ethereum and Onboarding the Masses

Base is a relatively new player, but it arrived with a bang. Launched in August 2023, Base is an Ethereum Layer-2 network incubated by Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange. Technically, Base is built on the Optimism “OP Stack”, meaning it’s an optimistic rollup that batches transactions off-chain and periodically commits them to Ethereum for security. What Base lacked in novel technology, it made up for in strategic advantages: the credibility, user base, and marketing clout of Coinbase. Indeed, Base’s early success has been cited as evidence that in the race to scale Ethereum, “marketing savvy and an ample war chest” can trump purely having cutting-edge tech. Coinbase essentially leveraged its 100+ million exchange users to bootstrap a network effect for Base, integrating it with the exchange’s products and running high-profile promotions.

From the get-go, Base positioned itself as a mainstream-friendly on-ramp to the on-chain world. It launched without a native token, a deliberate choice to emphasize usage over speculation and to avoid regulatory uncertainty. Instead of token incentives, Coinbase used its platform to drive adoption – for example, during “Onchain Summer” in 2023, Base hosted a series of NFT mints, token giveaways, and app launches that drew massive participation. Over 2 million unique wallets took part in Base’s Onchain Summer, minting NFTs and interacting with dApps, resulting in over $5 million in fees minted to creators. This campaign was a marketing triumph, effectively turning Coinbase’s millions of users into L2 users almost overnight. The ease of onboarding was a big factor: users could seamlessly bridge assets from their Coinbase accounts into Base with a couple of clicks, using Coinbase’s custody as a bridge. Moreover, Coinbase introduced a smart contract wallet for Base users that eliminated the need to manage seed phrases, making the experience closer to a typical fintech app than a fiddling with MetaMask. This streamlined UX helped ordinary users dip their toes into decentralized apps (dApps) on Base, fulfilling one of Coinbase’s goals to “bring the next billion users onchain.”

If those were the initial conditions, Base’s growth metrics over the next year speak volumes about its momentum. By late 2024, Base had rocketed up the L2 charts to become one of the top rollups on Ethereum. In fact, as of Q4 2024, Base had captured roughly an 18% market share of all L2 networks by total value locked, second only to Arbitrum One. This was a stunning rise past established networks like Optimism (which created the OP Stack Base runs on), Polygon’s sidechain, and others. According to L2Beat data, Base’s ascent made it the No. 2 layer-2 by locked value and activity within months of launch. Part of this success can be attributed to timing – Base launched into an environment where Ethereum users were ready for more scalable solutions, and it immediately offered a familiar but faster/cheaper venue. However, Coinbase’s relentless push was the special ingredient. As one analysis put it, “Base appears to [be] out-gunning other secondary Ethereum networks” in user acquisition and activity.

The network data backs that claim robustly. Consider transaction activity: by the end of 2024, Base was handling on the order of 8 million transactions per day, often more transactions than all other major L2s combined. Base reached a peak daily throughput of 8.8 million transactions, far above the next busiest L2s (Arbitrum, Optimism) which together were around 5.5 million at their peak. On average in Q4 2024, Base accounted for nearly 48% of all transactions happening on Ethereum Layer-2s – basically as much as all other L2s put together. To put it in perspective, Ethereum mainnet processes ~1 to 1.5 million transactions a day; Base by itself was doing almost 5× Ethereum’s throughput on an average day in late 2024. This highlights how L2s like Base have truly taken the scalability mantle – something crucial for the next bull run when Ethereum L1 gas fees might spike, pushing even more activity to L2s. Base’s surge in usage was not a short-lived spike either; it “retained its growth momentum for the whole year” in 2024. The initial buzz from Onchain Summer evolved into sustained activity driven by various applications on Base.

What are those applications? Base’s ecosystem, while still maturing, has seen a mix of DeFi, social apps, and novel “Web3” experiments flourish. Decentralized finance on Base got a head start with projects like Aerodrome Finance (an automated market maker) drawing liquidity. Aerodrome became Base’s largest DeFi protocol, focusing on trading pools – notably, many of its top markets were memecoin-related trading pools, suggesting speculative trading found a home on Base too. In terms of total value locked, Base’s TVL grew from about $440 million in January 2024 to $2.5 billion by October 2024, a 470% increase that reflected confidence from liquidity providers. By October, Base had even surpassed Arbitrum in TVL, reaching $2.49B to claim the top spot among optimistic rollups. Another huge driver was the emergence of social applications that went viral on Base. Notably, in mid-2023 a platform called Friend.tech (a social token app) took off on Base, spurring activity as users traded “shares” of social media personalities. That early experiment foreshadowed Base’s later focus on “SocialFi.” In mid-2025, Coinbase doubled down on this concept by rebranding its Coinbase Wallet app into “Base App” with integrated social features, fueling a new boom. A social network protocol called Zora launched “creator coins” on Base – where every user post could be turned into a token – and this innovation sent Base’s usage into overdrive again. By August 2025, Base was reportedly minting more new tokens per day than Solana, as Zora’s creator coins took off and nearly 3 million traders flocked to trade these micro-tokens. Dune Analytics data at that time showed Base overtaking Solana in daily token launches, signaling how quickly Base can capitalize on new trends. In a matter of weeks post-rebrand, over 1.6 million “creator coins” had been minted and $470 million in volume traded on Zora via Base. This “SocialFi” mania demonstrated Base’s adaptability – from DeFi to NFTs to social tokens, it became a versatile platform for whatever concept is buzzing in crypto communities.

Underpinning Base’s growth is also the advantage of Ethereum compatibility and security. As a rollup, Base posts its data to Ethereum, ultimately inheriting Ethereum’s battle-tested security model. Users can trust that even if Base’s validator (sequencer) experiences issues, their funds are secured by Ethereum’s consensus (though optimistic rollups do have a challenge period for fraud proofs). Thus, Base offers a blend of speed and low fees with the reassurance of Ethereum’s security – a key point for risk-aware users and institutions. In fact, Base attracted the attention of traditional finance early on: in 2024 Franklin Templeton chose Base to launch the first tokenized U.S. government money fund by a major asset manager, citing the network’s low costs and integration with Coinbase’s services. This was a milestone showing that even conservative financial firms saw value in operating on Base for efficiency while trusting Ethereum’s security as the backstop. Base’s design (using ETH as the native gas token) also means it plugs into Ethereum’s broader liquidity seamlessly – any asset on Ethereum can be bridged to Base, and conversely, making it easy for users to move capital as opportunities arise.

