What Makes People Stay in an L2 Ecosystem?

General
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I’ve been thinking about what actually makes people stay in an L2 ecosystem after trying it for the first time.

Low fees are obviously important, and incentives can bring in new users quickly. But I’m not sure either of those is enough to make people stay.

For most users, the experience is much more practical. They move between wallets, DeFi apps, bridges and trading platforms depending on what they need. I work with BYDFi, so I see this crossover quite often. People usually don’t care much about putting everything into neat categories. They care about whether something is easy to understand, useful, and worth coming back to.

That’s why I think retention is an interesting metric for ecosystems like Arbitrum.

Getting 100,000 people to interact with an ecosystem once is great, but how many of them are still using it a few months later? And what actually makes them return?

It could be lower transaction costs, better applications, liquidity, incentives, or simply a smoother overall user experience.

I’d be interested to hear what people here think, especially those who have been using Arbitrum for a while.

What makes you keep coming back to Arbitrum: the apps, fees, liquidity, UX, community, or something else?

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Nice question. I believe users keep coming back to Arbitrum because it offers long term value, not only short term rewards.

  • Low fees: Affordable transactions make regular DeFi activity easier.
  • Useful applications: Users can trade, lend, bridge, and explore different onchain use cases in one ecosystem.
  • Strong liquidity: Good liquidity makes swaps and DeFi activity more practical for users.
  • Smooth user experience: Better wallets, bridges, and tools reduce friction for both new and experienced users.
  • Security and trust: Users stay when they feel the infrastructure and ecosystem are reliable.
  • Continuous improvement: New apps, upgrades, and ecosystem development show that Arbitrum is not standing still.
  • Rewards with purpose: Incentives can bring users in, but rewards should support real activity and long term participation.
  • Active community and forum: An open forum helps users, builders, and delegates discuss problems, share ideas, and improve the ecosystem together.
  • More than one reason to stay: This is what makes Arbitrum different. It is not dependent on one campaign, one app, or one narrative.

For me, the best part of Arbitrum is this combination of utility, liquidity, improving user experience, and active community participation. Many projects attract users with rewards, but Arbitrum has the potential to retain them by making the ecosystem genuinely useful over time. @banana0923

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I think what happens when something goes wrong matters too. If a transfer is pending or a balance doesn’t appear, can someone understand what happened and find help easily? I work in BD and support at Gem Wallet, and that’s one part of the experience I’d include when discussing why people return.