This year, the scoreboard shifted.. and @arbitrum quietly held its ground.

$20.9 million in YTD fees, second only to Base’s $66.6 million, with no centralized exchange funnel or retail subsidy driving it.

@base dominates on user flow

@arbitrum earns from financial depth.

Its core engines (@GMX_IO, @OstiumLabs, and others) monetize behavior that persists; trading, hedging, yield compounding, and protocol-to-protocol liquidity.

Every swap, liquidation, and rebalancing cycle reinforces its cashflow base.

That’s the difference between activity and economy.

Arbitrum isn’t just scaling Ethereum anymore. It’s building the revenue spine of on-chain finance; where tokenized assets, derivatives, and stablecoin settlement meet.

The market still calls it a roll-up.

But the data already calls it a business.