There are, of course, trade-offs and challenges for Base. One is centralization: currently, Base’s sequencer is operated by Coinbase. This means Coinbase has significant control (they order transactions and could, in theory, censor or prioritize certain ones). While the rollup tech ensures users can withdraw trustlessly, the day-to-day operation is not decentralized. Coinbase has indicated it plans to progressively decentralize Base’s sequencer, possibly aligning with Optimism’s roadmap of a shared “decentralized sequencer” set for the broader OP Stack “Superchain.” Until that happens, Base inherits some degree of trust in Coinbase’s proper functioning. Thus far, that trust has held up – Coinbase, being a regulated and reputed company, has every incentive to keep Base reliable and neutral. But it also means Base may have to navigate regulatory pressures. If authorities in the U.S. ever required measures like blacklisting addresses, Coinbase could be pressured into compliance on its L2. This is a different risk profile compared to Solana or even zkSync, which are more community-run. However, one could argue Coinbase’s involvement has more pros than cons: it brings legal compliance, funding, and a long-term orientation that purely community-driven projects might lack.

Sustainability of activity is another question. Some analysts in late 2024 noted that Base’s explosive growth had a lot to do with promotional events and opportunistic behavior – for example, users chasing NFT drops or potential future airdrops (even though Base has no token, some speculated on ecosystem rewards). A CoinDesk piece bluntly asked: “Are [Base’s users] bona fide users with on-chain needs, or just a flurry of ... traders taking advantage of one-time promotions and quests?”. It’s a fair question whether Base can convert the initial rush into long-term engaged users. The encouraging sign is that even after Onchain Summer and other events, Base’s usage remained high relative to peers, suggesting many users stuck around for the actual utility (be it trading, gaming, or socializing on new dApps). Coinbase’s ongoing integration – such as potentially connecting Base to its main exchange order books, or using Base for internal settlement – could also provide sticky usage not reliant on hype. In July 2025, Coinbase’s rebrand of its wallet into Base App and the associated SocialFi boom indicated the team’s commitment to driving fresh activity and perhaps periodically “reinvigorating” user interest with new features.

In summary, Base enters the next bull run as a highly scalable extension of Ethereum that has already proven it can onboard masses of users quickly and handle immense transaction loads. It benefits from Ethereum’s network effect (for liquidity and security) and Coinbase’s ecosystem (for users and institutional trust), a potent combination. Base has shown leadership in raw activity – outpacing other L2s in transactions and even challenging L1s in areas like NFT and token trading volume. Its challenge will be maintaining decentralization principles and keeping users engaged beyond hype cycles. If the broader crypto market surges, Base is extremely well-positioned to catch the influx of newcomers (who are likely Coinbase customers) and give them a taste of DeFi, NFTs, and on-chain social media without the friction of high fees or complicated setups. That could translate to Base being a dominant hub of activity in a bull run – potentially one of the busiest chains on the planet, if its trajectory holds.

zkSync: ZK-Rollup Tech Pushing the Frontier of Ethereum Scaling

The third contender, zkSync, represents the next generation of Ethereum scaling via zero-knowledge proofs. Developed by Matter Labs, zkSync Era is a Layer-2 network that uses zk-rollup technology to bundle and verify transactions. Unlike optimistic rollups (such as Base) which assume transactions are valid until challenged, zkSync uses cryptographic proofs (validity proofs) to mathematically guarantee every batch of transactions is correct before it’s posted to Ethereum. This yields near-instant finality (no week-long fraud challenge windows) and strong security akin to Ethereum’s L1, all while greatly increasing throughput and reducing fees. For years, zk-rollups were considered bleeding-edge tech – but zkSync was among the first to make them a reality for general smart contracts. zkSync Era launched its mainnet in March 2023, becoming one of the world’s first functional EVM-compatible ZK-rollups (meaning developers could deploy Solidity smart contracts with only minor modifications). This was a significant milestone in blockchain engineering, achieved after Matter Labs raised over $250 million from investors including a16z and others to bring zkSync to life.

The promise of zkSync lies in its ability to inherit Ethereum’s security and decentralization while providing much higher performance and lower cost. zkSync Era can process thousands of transactions per second and settle them efficiently on Ethereum via succinct proofs. It also has advanced features such as account abstraction (making user accounts more flexible, e.g. paying fees in various tokens) and a focus on interoperability through what Matter Labs calls the “hyperchain” or Elastic Chains concept. Essentially, zkSync’s vision extends beyond a single network: they’ve open-sourced the “ZK Stack” so that others can launch their own ZK-rollup instances that interoperate with zkSync Era. This modular, multi-chain approach (similar in spirit to Optimism’s Superchain concept) aims to create a universe of ZK-rollups that share liquidity and messages seamlessly. zkSync Era, as the first mover, serves as the hub or “Layer-2 of Layer-2s” – a base where liquidity concentrates and other chains plug into. It’s a forward-looking strategy anticipating that many app-specific chains might use ZK tech, all anchored to Ethereum for security.

In terms of current adoption and performance, zkSync’s journey has been one of steady growth with bursts of excitement around its token launch. Throughout late 2023 and into 2024, zkSync Era saw a number of projects and users try it out, partly motivated by the expectation of an airdrop (which indeed materialized in Q2 2024 when the ZK token was released). In the immediate aftermath of the token airdrop in mid-2024, usage metrics spiked and then tapered off, highlighting how speculative usage can influence an L2. A Messari report notes that in Q4 2024, after the airdrop, zkSync’s average daily transactions declined 42% quarter-over-quarter to about 142,000, and daily active addresses fell to ~41,000 (a 63% drop). This pullback was “mainly attributed to the lack of incentives to continue using the network post-airdrop”. In other words, once the token was distributed, some farming activity subsided. The silver lining was that new user acquisition held strong – the rate of new addresses being created on zkSync only dipped ~2% QoQ, indicating fresh users were still coming in at a healthy clip. By the end of 2024, zkSync had settled into a baseline of usage and was gearing up for its next growth phase.

The raw numbers at that time had zkSync a bit behind the likes of Base or Arbitrum in activity – for example, where Base was doing millions of transactions daily, zkSync was in the low hundreds of thousands. And where Arbitrum’s TVL was in the multiple billions, zkSync’s TVL hovered around the $900 million mark. But those figures don’t tell the whole story, because zkSync has been carving out its own niches and demonstrating strong growth in critical areas. One such area is real-world assets (RWA) and institutional use cases. By early 2025, zkSync Era had attracted a notable amount of tokenized real-world assets onto its network – roughly $1.9 billion worth, accounting for about 25% of all on-chain RWA by market share. That made zkSync the second-largest blockchain for RWAs after Ethereum mainnet. This stemmed from partnerships and pilots with major institutions: Deutsche Bank, for instance, tapped zkSync for its Project Dama – a platform for digital assets – signalling confidence in zk technology for finance. Other players like Blockchain Capital and fintech firms migrated some of their activities to zkSync as well. The presence of names like Deutsche Bank and even references to UBS and Sygnum Bank having funds on zkSync suggests that zkSync has successfully pitched itself as an enterprise-friendly scaling solution. In an environment where compliance and security are paramount, zkSync’s use of zero-knowledge proofs can be appealing (for example, ZK could enable privacy-preserving transactions or selective disclosure – though zkSync Era itself is currently fully public, the tech opens doors for later privacy layers).

