Arbitrum's ARB, Polygon's MATIC Lead Gains as Ethereum's Dencun Upgrade Goes Live
The Ethereum network's Dencun upgrade went live, enabling cheaper transactions on layer-2 (L2) protocols. Native tokens of Polygon (MATIC), Arbitrum (ARB), and Metis (METIS) increased by 8%-10% before the upgrade, but retraced some of the advance when the upgrade was implemented. They were still up 6%-7% over the past 24 hours, significantly outperforming the CoinDesk 20 Index's 0.7% gain. Optimism (OP) also rallied nearly 10%, but dropped more than its rivals ahead of Dencun and was up less than 2% on the day. Gaming-focused L2 Immutable X (IMX) declined 6%, and Celo (CELO) slid 7%. Ether (ETH), Ethereum's native token, was little changed just below $4,000. The Dencun upgrade, the biggest milestone for the ecosystem in almost a year, introduced a new way of storing data on the congested blockchain, which is expected to cut transaction costs on L2 networks to a few cents and attract more applications. QCP Capital noted that ether could see a correction as anticipation for the upgrade passes and the probability of a spot ether ETF being approved in the U.S. in the near future decreases.
