Arbitrum absorbed $25.2 billion in net inflows this year, surpassing the combined total of Base, Ethereum, Optimism, and Solana. This looks like a major victory for Layer2 — but the story is far from that simple.

In terms of tokens, ARB has fallen 59%, and active addresses are also shrinking. At the same time, you'll notice an interesting phenomenon: capital is indeed on Arbitrum, just flowing in a different direction. GMX maintains 90% of its TVL on this chain, Pendle has locked in $32.5 million in liquidity, and Aave's market size has surpassed $2 billion.

The key point here — the money remains within the ecosystem, but it flows to protocols rather than the tokens themselves. This reflects a deeper market shift: users value real benefits and use cases at the application layer, rather than simply chasing the native tokens of Layer2. Arbitrum, as infrastructure, has won the traffic battle, but whether this can translate into token value depends on whether the ecosystem applications can continue to create value.