On the DeFi front, zkSync is building steadily. As of early 2025, it reportedly had over 270 dApps deployed and about $430 million in DeFi TVL on Era. While those numbers are modest relative to bigger chains, the growth rate was noteworthy – the DeFi TVL was up 177% month-on-month at one point in January 2025. Protocols on zkSync include decentralized exchanges, lending platforms, and yield optimizers, many of which are ports or clones from Ethereum. For example, Uniswap deployed on zkSync Era, and other known DeFi names have either launched or are eyeing deployment. The user base, though harder to quantify (active addresses is a proxy), certainly runs into the millions cumulatively over time – Matter Labs often highlighted that millions of wallets had interacted with zkSync by 2024, if including those who farmed airdrops. Notably, average transaction fees on zkSync became extremely low after Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade (EIP-4844) which lowered L2 data costs by an order of magnitude. By late 2024, an average transaction on zkSync cost only around $0.03 in fees. That was an 86% drop from earlier in the year, showcasing how protocol improvements on L1 Ethereum directly benefited L2 users with cheaper costs. It means zkSync is not only fast and secure, but also very cheap to use – an attractive combination for both developers and users during high-traffic bull runs when Ethereum L1 fees can soar to prohibitive levels.

The technology edge is where zkSync really differentiates from both Solana and optimistic rollups like Base. In late 2024, zkSync’s team announced a series of upgrades aimed at massively boosting performance further. One key initiative is the development of a new prover known as Boojum and an associated BoojumVM. The goal, as stated, is to reach 10,000+ transactions per second with minuscule fees (~$0.0001 per transfer) using zkSync’s proofs. Achieving this would put zkSync’s raw throughput on par with or beyond Solana’s current levels, effectively nullifying the performance gap between a monolithic chain and a rollup. Boojum’s innovation, combined with a refined architecture (state-diff based), is set to roll out in 2025, according to Matter Labs. If realized on schedule, the next bull run could see zkSync handling an immense volume of transactions without breaking a sweat. This is significant because ZK-rollups historically had heavy computation needs for proofs, but advancements like Boojum aim to dramatically speed up proof generation and reduce costs. In essence, zkSync is preparing to scale vertically (more TPS on one instance) and horizontally (spawning many zkSync-based chains via the ZK Stack). Ethereum’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin and many in the community believe ZK-rollups are the “endgame” for scaling, so zkSync’s trajectory aligns with that vision. Already, we saw reference to ENS (Ethereum Name Service) choosing a ZK-rollup tech (Linea) for its own Layer-2, and projects like Polygon pivoting heavily to ZK solutions. zkSync stands as one of the pioneers that proved the model, and that could attract a bigger flood of developers and users as ZK tech gains reputation.

One cannot discuss zkSync without mentioning competition and hurdles. zkSync isn’t the only ZK-rollup in town; others include StarkNet (with its own language and approach), Polygon’s zkEVM, Linea by ConsenSys, and Scroll, among others. Each of these is vying for a share of the Ethereum scaling pie and has its own ecosystem. In late 2024, for example, Polygon zkEVM and StarkNet had smaller usage than zkSync but were steadily improving. This means zkSync has to not only prove ZK-rollups in general are the future, but that its specific ecosystem wins out. One advantage zkSync had was being early and EVM-compatible, which allowed it to gather a community of devs quickly. It also had the hype of a new token that, for better or worse, brought eyeballs. Going into the bull run, zkSync will have to differentiate on reliability (has the tech been battle-tested enough?), developer friendliness, and perhaps ecosystem incentives (they have a large token treasury allocated to development and adoption). So far, network reliability has been solid – aside from some rate-limiting and full mempools around the token launch, zkSync hasn’t suffered critical outages. The decentralization of zkSync is still a work in progress: currently, Matter Labs and its partners run the sequencers/provers, though in theory anyone could run a full node to verify. Over time, they intend to decentralize these components, but that likely won’t fully happen before the next bull run. Thus, similar to Base, there is some centralization at the infrastructure level (which is common in young L2s). The difference is that zkSync’s validity proofs limit the ways that centralization can be exploited – even a malicious operator couldn’t steal funds or alter transactions without detection because invalid state transitions won’t be accepted by Ethereum. This gives zkSync a very robust security profile by design.

Another important aspect is liquidity and interoperability. zkSync benefits from Ethereum’s liquidity, but there is a catch: moving assets between L2s and L1s incurs friction. However, zkSync has been actively integrating bridges, fiat on-ramps, and working on smooth interoperability. As noted in one analysis, by launching first and integrating many services (bridges like LayerSwap, wallets, onramps), “zkSync Era became the proving ground… every major integration was implemented and stress-tested at scale on Era”, which subsequent ZK Stack chains can reuse. This means zkSync has positioned itself as the liquidity hub – an L2 base layer – so that other chains that spin up won’t fragment the user experience. The idea is that if multiple “Elastic Chains” use zkSync’s stack, a user on one can easily tap into assets on zkSync Era and vice versa via native compatibility. Already, over $795 million has been bridged into zkSync and new chains are launching connected to it. If a bull run triggers a multi-chain frenzy, zkSync’s approach could keep it at the center of a lot of activity, acting as the “Glue” for a ZK-rollup multiverse. There is also potential for unique use-cases on zkSync due to ZK tech – for example, gaming applications that require fast finality or applications requiring privacy could choose zkSync over optimistic rollups or Solana.

Summing up, zkSync enters the bull market horizon as an innovative L2 that might not yet have the sheer user numbers of Solana or Base, but it has very strong fundamentals and forward momentum. It’s arguably the most technologically ambitious of the three – aiming to marry Ethereum’s security with web-scale performance using zero-knowledge proofs. Its recent metrics show a platform maturing: significant capital (nearly $1B TVL) and real usage (hundreds of thousands of trades, growing DeFi and NFT activity) are already there. If the upgrades like Boojum bear fruit, zkSync could see a second wave of growth where it starts rivaling or exceeding the transaction throughput of optimistic rollups. Moreover, the broader narrative in crypto favors ZK solutions for the long term (many in the Ethereum community see ZK-rollups as the ultimate scaling solution). In a bull run scenario, zkSync may attract users who are priced out of Ethereum L1 but want the security and don’t trust alternative L1s, as well as speculative users who see its ecosystem as comparatively young and ripe for opportunities (especially with the ZK token now in play to capture value from activity). It stands as a slightly underdog contender compared to Solana and Base in sheer hype at the moment, but its upside is considerable if it executes well during a market boom.

Comparative Analysis: Performance, Ecosystems, and Dominance Factors

Having profiled each network individually, we can now compare Solana, Base, and zkSync across key dimensions that will determine which (if any) dominates in the next bull run. These dimensions include network performance and scalability, security and decentralization, ecosystem breadth (DeFi, NFTs, etc.), user adoption and growth trends, and the strategic positioning of each project. It’s clear that all three have momentum, but their approaches differ – a direct comparison will highlight strengths and weaknesses side by side.

Throughput and Scalability

In terms of raw performance, Solana currently leads in realized throughput on chain. We’ve seen Solana handle tens of millions of transactions per day, peaking at 66 million in 24 hours. Its high-performance design allows it to routinely process 4,000–5,000 transactions per second (TPS) on average load and up to ~65,000 TPS in theory. Solana’s capacity was on full display when it sustained ~110 billion in DEX trading volume over a month, outpacing Ethereum in late 2024. Notably, Solana’s one-month DEX volume reached $109B vs. Ethereum’s $88B during that period. This underscores that Solana’s throughput isn’t just theoretical – it’s being utilized in practice by traders and applications. Moreover, Solana’s ongoing upgrades (e.g. Firedancer) promise even greater headroom. However, Solana’s effective TPS is partly constrained by decentralization choices (to avoid network halts, it can only move as fast as the slowest validator nodes for now). With block times around 0.4 seconds, it’s incredibly fast but likely near its safe limit unless node performance worldwide improves or network parameters change.

Base, being an L2, leverages Ethereum for security but has its own throughput limits defined by the Optimism rollup architecture and Ethereum’s data capacity. Impressively, Base reached around 7–8 million transactions per day in Q4 2024, roughly translating to 80–90 TPS on average. This is far below Solana’s peaks, yet in the context of Ethereum scaling, Base was handling about 6× the transactions of Ethereum L1 (which does ~15 TPS). Base also hit new records (8.8M daily tx, as noted) by optimizing how it batches transactions. One important point: Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade (proto-danksharding) in late 2024 greatly increased data availability for L2s, meaning Base can post larger bundles of transactions on L1 at lower cost. This helped Base and others boost throughput without sky-high fees. As a result, Base can likely scale further – perhaps into the tens of millions of tx per day – as long as Ethereum’s capacity for rollup data (call data) expands with future upgrades. If Ethereum eventually shards or introduces full danksharding, L2s like Base could see another order-of-magnitude growth in throughput. In a bull run scenario, Base will benefit from any Ethereum improvements plus its own optimizations. It’s also worth noting that Base’s transaction mix includes a lot of simple value transfers and contract interactions that are less computationally heavy (e.g. many were related to transferring Coinbase-wrapped BTC or running trading bots), which means Base can pack many such actions into each block.

zkSync is a bit of a wildcard in performance. Presently, its observed throughput has been lower – a few hundred thousand transactions a day (a few TPS) – because it hasn’t been stress-tested to the same degree and the demand has been moderate post-airdrop. However, the ceiling for zkSync is very high. ZK-rollups can parallelize transactions and use efficient proofs, so the limitation often comes from proof generation speed and Ethereum’s data bandwidth. With Boojum and other upgrades, zkSync’s team is targeting performance on par with or exceeding current L2s. During a bull run, if network usage explodes, zkSync’s ability to quickly finalize blocks (no week-long wait) could provide a smoother user experience under congestion. Another advantage is that adding more proving resources (like GPUs or specialized hardware) can directly increase zkSync’s throughput because proofs can be generated faster. It effectively can throw computational power at scaling, which is a different model from Solana (which must scale by network coordination) or Base (limited by Ethereum data throughput). If needed, zkSync could even spin up additional parallel chains (Elastic Chains) to handle load and settle back to mainnet, keeping each chain unclogged. This modular scaling approach means zkSync’s network of chains could collectively handle enormous throughput – albeit with the complexity of bridging between them, which they are addressing via native interoperability.

In summary, Solana currently demonstrates the highest on-chain throughput of the three, but Base and zkSync both have credible paths to scale into the same ballpark. Solana has proven high capacity right now; Base is already at significant scale relative to Ethereum and will grow with Ethereum’s improvements; zkSync has the tech potential to catch up quickly, especially with ZK hardware acceleration and multiple chain instances. In a bull run, having extra capacity could be the difference between smooth user experiences or painful congestion. From that perspective, all three seem determined to stay ahead of demand – Solana via highly optimized L1 blocks, Base via leveraging Ethereum’s roadmap (like sharding) and offloading to L2, and zkSync via ZK efficiency gains. It may turn out that none of the three will be a bottleneck for users even in peak mania, which is a win for the crypto ecosystem at large.

Security and Decentralization

Security is paramount, especially when new money floods into crypto during bull runs. Here, the approaches diverge significantly:

• Solana secures itself with a standalone Proof-of-Stake network. It currently has around 1,900+ validators globally, with a Nakamoto coefficient (minimum nodes to collude to halt the network) higher than many other L1s, indicating decent decentralization. Solana’s validators, however, require high-performance hardware (lots of CPU cores, memory, and bandwidth) due to the high load. This has led to some centralization concerns – fewer hobbyist validators can participate, so the set might tilt towards well-funded entities. That said, Solana’s recent focus on a second client (Firedancer) and broader geographic distribution has strengthened its decentralization and security. The network has proven resilient to attacks so far; its outages were due to software bugs or overload, not malicious 51% attacks or the like. In late 2022-2023, Solana also significantly hardened its code and processes after those outages, resulting in much improved stability (no major outage in 2023, and only brief slowdowns). One security wildcard is regulatory – Solana was labeled a “security” (in the legal sense) by U.S. regulators in mid-2023, which doesn’t directly impact network security but could influence which actors (exchanges, institutions) feel safe interacting with it. So far, that has not derailed its usage globally; Solana’s user base is truly international and often retail-driven.

• Base inherits security from Ethereum’s L1, which is a huge plus. The optimistic rollup model means that as long as Ethereum’s consensus is secure (with thousands of validators and robust PoS), Base’s transactions are ultimately secure and fraud-proof – provided someone watches for fraud. Typically, the Optimism framework relies on a fraud proof mechanism: if Base (or its sequencer) submitted an invalid state, someone could challenge it within a 7-day window to prove fraud and revert it. In practice today, Base’s fraud proofs and validation are handled by a combination of Coinbase and the Optimism collective; there isn’t yet a large third-party “watcher” ecosystem, but over time that is expected to decentralize. The main trust assumption with Base is the sequencer honesty and uptime: Coinbase runs the sequencer, which if it went offline, users might have to wait (potentially until the challenge period ends) to withdraw funds. If it censored transactions, users could still exit but might need to do so through an on-chain proof mechanism. Coinbase’s brand and legal accountability act as a bulwark against misbehavior. It’s also notable that Base does not publish all transaction data on Ethereum (Optimism chains use calldata compression techniques), but still enough to reconstruct the chain if needed. In terms of decentralization, Base is currently more centralized than Solana or zkSync – one entity controls block production. However, its validity comes from Ethereum’s decentralization, which is rock-solid. One could say Base trades off some decentralization at the execution layer for enhanced security and ease of use via Ethereum. During a frenzy, Base’s reliance on Ethereum could be a double-edged sword: if Ethereum gets extremely congested or has issues, Base could be indirectly affected (e.g. if posting call data becomes very expensive). The likelihood of Ethereum failing is extremely low, though, given its maturity.

• zkSync also leverages Ethereum’s L1 security, but in an even stronger way: every batch of zkSync transactions comes with a validity proof that Ethereum verifies. This means there is no scenario where an invalid state can be finalized on zkSync, as the cryptographic proof simply won’t allow it – a level of security equivalence to Ethereum that optimistic rollups theoretically achieve only if a fraud proof is actually submitted in time. In zkSync’s case, security doesn’t rely on honest watchers (though decentralizing the prover is important for liveness). Right now, Matter Labs and a few others run the proving nodes, which introduces some centralization similar to Base’s sequencer issue. If those provers stopped, the chain could halt (no new state updates) until someone else stepped in with the proving keys to resume. The team likely has measures to decentralize this, possibly allowing community-run provers in the future. As for decentralization, zkSync’s sequencer is also currently centralized (operated by the project team), so in practice it’s not yet permissionless who orders transactions. They have pledged to decentralize this component too, but it might take time. Even so, zkSync inherits Ethereum’s decentralization at the consensus layer – users always have the security of Ethereum validating the state transitions. In a high-traffic scenario, zkSync’s ZK proofs ensure the network doesn’t get bogged down in fraud disputes, which is a peace-of-mind advantage. The flip side is that generating proofs is computationally heavy; if activity skyrockets, the sequencer might have to delay accepting transactions until proofs are ready (this is something upgrades like Boojum aim to mitigate). Summarily, zkSync’s security model is extremely robust; its decentralization of operations is a work in progress but philosophically aligned with Ethereum’s values.

Interoperability and Network Effects are another aspect of “security” in the broader sense of user funds safety. Solana exists in its own ecosystem, so bridging assets to and from other chains (like Ethereum) involves external bridge protocols, which historically have been points of failure (e.g., the Wormhole bridge hack in 2022 was a high-profile $300M exploit on a Solana-Ethereum bridge). In contrast, Base and zkSync, being on Ethereum, allow users to move assets via the Ethereum bridge (smart contracts) which are much more secure by design. There is no need for a third-party custodian; one can withdraw from the L2 to Ethereum L1 trustlessly (only waiting period or proof time). This is a big advantage for Base/zkSync in terms of fund security. If a bull run triggers lots of bridging (people moving assets to chase yields across chains), Ethereum L2s might inspire more confidence than an external bridge to Solana. However, Solana is integrating better bridges and even exploring native solutions for connecting to Ethereum (and other chains like Cosmos). It recently benefited from projects like Wormhole’s new guardians and Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol for USDC that make moving stablecoins across chains safer. Still, the perception remains that Ethereum L2s are an extension of Ethereum and thus “safer” venues for assets, whereas moving to an alt-L1 is a step out of the walled garden.

From a decentralization ethos perspective, Ethereum’s community (which Base and zkSync inherit) is very focused on credible neutrality and censorship-resistance. Coinbase, despite being a centralized exchange, has so far operated Base in line with those values (no known censorship incidents). Matter Labs similarly has an ethos of open-source (eventually; they faced some early criticism for not immediately open-sourcing everything, but have been remedying that). Solana’s community, on the other hand, often emphasizes performance and user experience, occasionally drawing criticism from Ethereum maximalists on decentralization. But it’s noteworthy that Solana’s decentralization has been improving – for instance, its “Nakamoto coefficient” (decentralization metric) reportedly surpassed that of many other chains including some L2 sequencer sets. And by having two independent clients now, it’s eliminated a single point of software failure that even Ethereum hasn’t (Ethereum is still dominated by one client, Geth, albeit others exist).

In summary, all three networks score well on security, but via different means. Solana: secure by its own robust PoS network, though more “self-contained” and historically perceived as less decentralized than Ethereum; Base: secure by Ethereum’s consensus, but with a centralized operator – a model that works as long as Coinbase is cooperative and Ethereum is secure; zkSync: secure by advanced cryptography and Ethereum, with eventual decentralization of operations on the horizon. Users will make choices based on trust models: some will favor Solana’s sovereignty (no dependency on Ethereum) while others will prefer the comfort of Ethereum-backed security in Base/zkSync. If dominance is to be achieved, the winning network must not falter in security when it matters most. A single major exploit or prolonged network outage in a bull run could severely damage confidence. Solana has been battle-testing its fixes after past outages and appears stable; Base and zkSync are relatively newer but backed by time-tested Ethereum security. It’s a close call – none has a glaring weakness here now, though Solana’s past outages and bridges hacks in the ecosystem are cautionary tales that it must continue to prove are things of the past.

Ecosystem Depth: DeFi, NFTs, Social, and Beyond

One way to judge which network might dominate the next bull run is to see where the users, developers, and capital are congregating – in essence, the richness of each ecosystem. All three networks are building broad ecosystems, but with different focal points and successes to date:

• Decentralized Finance (DeFi): Solana’s DeFi ecosystem was hit hard in the 2022 bear market (TVL shrank, some projects collapsed or moved). Yet, as of 2024, it roared back strongly. Solana now boasts highly liquid DEXs (Raydium, Orca, Jupiter aggregator), lending protocols (Solend, Mango), stablecoin markets (including native USDC issuance), derivatives platforms (like Drift) and more. The statistic that Solana handled 81% of all DEX trades in the first half of 2024, clearing nearly $890B in DEX volume by mid-2025, speaks to a DeFi resurgence. Solana’s DeFi appeal is largely rooted in its ability to offer fast, cheap trades, which is catnip for retail traders and arbitrage bots alike. The ecosystem also innovated with things like orderbook-based exchanges (Serum in the past, now Phoenix) that were hard to run on slower chains. By Q4 2024, Solana’s DeFi TVL (~~$9B) actually rivaled some of Ethereum’s L2s plus other L1s combined, re-establishing it as a DeFi hub. Base’s DeFi, in contrast, is newer and smaller in TVL (~~$2–3B by end of 2024), but it has seen significant usage volume. Base’s biggest DeFi apps have been DEXs (like Aerodrome, and Uniswap deployed there too) and some emerging lending protocols. Interestingly, Base’s DeFi profile skews toward “CeFi-adjacent” utility as well – for example, Coinbase created cbETH (a liquid staking token) and cbBTC specifically for Base to facilitate bridging assets. High-liquidity trading of these assets on Base indicates that it functions partly as an extension of centralized exchange liquidity into DeFi. Furthermore, Base became known for hosting novel asset classes like tokenized AI agents. At one point in late 2024, Base captured a large chunk of the trading in the new fad of AI-generated agent tokens – a category in which it “took a large portion of the market share away from Solana’s pioneer [AI token] GOAT”. That shows Base can compete with Solana on new narratives if they emerge. Meanwhile, zkSync’s DeFi is building from a smaller base. It had nearly $0.5B in DeFi value in early 2025, with projects like ZigZag (DEX), Mute (DEX), and various yield farms. More marquee Ethereum protocols are expected to deploy on zkSync as it matures; in fact, MakerDAO, one of the largest DeFi protocols, has discussed deploying on a ZK-rollup, and zkSync could be a candidate in the future. zkSync’s explicit courting of institutions also means we might see real-world asset DeFi (like on-chain funds, bonds, etc.) flourish there, complementing the typical crypto-native DeFi. For instance, if bond markets or forex were to come on-chain in a bigger way during a bull run, zkSync might be a favored network due to its focus on compliance-ready features and partnership with institutions.

• NFTs and Gaming: In the NFT realm, Solana was the second-largest NFT ecosystem after Ethereum during the last bull run, with collections like Degenerate Ape Academy, Solana Monkey Business, and later y00ts and DeGods gaining significant value. Some of Solana’s top NFT projects did migrate to Ethereum or Polygon (e.g., DeGods and y00ts in 2023), which dented Solana’s NFT trading volume. Nonetheless, Solana still has a thriving NFT scene, often with lower-cost collectibles and gaming-related NFTs, and marketplaces like Magic Eden (which started on Solana). Solana’s advantage for NFTs is again low cost and fast settlement – minting and trading NFTs without worrying about high fees attracts a different demographic of creators and collectors. During 2024, we saw NFTs integrated with new concepts (like compressed NFTs for gaming, and NFTs tied to physical events on Solana). If the next bull run brings another wave of NFT mania, Solana is well-placed to capture the more mass-market end of it (cheaper items, gaming assets, music NFTs, etc.). Base’s NFT ecosystem kicked off with the Onchain Summer where people minted millions of NFTs (like Coinbase’s “Base, Introduced” NFT series). Base also became home to Zora’s “Every post is an NFT” concept as discussed, merging social media with NFTs. Additionally, Coinbase’s NFT marketplace could integrate directly with Base, potentially reviving Coinbase’s NFT efforts by leveraging their L2. So Base might see a strong showing in NFTs tailored to a broader audience (perhaps via Instagram-like experiences or influencer tokens). One anecdote: when Base launched, the first big NFT project was “Orb” by friend.tech (representing social accounts) and it spurred notable volume. That kind of social-NFT crossover could define Base’s unique niche. zkSync’s NFT and gaming capabilities are technically excellent (fast finality is great for in-game assets). There have been several NFT mints on zkSync and some gaming projects exploring it. The ecosystem is smaller, but if Ethereum NFTs get too costly, zkSync could be an attractive alternative for high-value NFTs requiring security (people might prefer a ZK-rollup to a sidechain for expensive art pieces, for instance, to ensure permanence on Ethereum). Also, given zkSync’s push into web3 gaming (they mention gaming specifically in their vision), we may see a number of blockchain games launch there. In a bull run, if “play-to-earn” or similar trends re-emerge, zkSync could try to capture that by offering both scale and the credibility of Ethereum (some game devs might trust it more than Solana after seeing, for example, the collapse of Terra which some games were on – although Solana is entirely different, perceptions matter).

• Social and Web3 Applications: Here we see distinct strategies. Solana has made plays in consumer apps beyond trading – notably launching Solana Pay (a payment protocol) which got a boost by integration with Shopify for USDC payments in 2023, enabling merchants to easily accept stablecoins on Solana. This indicates Solana’s aim to be a payments and commerce chain. Solana also introduced the Saga phone, an Android phone with a built-in Solana crypto wallet, showcasing its Web3 mobile ambitions. These efforts might not directly drive bull run speculation, but they seed infrastructure for real-world usage. During a bull market, if crypto payments pick up or mobile app integrations become popular, Solana could benefit from that groundwork. Base has clearly leaned into Web3 social. The transformation of Coinbase Wallet into Base’s “social” app and the explosion of Zora’s creator coins on Base is a prime example. Base might become the chain for crypto social networks, personal tokens, and community rewards because Coinbase is actively fostering that. We might even see Twitter-like or Reddit-like decentralized social platforms find a home on Base, given its low fees and easy onboarding (imagine logging in with a Coinbase account and immediately using a decentralized social app without hurdles). If “SocialFi” becomes a buzzword in the next bull run as some predict, Base is already leading that narrative with millions of micro-transactions tied to social content. zkSync hasn’t made a specific social app splash yet, but the technology could enable interesting things like private social transactions or identity solutions (ZK proofs are great for verifying credentials without doxing). Matter Labs also often mentions identity and privacy as areas of focus. It’s plausible zkSync will partner with projects in decentralized identity or messaging that leverage ZK proofs to ensure security and privacy. In a bull run, privacy might become a theme (especially as people become more conscious of on-chain data being public), and zkSync could tout its ability to integrate ZK-based privacy layers more natively than Solana or Base.

• Developer Adoption: We touched on developer metrics, but to reiterate comparatively: Solana had a surge, being the top magnet for new developers in 2024, doubling its share of interest among crypto founders from 5% to over 11% according to a16z data. Base also saw a big jump in developer interest (to about 10.7% of founders surveyed, nearly tying Solana). That puts both in an elite tier just behind Ethereum (which was ~20%). zkSync did not register as high in those broad surveys, presumably because it’s newer and many developers targeting Ethereum scaling might have gone to more established L2s first (Arbitrum, etc.). However, zkSync did have over 200 projects by early 2025 which is significant. Developer preference often translates to the richness of applications available. At this point, Solana and Base clearly have wider arrays of apps live and in development than zkSync. Solana benefits from being around longer and having had a full bull-bear cycle to shake out weaker projects and attract committed teams. Base benefits from instant EVM compatibility – any Ethereum app can deploy to Base with minimal changes and access Coinbase users. Indeed, Uniswap, Aave, Compound and other Ethereum blue-chips have deployed or plan to deploy on Base, whereas Solana has its own native equivalents (e.g., Orca instead of Uniswap, Solend instead of Compound, etc.). zkSync, being EVM-compatible as well, is in theory just as easy to deploy to as Base; it’s more a matter of focus and incentives that fewer have done so yet. That could change rapidly in a bull market if zkSync shows strong user growth or if they launch incentive programs with their token (e.g., liquidity mining or hackathons funded by the ZK token treasury).

To sum up the ecosystem comparison: Solana currently has the deepest, most self-sufficient ecosystem (covering large DeFi markets, its own NFT culture, even retail payment apps). Base has a quickly growing ecosystem that piggybacks on Ethereum’s – excelling in areas like novel social tokens and acting as a hub for activity that bridges CeFi and DeFi. zkSync’s ecosystem is the youngest but could see explosive expansion, especially if ZK-rollups become the preferred scaling solution for major Ethereum dApps and institutions. Each has a bit of a specialization: Solana for high-frequency DeFi and consumer apps, Base for socially-driven Web3 and easy fiat integration, zkSync for ZK-proven secure DeFi and potentially enterprise use cases. In a bull run, all these segments (DeFi, NFTs, social, gaming) tend to explode simultaneously, so a winner might be the platform that can capture the most across these domains or that becomes the cultural hotspot for the cycle. Last cycle, for instance, Solana was arguably a cultural hotspot for a time (with things like Solana Summer memes). Base and zkSync will attempt to claim that mantle by catering to new users (Base via Coinbase funnel, zkSync via being shiny new tech and possibly big airdrop communities).

Momentum and Market Sentiment

The final comparative factor is more subjective but critical: momentum and sentiment going into the bull run. Crypto bull markets often have narrative tailwinds – a story that investors and users latch onto (e.g., “DeFi Summer”, “Ethereum killers”, “NFT mania”, etc.). Let’s gauge the narratives around our three contenders:

Solana’s narrative has shifted from skepticism back to optimism. After the FTX collapse (where Solana’s price and rep took a hit due to close ties), many had left it for dead. But by late 2023 and into 2024, Solana not only recovered but started thriving independently. Its price performance reflected that: SOL outperformed many top assets, even outpacing Ether by about 8x since 2023 in percentage gains as of early 2025. Solana returning to the top 10 by market cap and crossing the $100 billion valuation mark in late 2024 signaled big money was bullish on its resurgence. There is now a sense of “underdog turned contender” around Solana. Enthusiasts champion its high throughput and growing community, framing it as the foremost non-Ethereum ecosystem – “an Ethereum alternative that’s actually delivering on scaled DeFi”. We see this sentiment in coverage noting how Solana joined the exclusive “$100B club” in market cap and hit multi-year highs, leading market rallies at times. Solana’s advocates also relish its independent developer culture, often more experimentally minded (Rust-based development, different approaches to scaling) than the EVM crowd. If one recalls, in the 2021 bull run Solana had immense hype – that could very well return in the next one, fueled by its actual achievements like dominating DEX volumes. On the flip side, Solana still has some overhangs: for example, the FTX bankruptcy estate holds a large amount of SOL that could be sold (in an orderly manner) over coming years, which some investors see as potential sell pressure. Additionally, the SEC’s stance adds a bit of regulatory discount to Solana in U.S. markets. However, internationally and in the crypto community at large, those concerns may pale in comparison to Solana’s visible growth. If retail users flood back into crypto chasing fast gains and cheap transactions, Solana’s brand as a fast and user-friendly chain could translate to dominance in user numbers and transactions – much as it did in 2024 when it led active address counts by a wide margin (100M+ monthly addresses).

Base’s narrative is entwined with Coinbase’s credibility and the mainstream on-boarding theme. Many see Base as the bridge between Web2 and Web3 – Coinbase can seamlessly funnel normal app users into crypto experiences on Base. The narrative here is “Mass Adoption via the biggest regulated exchange”. That’s a powerful story in a bull run that might attract a lot of newcomers. Instead of grappling with MetaMask and high fees on Ethereum, a new user might unknowingly interact with Base through a Coinbase app feature – for example, imagine Coinbase enabling direct purchases of an NFT or engagement in a game that runs on Base, with all the crypto complexity under the hood. That’s the kind of adoption narrative bulls love. We saw hints of this when Base launched; it was hailed as a validation that even centralized giants want to embrace DeFi and open networks. The fact that Base had no token ironically gives it a different kind of legitimacy – it wasn’t just another speculative launch, but a strategic move by Coinbase to grow the on-chain economy. In a bull run, though Base has no native coin to pump, it will likely drive value to ETH (since ETH is used for gas on Base). So ETH maxis might root for Base’s success as it burns more ETH. Sentiment-wise, Base impressed many by rising to the top of L2s so quickly, but there is also a bit of caution: will activity persist without token incentives? The evidence of sustained growth through end of 2024 and new innovations like the Zora social tokens in 2025 is tilting sentiment positive – Base seems to have avoided being a one-trick pony. Another narrative emerging is the “superchain” narrative: Base teaming up with Optimism and other OP Stack chains to form a network-of-networks where they share technology and potentially liquidity. This collaborative approach (as opposed to purely competitive) could mean Base isn’t trying to kill other L2s, but build a larger pie. That might reassure users and builders that investing effort in Base plugs them into a broad Ethereum scaling strategy, not just one company’s product. All told, if the bull run theme includes onboarding mainstream users, Base will be front and center in that discussion, which bodes well for its dominance prospects in user count and transaction volumes.

zkSync’s narrative is rooted in technology leadership and the future of Ethereum. It appeals to those who are in crypto for the long haul and believe in technical superiority. The narrative can be phrased as “Zero-knowledge rollups are the endgame for scaling – the most elegant and secure solution – and zkSync is at the forefront of that revolution.” In the next bull run, if there’s excitement around ZK-proof breakthroughs (for scaling, privacy, identity), zkSync could become a darling of the space, similar to how Polkadot and Cosmos caught narratives around interoperability in past cycles. With its token now live, ZK could become a hot asset, which in turn would draw attention to zkSync’s network metrics (people often follow the performance of the chain whose token they hold). Some analysts already forecast that by 2025, “zkSync could become one of Ethereum’s most trusted scaling protocols”, especially if Ethereum adoption keeps rising. The cautious view is that zkSync hasn’t yet proven the stickiness of its ecosystem – a lot of early users were there mainly for the airdrop. But bull runs have a way of re-igniting activity; even dormant projects come alive when speculation abounds. If Matter Labs executes some big moves, like attracting a top-tier DeFi protocol with an incentive program or demonstrating a game that runs 100% on zkSync with thousands of players, it could capture imagination. There’s also a community sentiment aspect: Ethereum purists may favor zkSync (and other L2s) over Solana because it aligns with Ethereum’s roadmap. In crypto tribal terms, the Ethereum community is far larger than Solana’s, so if that whole community coalesces around a particular L2 as “the next big thing,” that L2 can dominate. Arbitrum had a bit of that in 2021-22, being the favored rollup. By 2025, the winds might shift to ZK-rollups. The CoinDesk year-end report predicted “ZK-rollups and modular blockchains will drive the next wave of scalability” – an indication that thought leaders are expecting the ZK narrative to shine. Should that materialize, zkSync stands to gain immensely as one of the most prominent ZK-rollups with a live ecosystem and a token for investors to rally around.

Finally, consider market share and dominance metrics: As of early 2025, Solana leads in some metrics like active addresses (around 100M monthly) and daily DEX volume share (30%+ in late 2024). Base leads in Layer-2 transactions (nearly half of all L2 activity) and rapid user growth (unique addresses up 2,100% in 2024). zkSync leads in perhaps innovation count (first zkEVM mainnet) and growing share of certain niches (25% of RWA market on-chain). Each can claim a form of dominance already:

• Solana as a standalone Layer-1 challenger dominating some usage stats.
• Base as a fastest-growing L2 with deep ties to the largest regulated exchange.
• zkSync as the torchbearer for advanced cryptography in scaling.

The question of “Which will dominate the next bull run?” might not yield a single name as an answer. It’s plausible that each will dominate in different arenas: Solana might dominate retail trading volumes and flashy consumer dApp activity, Base might dominate in onboarding new users and overall transaction count, and zkSync might dominate in narrative and perhaps institutional DeFi adoption. If forced to name one “overall” dominator, one must weigh whether an alternative L1 (Solana) can capture more value and activity than Ethereum’s layered approach (where Base and zkSync live) in the fervor of a bull run.

Ethereum itself will certainly remain the single biggest ecosystem by value – but much of that usage could occur on L2s. It’s telling that in late 2024, when combining Ethereum mainnet with its major L2s (Arbitrum, Base, Optimism), the Ethereum extended ecosystem was larger than Solana in DEX volume and other measures. For instance, Ethereum + top L2s had about $150B DEX volume vs Solana’s $109B in the period measured. This suggests that the collective L2s already outdo Solana, but individually Solana was beating any one of them until Base’s recent surge. In Q4 2024, Base carved out a 19% DEX volume share, compared to Solana’s 30% and Arbitrum’s 10%. If Base continues on that trajectory, it could conceivably catch up to Solana’s single-chain volume in a future bull scenario. zkSync’s share was not yet in that league; it has to play catch-up in terms of sheer activity. However, bull markets can reorder rankings quickly – just as Base leapfrogged older L2s in months, zkSync could leap forward with the right catalyst (e.g., a killer app or liquidity mining boom on a ZK platform).

In terms of developer mindshare and long-term viability, a balanced view from an a16z report put it well: Ethereum is still top for developers at ~21% share, but Solana and Base have emerged as the next big destinations, each capturing about 11% of new developer interest. zkSync wasn’t explicitly listed there, possibly lumped under “others” or not as high yet. But if we assume Ethereum’s base layer won’t itself dominate usage due to capacity limits, the fight is essentially between Ethereum’s satellites (like Base, zkSync, and other L2s) collectively and a standalone high-throughput ecosystem (Solana). Both can thrive, but dominance implies one eclipsing others.

Outlook: Who Will Lead in the Next Bull Run?

All analysis considered, Solana, Base, and zkSync each have a credible shot at “dominating,” depending on how one defines it. Dominance could be by user activity, total value locked, market capitalization, or cultural influence. It’s worth concluding with a forward-looking assessment:

• Solana is positioned to dominate in raw high-value activity and retail-driven hype. It has proven it can attract droves of users for trading, memecoins, and NFTs when the market gets exuberant. If the next bull run brings millions of new retail participants seeking fast, cheap chains for trading and gaming, Solana could see an explosion of activity even beyond its 2024 highs. Its improvements in reliability and the positive narrative around its resurgence give it wind in the sails. We might foresee Solana becoming a centerpiece of the bull run akin to how it was in 2021 – possibly reaching new highs in price and usage, and hosting some of the cycle’s viral dApps (maybe the next big game or metaverse could choose Solana for performance reasons). One fact-based forecast from industry insiders even imagines Solana’s ecosystem value growing to challenge Ethereum’s market cap in the coming years. While that is speculative, it shows the renewed confidence some have in Solana’s trajectory.

• Base is set to dominate in user onboarding and breadth of usage. Because it lowers the barrier for normal users to go on-chain, Base could become the busiest network by number of transactions and active addresses during a bull run. We’ve already seen Base leading L2s in daily transactions, and with Coinbase likely to integrate more services (maybe direct retail CBDC or stablecoin payments on Base, or integrating Base with its merchant and institutional services), the growth could be exponential. Base might not have the highest TVL (since it doesn’t incentivize locking funds with a token), but it could have the highest number of users doing something on-chain. If one imagines, say, 50 million Coinbase retail users each trying an NFT or DeFi app on Base because it’s one click away, the network effects are staggering. Base also stands to benefit from macro events – for example, if U.S. regulators/wallets favor a compliant chain, Coinbase’s Base might be seen as the “safe” choice to build on.

• zkSync may dominate in the innovation and DeFi scalability narrative. It could become the go-to network for serious DeFi players once it demonstrates its full capabilities. If by the peak of the bull run zkSync has delivered 10k+ TPS and a rich suite of protocols, it might attract large institutional trading volumes (for instance, imagine high-frequency trading firms using zkSync for its combination of speed and Ethereum-grade security – Solana has attracted HFT firms too, but some TradFi might prefer an Ethereum-aligned solution due to familiarity with Ethereum’s legal and technical stack). Also, zkSync has the chance to dominate any narrative around privacy – if it adds layer-3s for private transactions, it could be the only one of the three offering that out-of-the-box, which could be a huge draw for certain users by then. Its token, ZK, might also show “dominance” in market performance if investors bet on ZK-rollups becoming huge – one can envision ZK’s market cap climbing sharply in a speculative wave, which itself becomes a feedback loop driving more curiosity and development on zkSync.

Ultimately, the next bull run is likely to be multi-chain in reality. No single chain may “kill” the others; instead, each could excel in different sectors. The crypto market is vast enough to accommodate multiple winners. In practical terms, users might be chain-agnostic: a gamer could be on Solana for one game, a DeFi trader on zkSync for an arbitrage, and a content creator on Base for social tokens, all within the same frenzy of a bull market.

An unbiased, fact-grounded outlook would say: Solana, Base, and zkSync are all poised to be top-tier platforms in the coming bull run, but measuring dominance will depend on the metric. Solana has a head start in proven capacity and an avid community, Base has the largest funnel of new users and the backing of a trusted exchange, and zkSync has the most advanced scaling tech aligned with Ethereum’s future. Each carries the momentum of recent successes: Solana’s DeFi and address count hitting all-time highs, Base’s rapid uptake and integration of novel social finance models, and zkSync’s achievement in rolling out zkEVM and capturing significant RWA value.

If one were to hazard a fact-based forecast on which might lead, a reasonable scenario is: Ethereum L2s collectively (with Base and zkSync as key players) will likely outpace any single alt-L1 in combined activity and value, continuing the trend of Ethereum’s ecosystem expansion. However, among individual networks, Solana could very well remain the single busiest L1 outside of Ethereum, and Base could become the single busiest L2, effectively putting those two in a neck-and-neck race for highest transactions and users. zkSync might trail slightly in users vs. Base (due to Coinbase’s huge advantage), but could surpass Base in total value if big DeFi projects and institutions pour liquidity into it, thanks to its strong security assurances.

In conclusion, the next bull run may not crown an absolute, one-chain-to-rule-them-all victor – but rather see Solana, Base, and zkSync each solidify themselves as dominant in their respective domains. Solana will showcase how a high-performance L1 can thrive alongside Ethereum, Base will demonstrate the power of seamless mainstream integration, and zkSync will highlight the arrival of cutting-edge cryptographic scaling in real markets. Crypto enthusiasts should watch all three closely: their competition – and coexistence – is likely to define the multi-chain flavor of the next bull market. Rather than betting on one, the savviest approach may be recognizing the different strengths each brings to a future where multiple networks dominate together in driving crypto’s growth.